Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 54

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Reference anything?

It was brought to my attention that there were separate guidelines for referencing here, and when I looked at them I was truly shocked to find this:

• Any statement for which a citation has been requested in good faith by another editor

Having this kind of criteria serves no purpose, since it includes just about any reference request, misguided or not. Ignorance and lack of knowledge of a topic is included in the general concept of good faith, but I can't for the life of me see why this would be reason enough to make such a reference request implicitly binding to the author of an article. It's probably the most extreme interpretation of "where appropriate" I've ever seen. Please consider removing it and salting the earth afterwards.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It has, in my understanding, long been the consensus of members of at least this project that a genuine request for a citation of some particular point should never be met with indignant rejection, no matter how misguided another editor may consider it. We don't require citing every statement a priori—although a number of the more recent FAs have done just that—but actually refusing to provide a citation that's been asked for strikes me as generally incompatible with collaborative encyclopedia-writing. Kirill Lokshin 00:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I for one regard factual accuracy as the first major requirement of any article, and thorough citation as the second. In addition, the articles should cover their subject, and should concede the limits of modern knowledge (an important issue in ancient history). I know some other editors resent fact tags. Tough. I resent underreferenced articles. I would rather see fact tags than several paragraphs of fact claims with no sources. (I've also added about as many references, 100 or more in the past few months, as fact tags). Jacob Haller 01:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Haller, facts are facts. They don't magically go from a state of being false to being true just because someone added a footnote to it (or ten of them). Taking the stance that you're a champion of verifiability just because you want an additional note is pretty uncalled for. Footnotes are tedious. They break up text and alienate those who aren't used to them, which is the overwhelming majority of all readers. In most cases, a million notes provides nothing but the illusion of proper referencing, and a lot of the times they're added to facts that are neither controversial nor obscure, which is what they're intended for. And please keep in mind that "underreferenced" is a matter of actually not having references, sources. A footnote is not a source, but a specification of one. The difference is clearly more than just academic.

Kirill, it's very odd that requests for citations appear to be the only type of objection that can't really be discussed without having the person opting for less notes indirectly being accused of sloppy research. It seems to me as if there's a very odd notion floating around that simply saying "yeah, well I didn't know that!" is enough to be placated with a footnote, which is just silly. It's appears to be the only demand related concerning content and layout that requires almost no discussion at all; the person demanding one is always assumed to be enlightened and wise, no matter how much one discusses about it. If you're put off by the idea that a request can be refused (with good arguments), then consensus for this issue has been suspended. We can discuss pretty much any topic except footnotes, where the idea seems generally by "more is always beter". Anyone actually used to working with footnotes will tell inform you that this is not the case.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Quite a few pages contain(ed) spurious stuff (e.g. about Hunnish and/or Gothic stirrup-use; most recent scholarship holds that the Avars brought stirrups to Europe much later) imported from out-of-date encyclopediae and textbooks. Now the citation process weeds out these things. And there's a fix for the spacing issue too. Jacob Haller 07:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The example you just gave doesn't contradict a word of what I said. The mere act of asking for a citation isn't a motivation in of itself, which is pretty much what the guideline says. You don't need to resort to such extreme instruction creep to weed those kind of problems out. You just need to point out that editors should motivate their requests properly. Users who try to use outdated references to support dubious claims aren't going to go away because you include an instruction that amounts to everyone having the right to demand a citation of anything. What will happen, though, is that editors will start thinking that they have the right to be placated with a citation of a fact merely because they've never heard of it before.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. While almost all requests for citations are a well-meaning request for editors to provide support for a statement, some are ridiculous and should simply be removed. For a while the United Kingdom Special Forces entry was had requests for citations to support the existance of well known units such as the Special Air Service Regiment. --Nick Dowling 09:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that these were (a) not WP:POINT (they tend to be, for the most part) and/or (b) requests to cite the existence rather than some subtler point (e.g. being part of the Specil Forces; being formally named the "Special Air Service Regiment"; etc.) that needed to be cited? Kirill Lokshin 10:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

As the originator of most of the requests for evidence in the UKSF related pages I'd say that characterising tham as simplisticly as Nick has is to misrepresent their intention. The UKSF pages, as with SF articles in general, were full of outlandish claims. An example of what I requested would be things like they're the leetest leet unit evah etc.

The problem on some of these article sis that they really are full of cruft derived from fanboy websites.

The big difficulty in this area is finding reliable and citable sources, I was reading some material this morning on training for the UK Royal Artillery deep battlespace surveillance specialisation, there has just been a re-release of the entry requirements and training package, but it's not citable. Similarly the other document I read which was related to selection for Special Forces Support Group.

We do have a big problem with evidence to support many of the articles, and the direction that WP:ATT is taking is a concern for anyone interested in validation and assurance of content.

I have no significant issue with a higher bar in this project, since out of date sources can be disallowed for other reasons anyway.

As with anything else in the project, caveat emptor.

ALR 11:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I think that either I expressed myself poorly or I wasn't refering to your fact requests. I'd fully support most of the requests for citation on British SF entries and I try to do similar police work with the Australian and NZ SAS articles, so I'm familiar with the kind of unsourced rot which gets added to SF articles (I seem to be winning the fight at the moment to keep unsourced claims of the SAS having a 500:1 kill ratio in Vietnam out of the articles). The example I was trying to use is that it's not neccessary to source the existance of military units, except in unusual cases. I'd also add that citations can generally be found for SF articles as these units aren't as secretive as many people assume and anything which can't be cited can generally be proven wrong. --Nick Dowling 23:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

There are, I think, two related points here:

• We are required, by policy, to provide a citation (by which I mean actually revealing the source to the questioner, not necessarily inserting a citation into the article text itself) for any statement for which one has been requested. Does this mean that any request for a citation needs to result in a new footnote? Not necessarily; but it typically seems pointless to avoid adding citations to the text once they've already been located.
• Is the guideline worded too strongly? Perhaps. Keep in mind, though, that all of this project's guidelines explicitly allow for reasonable exceptions ("The guidelines presented in this section are intended to be guidelines only; while they are well-suited for the vast majority of military history articles, there exist a number of peculiar cases where, for lack of a better solution, alternate approaches have been taken."). It seems cleaner, in some sense, to have a setup of "all requests should be met" + "exceptions are possible" than to try and weasel-word the principle somehow to "almost all requests should be met". We are trying to encourage people to cite things, after all.

Kirill Lokshin 10:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Uhm, no... We're not required to do anything other than to specify which sources we've used. That could be a book, a pamphlet, a homepage, an article, a TV-show, etc. Referring to a page is appropriate when talking about really touchy subjects, but not to just fact statements in general. There's no policy dictating that we have to please anyone demanding random citations. We do, however, have a lot of people trying to convince everyone of this type of modus operandi.

And please stop making citations out to be entirely unproblematic. They can annoy the Hell out of most readers, and it doesn't matter if one is used to them or not. Those who are familiar with them get frustrated because they soon notice that they've been used to please the whims of individual editors (quite often without even basic knowledge of the topic) and are then gradually ignored as mere reference padding; those who aren't used to them are put off because the text appears more academic than it is, or indeed should be. This is no different from over-usage of, say, images. An article with 10 or perhaps even 20 images can be considered well-illustrated. Adding an additional 50 to 100 does not make the article better illustrated and the same thing usually applies to footnotes. Everything can be used in excess and footnotes are currently the most over-valued features on Wikipedia.

Please read about instruction creep a bit closer, Kirill. Writing down guidelines will guarantee that they aren't just seen as hard policies by many users, but also that anyone questioning them is simply a haughty, elitist know-it-all who doesn't respect fictitious community consensus. Guidelines also have a tendency to be over-interpreted, and the wording of this one literally excludes any attempt at questioning whether a request for a citation is reasonable or not. Add to this the tendency to misinterpret, and you're bound to cause pointless disputes in the future. Claiming that the disclaimer about it all just being a recommendation is obviously not working, considering that you yourself chose to ignore it.[1]

And frankly, I really don't think it's appropriate that any WikiProject should be making such controversial interpretations of central guidelines. Military history is certainly not unique in being controversial on Wikipedia, just extremely over-represented.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all: no, saying "it's somewhere in this 600-page book" doesn't really meet either the letter or the spirit of our fundamental content policies; and saying "everything in this article is somewhere in one of the dozen listed 600-page books" is worse than useless. The question of page numbers is a red herring; what's required is a source reference that's sufficiently specific that a person might reasonably locate the statement in the cited work. That indicating pages is the commonly accepted way of doing so for large printed works is incidental; there are certainly cases where citations can be done correctly without them.

Beyond that, you're making some very controversial assertions here. Do you have any evidence at all that "most readers" are greatly annoyed by footnotes? Or, for that matter, that we should value incidental annoyance over the obvious benefit of providing a source trail for those readers that do need it? The issue seems more that certain editors find adding citations unpleasant; my experience is that the average reader—or, at least, the reader that cares enough to leave a comment or write an email—is entirely unperturbed by them.

On a more practical level, this project's citation requirements are derived from just four basic principles:

1. Plagiarism is very bad. (1, 2)
2. Misrepresenting opinion as fact is very bad. (3, 4)
3. Historical statistics vary a lot between sources. (5)
4. Cooperate with your fellow editors. (6)

Do you actually disagree with any of these points?

I am not tied to the particular wording of the last clause, incidentally, and would not be entirely averse to changing it to something like "any reasonable request for citation" (leaving "reasonable" to be defined on a case-by-case basis). The intent of it is not to empower people asking for "the sky is blue" to be cited; but rather to underline the requirement that statements in articles need to be properly sourced. Kirill Lokshin 12:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we could both agree that the state of affairs on English Wikipedia right now is that "I didn't know that" (or worse "everyone might not know that") is considered a fairly indisputable argument for demanding the addition of just about any number of footnotes. No thorough explanation is usually needed as to why a certain statement has to be cited, just a specification of what needs to be cited. As for your points, I agree on every one of them, except perhaps 5, because all fact statements are obviously not figures, and statistics isn't the only thing being cluttered with truckloads of footnotes nowadays, and even statistics can often be both uncontroversial and commonly known. As for 6, I have to point out that it could just as well be used as an argument against someone who sprinkles fact-tags just because they simply don't know enough about the topic, no matter how well-intended the attempt is. Cooperation is a two-way street, not a privilege granted only to third party-commentators.

It's interesting that you point out the problem of referring a reader to any of a dozen of dense academic books, because I have actually tried to object to the over-usage of the number of sources in a few FACs but was always studiously ignored or even considered to be a crank for suggesting the outlandish idea that editors should try to use as few sources as possible. What seemed to be especially offensive to many was when I suggested avoiding primary sources, especially in articles about Roman or Greek antiquity, and using books by modern historians instead. This can easily become a very potent source of footnote inflations, because the tendency to pepper an article with footnotes provides no incentive whatsoever to use, for example, general print histories written by established authors rather than online sources from, say, individual organizations or companies.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Kirill, you point out that "Misrepresenting opinion as fact is very bad", and I of course agree. But as you've seen me state before on this type of topic, I do think that it is almost as bad, if not worse, to represent facts as questionable simply because a source isn't listed. We all are, to varying extents, quite well-read within our fields of speciality, and many of us, as students, learn things in lectures which we trust our professor to have represented accurately, but which we do not have citations for. Herein lies the difficulty. I have no problem with people tagging elements of my articles with "cn" and "fact" templates, when I can go find a citation and thus improve the article. But when I cannot, when I simply do not know which book to look in, don't have access to the right resources, or can't find any sources that explicitly support the statement in question, the template just hangs there, implying to readers that these facts are falsehoods. And that's no good, right? LordAmeth 13:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the mind that almost anything the that someone wants to have a citation for should be able to be provided. To me, it's simply a question of "where did you acquire this information?", if that can't be answered, then the information itself is inherently dubious. If the information was so obvious, then likely citation wouldn't have been requested in the first place. Oberiko 13:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

... unless of course, you know the information from personal experience or from a source such as a lecture or informal discussion with an expert. The information could also be from a source which you no longer have access to, or have forgotten the title, author, and/or page number, but still definitively remember the information as coming from a reputable source. LordAmeth 13:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

My problem with that then is verifiability. Who is this speaker who is so prominent an authority that they can make a statement without any published sources (even ones that they wrote themselves)? Where did they get this information? How do we, as readers, know that's what was actually said? For example, I can easily say that my professor stated that the Cromwell Tank was, in fact, named after Richard Cromwell and not Oliver Cromwell. Is this now reliable?

In general, while we like to trust editors as much as possible, we also have to recognize that there are people who will have biases towards or against something and will "dress-up" things to match their perceptions. In any case, this isn't something new or unique to us, we simply adhere to official Wikipedia policies on attribution. Oberiko 13:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep. "I vaguely remember reading it somewhere" isn't really enough, in the long term. It's perfectly possible to remember something incorrectly, for example, or to recall isolated points without the full context; we do (eventually) owe it to the reader to actually check what we put into our articles.

(On a practical level, most editors are not going to sprinkle in {{fact}} tags for no apparent reason; in general, if someone goes through the trouble of adding one, it's because they're actually uncertain about the statement. Given that, I think it's quite legitimate for the tag to remain until the source can actually be found.)

An interesting approach, however, might be to use <ref>{{fact}}</ref> for statements that should be cited but aren't really in significant doubt. This leaves a marker for people who really care, but prevents the text from being overloaded with bulky [citation needed] labels. Kirill Lokshin 13:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I'm basically just playing devil's advocate here. These kinds of templates, along with things like {{unreferenced}}, can be quite useful, but can also be seen as accusatory.LordAmeth 14:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with 99% of what you are saying please take a look at F4U Corsair for a good example of what happens when "cite everything" goes wrong. What you will see is after the fact but someone went through and "fact tagged" every sentence. Not the best solution. Just an example--Looper5920 14:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh. All the guidelines in the world can't correct for someone deciding to choose the most annoying of possible options, I suppose. It may be worthwhile to try and move the remaining tags into the notes section, as above, though. Kirill Lokshin 14:31, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It happened that I went through articles where I could twice tag every sentence because such a bulls*** was written there. Possibly hiding refs might be useful if there is an interest in that, but so far all scientific texts are extensively cited and wikipedia tries no less than emulate that style for increased reliability of information. Citation is especially widespread in the English wikipedia, while in the German, French or Polish (the three other most prominent wikis) it is comparably rare. The problem is that the phenomen of wrong information is not seen as depending on citations than on acceptance by the much smaller number of editors. For understanding this difference of philosophy you have to take a look at the editorial climate here. It is much rougher and there are more fact disputes because different cultures clash here (let alone all the second language speakers, the cultural differences between native English speakers are enorm). As a result, opinions that are univocally accepted in one cultural or language group (and are accepted in small wikis) can be totally rejected by another. The problem is that small cultural groups tend to use a rather limited set of sources for verifying information, but we are by our global influence exposed to all kinds of sources and some statements may be citable from a source that is rare in another culture or may be wrongly attributed to a source that hardly anyone knows in a different environment. To keep all this stuff verifiable on the long run and to be able to better inform about differing opinions, there is no solution possible, but citing as much as possible (it is possible to group footnotes at the end of a chapter for better reaability for example). Some fact requests may look arbitrary to you, but for a hillbilly from Antarctica they may be unknown facts and he would like to have a source. A possible solution in such cases is to link this with footnotes or wikilinks to articles where the information in question is cited. Just remember: "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be attributable to a reliable source. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." Of course, it is a problem if you try to translate good articles from other languages into Enghlish, you lack verification of content, making it problematic here, but not so in any other language wiki. Wandalstouring 14:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

To address LordAmeth's earlier point, adding things that one thinks one remembers from a lecture or from a forgotten book is not serious encyclopedia writing. It's okay to do that in early in the development of an article, just to get the ball rolling, but we can't expect those kinds of factoids to survive as the article matures. If someone has added a "fact" template to statements for which you cannot provide a source, it's a sign that the article has moved beyond your level of knowledge, which means that you should move on to something else, or learn more about the subject matter. I've done both.

That being said, Peter makes a good point about "fact" template abuse. Drive-by "fact" requests are problematic. How do we know if the person adding the "fact" template is actually knowledgable about the subject and therefore is legitimately concerned about the accuracy of a particular statement? What if they're just ignorant about the subject and want you to cite something easily found in any book on the subject? In that case, they're just wasting your time. Personally, I think the "fact" template is overused, and should only be a last resort after discussion on the talk page. Using templates as a replacement for talk page discussion is an unfortunate trend.

I also agree that the general public finds footnotes annoying (histories aimed at the general public tend to omit or limit footnote usage), or, on the other hand, falsely reassuring that something is "scholarly". However, I tend to footnote just about everything, and hope that others do the same. Hopefully, someday the wiki software will hide the footnotes by default and be viewable only to those want them. —Kevin 14:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It's already possible to hide them, I think, by fiddling with one's CSS; it might be possible to convince the developers to add that as a more intuitive setting in user preferences. Kirill Lokshin 14:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Just checked this: adding the following to your CSS gets rid of cite.php footnotes:

.reference { display: none }

.references { display: none }

It's not particularly convenient, I suppose; but it may be useful for people who really dislike them. Kirill Lokshin 15:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

So, getting back to a more practical point:

1. Are people happy with the current wording of point 6 in the requirements ("Any statement for which a citation has been requested in good faith by another editor")?
2. Would a more flexible version (e.g. "Any statement for which a reasonable request for citation has been made") be better?
3. Should we (instead of or in addition to changing the statement) add a recommendation that editors be reasonable in adding {{fact}} tags and consider using alternate methods of requesting citations if a lot of material needs them?

Kirill Lokshin 14:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall that WP:V (or was it WP:CITE?) used to house a Russian proverb that read something like doveryay nu proveryay ("trust but verify"). I really like how it implied a healthy dose of informed criticism. Would it be unreasonable to word a guideline in a way that says something like "please feel free to question facts as you see fit, but try not doing so out of mere ignorance"?

Peter ^Isotalo 15:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That would, I think, be point 3; I have no problems with a guideline that recommends against going overboard fact-tagging and such. I'm not sure what we'd actually want to say here; maybe something like:

Editors examining articles should be reasonable in their approach to requesting citations; adding a {{fact}} tag to every sentence is generally unhelpful. In general, unless you actually doubt the accuracy of a statement, it may be more productive to request a desired citation on the article's talk page.

Aside from that: assuming we add in such a guideline, is there any problem with then having a statement to the effect that, when ("reasonable"?) requests are made, article editors should actually provide the needed citations? Kirill Lokshin 15:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the existing version, but if there's enough support for the more flexible version you propose, it seems like it could be workable. I would also support your third point; something to the effect:

{{fact}} tags should generally be added to the article only as a last resort. It is usually more constructive to request citations for specific facts on the article talk page.

(The wording isn't great, but you get the idea). Carom 15:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we should stick with the current version, but perhaps introduce a less specific citation style for commonly known subjects: Make the reference to chapters of your source and not to single pages, so you can refer to much larger amounts of information with one source and keep it verifiable (you can put these refs at the end of chapter, not disturbing the text-flow). If a fact template is reasonably covered within your ref, you can remove it,if there may be some slight doubt, put a ref with the explicit site in a book. Referencing by chapters has the advantage that you can check the content via a translation of the source (a feature for our international and multilingual readership). Wandalstouring 17:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the current guideline that would prevent such a citation style from being used; it's perfectly legitimate, as far as citations are concerned, to cite chapters of a book, and to have citations covering large chunks of text. The editors using it just need to make sure it's clear what the citation applies to; it may be useful, in complex cases, to indicate this explicitly in the footnote itself (e.g. "For details of the French offensive, see Smith, ch. 17. For the economic impact, see Jones, ch. 3–4, and Thomas, pp. 102–157.").

But, generally, so long as the source of a statement is indicated to a reasonably precise level, the exact method for doing so is pretty flexible. Kirill Lokshin 18:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

A fine suggestion. This is what I've opted for in both Swedish language and my latest major project, medieval cuisine. To be perfectly honest, I still think that there should be allowances for certain sections of certain articles to be left without a citation, but overall I wholeheartedly support this compromise. It's so much better than hacking prose to pieces with multiple citations in almost every sentence.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh. That's just ugly, regardless; I'm probably among the bigger supporters of extensive footnoting, but even I don't see the point in having multiple footnotes per sentence. Kirill Lokshin 19:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That's the trick,a new style to solve the problem without changing or violating any guidelines. Until now this style has not been in use(exceopt in scientific sources to refer to primary sources most often). Wandalstouring 19:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That works for me, Kirill - it's a trick I often use in the real world, and one that would certainly be useful here on wikipedia. Carom 20:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, a common trick in academic history which is also aimed at a popular audience is to use just one footnote per paragraph, always at the end of the paragraph where it is the least distracting. Then, in the footnote, briefly summarize the sources used in the paragraph. It makes for longer, but fewer, footnotes. This is the style I used in the featured article Daniel Boone. —Kevin 04:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

My own practice has been:

(1) fact tags disputing specific claims should mark those claims (by their location, if not also discussion in the talk page). This can create messy sentences like: Fritigern was one of the Germanic warrior-kings ((fact)) of the Visigoths ((fact)) (d. 380) ((fact)) because Fritigern's kingship and Visigothic group-identity are disputed (many recent scholars reserve Visigoths for the later group after 394-95) and because the death-date is an estimate.

(2) fact tags labelling general areas unreferenced should go at the end of the paragraph, where they are less obtrusive.

(3) references should go at the end of the sentence or the paragraph, generally the paragraph. When referencing part but not all of the paragraph, use fact tags and/or reference position to mark the unrefenced parts.

(4) when possible use both primary and secondary sources; when necessary distinguish between claims in the primary sources and claims in the secondary ones.

(5) when primary sources contradict each other, and recent scholarly secondary sources agree on one interpretation, use the recent scholarly secondary sources to sort out the primary sources. when primary sources contradict each other, and recent scholarly sources don't agree on the interpretation, decribe the primary sources and their claims.

(6) arrange multiple sources in rough chronological order (all primary sources should precede any secondary sources).

I'm sure other users have other methods. If my citation practices create any problems, please tell me. Jacob Haller 21:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Moving forward

So, where do we go from here:

• The wording of the last point in the citation requirements seems to be an open question; do people really care one way or the other? Maybe we should just change it to "In general, any statement for which..."?
• We should probably add some guidance about good approaches to requesting source, basically going for the idea that discussion is to be preferred to agressive tagging; suggestions for exact wording are welcome.
• Wandalstouring has suggested that we should add a section detailing the various available citation styles and how they can be used. This seems to be an eminently sensible idea, and would provide a good place to note the end-of-paragraph and similar footnote styles discussed above.

Thoughts? Kirill Lokshin 05:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Some more concrete thoughts:

On requesting citations:

Editors should attempt to take a reasonable approach when requesting citations. Unless the accuracy of a statement is in significant doubt, it is generally better to start with a request for citations on the article's talk page, rather than by inserting {{fact}} tags—particularly large numbers of such tags—into the article. Over-tagging should be avoided; if a large portion of the article is uncited, adding an {{unreferenced}} or {{citation style}} tag to an entire section is usually more helpful than simply placing {{fact}} tags on every sentence.

On citation styles:

In general, articles may use one of two citation styles:

• Footnotes

  Footnotes are generally the more appropriate option when the level of citation is very dense, or where the citations include additional commentary. A number of different formatting styles are available; so long as an article is internally consistent, the choice of which to use is left to the discretion of the major editors. For example, discursive notes may either be combined with citations (as here and here), or separated (as here).

  A single footnote may be used to provide citations for any amount of material; while they typically apply to one or a few sentences, they may also cover entire paragraphs or sections of text. In cases where the connection between the citations and the material cited is not obvious, it is helpful to describe it explicitly (e.g. "For the details of the operation, see Smith, First Book, 143–188, and Jones, Another Book, chapters 2–7; for the international reaction, see Thomas, Yet Another Book, 122–191").

• Harvard-style references

  Harvard-style references are useful where a limited nuber of simple citations is needed; they typically should not be used if the article has a significant number of other items in parentheses, or if citations must be accompanied by commentary.

Comments? Kirill Lokshin 21:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Question: are there any articles in the project "showcase" which use Harvard referencing? —Kevin 06:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

T-34 and Yom Kippur War use them to an extent (they've been bouncing between different citation styles, and seem to use a mixture now); those are the only ones I can think of offhand. (It's not particularly popular among the newer articles, which tend to have a lot denser citation.) Kirill Lokshin 07:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 21:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

What you've put together work for me. Carom 22:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if nobody else has any objections or other suggestions, we can presumably go forward with these proposals? Kirill Lokshin 17:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Given the lack of anyone objecting, I've updated the guidelines using the above text. Further comments are, of course, welcome. Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

To the extent that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a scholarly work, we do need to be careful not to add a requirement for a scholarly level of citation. Accordingly, I don’t believe it is necessary for our articles to be “exhaustively” cited. (“Comprehensively” might be a better word.) If you look at Wikipedia:Citing sources, the reasons it gives for when to cite sources can be principally reduced to verification of “material that is challenged or likely to be challenged” and sourcing of quotations. This sets items 1 & 3 under WP:MILHIST#CITE as the “minimum requirement.”

IMHO, there are two “extra” areas that we need to be careful to cite. The first of these is captured by items 2 & 4, which is capturing the assessments of major sources (whether supportive or critical sources). We ourselves shouldn’t be creating original work, of course, so anything subjective or evaluative should come from identified sources. The second area is that of item 5, numerical quantities and statistics. This is a special problem given that we use infoboxes with fairly extensive amounts of technical data. Citing each data entry would make the infoboxes unwieldy and unattractive; however, we do need, at the very least, to identify the primary source(s) for the data. As it is, there’s frequent reversions of performance factors like ranges because the available sources calculate them independently. There needs to be a way to capture the primary one or two sources for data that vary highly from source to source which are being used for a given article. Maybe a sub-box at the bottom of the infobox that reads “Primary data sources” and then the footnote or reference citations can be given (which would leave only a few reference numbers appearing).

The statement “Beyond this, editors are encouraged to cite any statement that is obscure or difficult to find in the available sources…” should remain – and as an “encouragement” rather than a requirement. It’s not only useful and helpful, but to a degree it also helps address verifiability.
Askari Mark (Talk) 19:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If we are able to cite on a scholarly level, we should do so. However, at the moment we cite better than most scholarly works, so we may rethink the issue a bit. Harvard reference is for example generally used for primary sources, if all scholars only have a limited number of such sources, in scholarly works. Wandalstouring 19:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFC: Republic of China/Kuomintang (ROC/KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Request for Comments. --Petercorless 19:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Page moves

I was going to post at WP:RM, but then wondered if other project contributors were doing the same thing.

I think ScreaminEagle (talk · contribs) has (no doubt with the best of intentions) been moving articles to the "correct" title. Unfortunately, the moves have been done by cutting and pasting the text, separating the text from its edit history. It is possible for an admin to move an article correctly, of course, or for another editor to request assistance at WP:RM. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Any chance of some specific article names here? I glanced at the recent contributions, but I can't seem to find any copy-and-paste moves. Kirill Lokshin 19:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The ones that I noticed were First U.S. Army Group [2] [3] and 3rd United States Infantry Regiment [4] [5]. There may be others. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take care of these. Kirill Lokshin 01:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

These two are done; if anyone finds other ones, please let me know. Kirill Lokshin 02:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There won't be anymore, I used the move button for every other single one, thanks. --ScreaminEagle 22:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sort of confused as to why the article for the 3rd US INF was moved (again!) -- and more specifically, why did the TOG get dropped. That is part of the unit's official name after all. Look at the official website provided by MDW/DoD, it says right there. Or, I could scan some of the old envelopes from letters people mailed to me during my time stationed at Ft. Myer if you anyone is in doubt. Ryecatcher773 23:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. This page seems pretty ambiguous as to whether the name of the unit is "3d United States Infantry Regiment", "3rd United States Infantry Regiment", or "3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)"; I really have no objections to moving it to whichever one people with more in-depth knowledge consider actually correct. I'd be very surprised, however, if the official name was "... (TOG)" rather than "... (The Old Guard)", however; in my (admittedly limited) experience, it's usually the full version rather than the acronym that's considered the formal name. Kirill Lokshin 23:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I realize this is original research and I hope I'm not arrested by the WikiPolice for it, but I did put in a letter to TOG's PA folks to clear this up. Whichever way they indicate, (TOG) was not adequate for the article title. Either leave it off entirely or spell it out as it should have been spelled out as (The Old Guard). If it's part of the official name, then it should be indicated as such, right? If it's just an official nickname and not part of the Army's complete title for the unit, it should be added in the text, not in the article title. --ScreaminEagle 22:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

From the PA office: "The name is correct when (The Old Guard) is left off. However, whenever we at the public affairs office refer to the unit, we call it the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)." I've asked for further clarification since their response could be taken a couple of ways. --ScreaminEagle 17:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

On a similar topic, I am pretty sure that the oddly capitalised and disambiguated Demi-Brigade (Military formation) should be at demi-brigade. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Barrel Roll now open

The A-Class review for Operation Barrel Roll is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

FA-Class and A-Class

I got to thinking about this earlier and couldn't come up with an answer, so I will ask here: If an article was promoted to A-Class, then to FA-Class, then loses its status as an FA-Class does the article revert back to an A-Class or does it get knocked down to B-Class or Start-Class? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that it would usually go down to B-Class, but I don't believe there is an absolute rule, and it would (probably) depend on the article in question. Carom 06:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I think it would really depend on what the circumstances for de-featuring were. Frankly, I think it'll be quite a while before this becomes something we have to think about, though. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 10:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

If the article had an A-class assessment and still fullfils the criteria of this assessment, it is A-class and if not it is B or Start. Wandalstouring 19:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

request tamplet

i dont know where to go guys to request a tamplet that has a map like the one we use on the image for the project. well anyways if that made sence to you (cause it kinda didnt to me) i would like to request a tamplet that says something like (this user plays empire earth and uses the game to recreate historic battles) where can i go and request something like this? Maverick423 15:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Oo nvm i found it guys but thanks anyways =) also what happened to the page it was locked for a whileMaverick423 15:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It's probably the servers locking to sync up; they do that every so often. Kirill Lokshin 17:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Islamic military jurisprudence

Should this and any similar articles about rules of war be covered by this project? I think it should but came to ask first! Hypnosadist 06:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe the answer is yes. Thanks for the note. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 11:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposals for new task forces

• Civil Wars task force
• Rebellions task force
• Military leaders task force

-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 15:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Of those, only the first one really seems like an obvious area. Rebellions might be workable, but are we assuming that they're all military? It may be more sensible to have some sort of combined intra-national warfare task force, then; the distinction between a rebellion and a civil war seems largely one of degree rather than theme.

A "military leaders" task force doesn't seem particularly useful, though; there's no intuitive common theme that connects articles about military leaders versus other military personnel, and it doesn't seem like a natural gathering area for editors, either. Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A few other ideas that have been discussed around but haven't really gathered the needed level of support yet:

• Southeast Asian military history task force
• South American military history task force
• Military law task force

Expressions of interest and willingness to participate are welcome! Kirill Lokshin 16:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Civil wars, insurgencies and rebellions may make a good task force if we set limits on the time periods discussed - the current War in Somalia may bear some similarities to the insurgency in Iraq, due to methods or weapons or ideology, but an editor interested and experienced in this will likely have little knowledge or interest in, say, ancient Japanese succession disputes and noble house rebellions. If a task force were limited, however, to rebellions, uprisings, and civil wars of the post-WWII period, however, I think it could be quite useful in bringing together those who work on conflicts between non-state actors... or however one might choose to phrase it. (Military leaders, on the other hand, is just plain too broad, and I doubt that there's enough connection between Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., Tōgō Heihachirō, and, say, Manuel Blanco Encalada for a task force to be very useful or cohesive.) LordAmeth 16:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Kirill and LordAmeth. I totally agree that the Military law task force is needed. We already have Category:Military law though it still has to be populated. One of the examples is the one brought above by Hypnosadist. I do also support Southeast Asian military history and South American military history task forces for obvious reasons. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 17:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Barrel Roll needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Operation Barrel Roll; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Anthony Eden now open

The A-Class review for Anthony Eden is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

"Surrender" articles

An editor recently suggested that it is appropriate to create articles of the formula "Surrender of Fooville" when a city or position changes hands without being fought for. Is it recommended to do so?

I have sustained the impression, which may be corrected, that it is improper to create articles describing a simple surrender, be they mighty Viennas and Berlins or paltry Villefranche-sur-Mers. Does "Be bold!" warrant the creation of Surrender of Vienna (1805), Surrender of Paris (1815), Surrender of Algiers (1962), Surrender of Berlin (1806), Surrender of Huelva (1936), Surrender of Rocroi (1914), etc? Or should the relevant details be fleshed out in the corresponding war or campaign articles?

Let me have your views. Albrecht 21:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've already commented on the talk page; suffice it to say that I don't see why this particular debate needs to take place here, given the many available alternatives. :-) Kirill Lokshin 21:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Napoleonic battles

Can anyone help identify a possible Napoleonic battle mentioned on a Paris monument? Have a look at Place du Châtelet and in particular at the image there: Image:Place du Chatelet fountain and memorial.JPG - the inscriptions commemorate at least four battles, but the fifth and top one has me stumped. It looks like Lantzick, but that is drawing a blank on my searches. Possibly the top line is not a battle at all, but maybe it is a contemporary spelling. Also, note the chronological order, with the earlier battles at the bottom and later battles at the top. So, any ideas? Carcharoth 03:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this image, it's fairly clear that the top word is actually "Dantzick"; I suspect that it refers to the Siege of Danzig in 1807 (for which we don't seem to have an article, unfortunately), but I'm not entirely sure. Kirill Lokshin 03:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'll put that, and maybe someone will write an article one day... Hey, who said that doing original research with photos wasn't allowed? :-) Apologies to those who are turning in their graves at such slipshod 'sourcing'. BTW, where did you find that picture? Was it in the article history? Carcharoth 03:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

fr:Fontaine du Palmier ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I didn't know it was called that, did I! :-) Carcharoth 03:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Having said that, looking here, I've found a 'Battle of Danzig' on 15 May 1807, following the Siege earlier that year, and it is described as part of the War of the Fourth Coalition - and the campaign box there has a red-link to Battle of Danzig. So I linked to that. Carcharoth 03:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Note, if you look closely at the image on french wikipedia fr:Image:FontaineDuPalmier.jpg (slightly different angle) it's even easier to distinguish the spelling Dantzick. I can't confirm it's supposed to be Danzig, but that would make sense.--Caranorn 22:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This Google search convincd me that Dantzick = Danzig. The precise etymology and history of the spellings woulod be interesting, but that might have to await another day and another article. Maybe it is already in explained in Danzig? In any case, I'm redirecting Dantzick if it is not already a redirect. What is of more concern is that I should really have a source that confirms which specific battles or campaigns are being commemorated here - or find someone who has looked up the original Napoleonic-era designs for the monument and confirmed the reasons for putting those names on the monument. Anyway... Carcharoth 01:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

And from Danzig we have: "Former English versions of its name include Dantzig (borrowed from Dutch), Dantsic, and Dantzic." Other spellings are: Danzc, Danczk, Danczik, Danczig, Dantiscum, Dantzk, Dantzigk. It looks like they've missed out Dantzick, but more likely is that what I thought was a 'C' is in fact a 'G', so it is DANTZIGK on the monument. Interesting. Carcharoth 01:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Correction. 'C' not 'G'. I need to look more carefully next time. Carcharoth 01:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Anthony Eden needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Anthony Eden; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Civil War veteran/cadet question

Weird question. I have an article I'm researching (Benjamin Franklin Tilley) where the officer was a cadet midshipman in the USNA in 1863, during the civil war. (When the academy was moved to Rhode Island.) He didn't graduate until 1866, after the war was over. Knowing that midshipmen sometimes get posted to ships during wartime, though not knowing whether this specific person was, is he a "veteran" of the American Civil War? JRP 15:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I would think so; note, for example, that the various "Surviving veterans of WWI" (and similar) lists include everyone technically in the miitary, regardless of whether they were actually serving in a active unit or only in training. Kirill Lokshin 18:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've used those categories on the article. JRP 02:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Brainstorm

I have been chasing the following information all over the net, but I can not find a source for it:

"A planned installation of RIM-7 Sea Sparrow was scrapped because no shock-absorbing mounting could be designed that would protect the missiles' radar from damage when the guns fired."

Hypothetically, if the Iowa class was going have such s system installed I should find evidence of it somewhere, but so far all I have is a headache from the brick walls I keep running into. I f anyone has any ideas on where I could go and check on this I would be very thankful for the info. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether this response is redundant, but meh. I believe this proposal was discussed in a subcommittee hearing. This is available via Google Books (albeit with limited access); it's entitled Department of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1982. Here's an extract:

At one point the NATO Sea Sparrow was to be placed on board the USS New Jersey. I understand this is no longer the case. Why is this?

Admiral Rowden: An early concept for reactivating the battleships included NATO SEASPARROW. It was determined subsequently that the system could not withstand the over—pressure effects when firing the main battery.

Anyway, I hope this material is sufficiently relevant. SoLando (Talk) 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, that will do nicely. I hate removing info from articles when I know the people who added it are not the type to falsify info, but I could not properly contribute the statement to a reliable source. Thank you for the source and the help. I apreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battleship now open

The A-Class review for Battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Paymasters

Another weird question. If you were a paymaster for the Union Navy during the American Civil War, you served on board ships but were a civilian. (As I understand it.) Would you fall under the scope of this project? Would you be a "civil war veteran"? (I guess the answer is "no" because non-military contractors in Iraq today aren't "veterans", but perhaps the situation was different 150 years ago. And I suspect they *would* fall under the scope of this project as civilian administrators, as Secretary of the Navy does.)JRP 23:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that they would indeed be in scope—as people with significant roles vis-à-vis the military—but would not be classified as military personnel. In categorization terms, for example, they would be under Category:People of the American Civil War rather than Category:Military personnel of the American Civil War. Kirill Lokshin 23:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

More generally, the minister of defence is usually a civilian and part of the project, like any other civilian who happened to have a job in one of the militaries and is notable enough for an article. Wandalstouring 19:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Historically the distinction between Naval Officers (as opposed to Military) and civilians in a position of authority in a ship is a marginally grey area. I would consider them to be in scope, since they would have been part of the ships company and subjected to the same hazards as the ships company.

I would hesitate to use modern private military companies as a comparator in a historical sense.

ALR 19:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)