Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 83

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attention pls.

I don't have the time or specific knowledge to tend to B-52 crash at Thule Air Base and silverplate463 (talk · contribs) right just now. Could somebody look in on it for me plz? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 22:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Copied to the Aviation and United States task force talk pages. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

This article from a reliable German online magazine covers all the facts in the article. Wandalstouring (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Keelung Campaign now open

The peer review for Keelung Campaign is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 10:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Bombing of Dresden in World War II

There is a dispute about the interpretation of WP:NPOV and the structure of the section "Post-war debate". There is an open RFC on the talk page in the section "Far-right in Germany" but few have yet expressed their opinions. It would be really helpful if a few more people would join the debate. --PBS (talk) 17:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Wiredawg article proposed for deletion

If some of you would care to take a look at the Wiredawg article it's currently being discussed as an Article for Deletion. So if you have insights to offer there or fixes for the article, that would be helpful. Thanks ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Are there other articles like these?

I suspect that Australian Army Corps Colloquial Names and Australian Army Slang are a violation of WP:NOTDICDEF, but before I nominate them for deletion I thought that I'd check to see whether there are any precedents for this kind of article. Has anyone seen anything similar? (and, if so, does the article still exist?) Nick-D (talk) 06:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

• List of U.S. Navy acronyms and expressions, List of U.S. Air Force acronyms and expressions, and List of U.S. Marine Corps acronyms and expressions appear similar. The U.S. Army equivalent was deleted back in June, but has been recreated in userspace. Customs and traditions of the Royal Navy has a section about RN slang. I'm not providing these as evidence any of them should be kept... do with them what you will. -- saberwyn 21:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

There was an article along the lines of military slang a while ago, it was ported across to another wiki instance on the basis of being a generic list, minimal sources, maintainability and generally not adding much value.

ALR (talk) 14:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

In general, specialized glossaries are an acceptable and long-standing part of Wikipedia; however, lists of slang terms have usually been deemed more appropriate to Wiktionary. For some recent discussion, see WP:VPP. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

GA review now open Jagdgeschwader 1 (World War II)

I am working on taking this article to A-Class. Currently I have nominated this article for GA class review.

All comments (and help) will be very much appreciated. Perseus71 (talk) 18:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Article alerts

Some of the people here manifested interest in User:ArticleAlertbot a few months ago. The bot is now operational, so however is in charge of the project could take a look at it to see if there is still a need for it (and there probably is considering what the bot does). See User:B. Wolterding/Article alerts for details. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:21, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Cretan War (1645–1669) now open

The peer review for Cretan War (1645–1669) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^(prof) 16:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Categorization of military units

Howdy! Concern has arisen about potential ambiguity in the name Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_November_16#Category:Groups. This appears to be the only WikiProject active throughout military units and formations, so I hope representatives of this project can comment there about this and related topics, such as whether Group (air force) ought to be Group (military aviation) instead, whether Fooish bars or Bars of Fooland is the preferred standard, and how potential ambiguity in similar categories as Category:Divisions or Category:Wings (aviation) might be resolved. Thanks.-choster (talk) 19:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell) now open

The A-Class review for Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Zanzibar Revolution now open

The A-Class review for Zanzibar Revolution is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

.455 Enfield Mk 3?

Doing this, I compromised between the text & the info table in Barnes, relying on the table for the case dims & the article proper for the caliber. I have a sense, tho, there was information dropped out in the writing of Barnes' article explaining the seeming contradiction, so if it needs correction.... Also, given there were Mks 1 & 2, with little info, does it make more sense to start with .476 Enfield & mention the Mks, with new pages as info comes available? If anybody can resolve the issue on cal, feel free to fix & move to mainspace (but will you update my "open vanity" list for it? ;D). Or you can ask me. ;D Thanx. Also, FYI, this is cross-posted here. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 08:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment now open

The A-Class review for Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

A-class reviews for Tanks in the Spanish Army and Rheinmetall 120 mm gun

As I forgot to add a new section on these a-class reviews when they were first opened, I'd like to start one now, as participation seems to be waning. I'd like to invite everyone to take part in the a-class reviews of the articles Tanks in the Spanish Army and Rheinmetall 120 mm gun. Thank you! JonCatalán^(Talk) 00:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Japanese World War II destroyers now open

The peer review for Japanese World War II destroyers is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

RFC on Great Train Raid of 1861

A request for comment has been made in an attempt to resolve a dispute content in the Great Train Raid of 1861 article. The core issue is whether the raid in fact took place and the dispute revolves around how much weight should be given to various sources. Interested editors are invited to comment here. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This article is drifting further and further from the norm. Policy-based input from uninvolved editors is welcomed. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to, honestly, but Grayghost01 is flooding the article with so many sources, and so many of which are hard to access, that I honestly feel overwhelmed. Skinny87 (talk) 20:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Concentrating on core principles will probably help solve this. I'll have a think. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:48, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I looked at it, and I'm with Skinny. Too many sources, too many ways to counter the other's arguments. It's a train wreck, so to speak.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 20:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:48, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Bedford, that pun deserves to be lined up and shot! ;) Cam ^(Chat) 06:29, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Just as long as the discussion doesn't get derailed.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 06:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

*eyeroll* Cam ^(Chat) 22:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

There are moves afoot to get this article back on track. This involves large-scale excision of material. Once again, editors are invited to comment. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

There's been some repeated vandalism here. If somebody with rollback can have & look & fix it? Thanks. It looks like a repeat offender, back after a 12mo block expired. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 02:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It has been restored...⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 02:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It sure has. Thanx. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 05:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

And the school IP has been reblocked. Just can't let these kiddies have editing privileges, can we? Parsecboy (talk) 05:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey, now come on! I'm a high-school student, I'm responsible enough, you people were foolish honourable enough to trust me enough to make me a coordinator. We're not all that bad (just 99.9% of us;) Cam ^(Chat) 07:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You young punks. =] TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 08:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, every day in my programming class I log on to check my watchlist, and end up edit warring with the guy who sits next to me. When I'm not paying attention he'll vandalize something, so I end up having to stalk his contribs to make sure someone caught it all as he's one of the cleverer vandals. Now he's started copy and pasting my userpage into his userpage to try to annoy me. Joe (Talk) 20:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh - look at April of '08 in the history of Shannara. Not clever, but it was the guys who sat next and three seats away from me. :) So I know the feeling! (at least you haven't gotten caught up in 10 1/2 million autoblocks...) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 06:58, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

US Army images/photographs

I'm working on the M22 Locust article, and I need some decent images of the tank during wartime to liven the article up a bit. When I was working on the Tetrarch (tank) article I found images on the Imperial War Museum online database. Does anyone know what the US equivalent is? I've tried the army.mil website but there aren't any of the tank there. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers! Skinny87 (talk) 20:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Post it in the logistics departement. This will take some time and the bot will sooner archieve your message here. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Help needed

So I somehow came across this old thread...and of course Google Books had no preview for the book (Battleship Design and Development 1905-1945 by Norman Friedman) so that I can find the page # for it. Would anyone happen to have it? Maybe? Thanks for any help, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:29, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Post it in the logistics departement. This will take some time and the bot will sooner archieve your message here. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

4704th Air Defense Wing up for deletion

FYI: 4704th Air Defense Wing is up for [[WP:PROD|proposed deletion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that notification. I've just removed the prod template as a unit of this size is fairly likely to be notable. Nick-D (talk) 23:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

War of the Castilian Succession

I have completed the translation from Spanish of the War of the Castilian Succession. When possible, it needs proofreading and possibly a re-assessment. It was expanded five-fold within the last two days, maybe it could be submitted for a "Did you know...?" fact.--CarlosPatiño (talk) 04:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

If it was expanded five-fold, then you can nominate it for DYK. I can take a look and proofread if you'd like. JonCatalán^(Talk) 05:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it's been expanded nearly sevenfold. I submitted a hook for DYK. Thanks for your time on proofreading. ;)--CarlosPatiño (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks good! Incidentally have you thought about joining Milhist and signing up for the Spanish military history task force? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I'll follow your suggestion and join. ;)--CarlosPatiño (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

New tool and suggestion

I found a new tool that helps identify the main authors. I consider it helpful for FAR because these people are usually most familiar with the topic.

While I'm at it, I suggest to set up a departement that collects links to useful tools and sorts them in a meaningful fashion. It can stand on its on or be part of our logistics. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

There's also Contributors on the toolserver, which provides some of the same information (although not as much as the one you found.) Parsecboy (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

There are some good tools at Magnus' toys'n'tools that you may find useful.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 20:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

A Tool shop section at the Logistics dept? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

What is a massacre?

Hi all,

I came across this article Al-Khisas_massacre which is in the scope of this project. I've commented on the talk page Talk:Al-Khisas_massacre#massacre.3F that I don't think 10 fatalities makes a massacre. An attack, yes, an incident, yes, but not a massacre.

What do others think, and is there any policy or concensus on this? Definition simply say a "large number" of deaths.

Oboler (talk) 13:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Massacre is usually avoided on Wikipedia because it's so pregnant with POV. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

10 would be described as mass murder if committed by a single person or a few persons. What do the soures/references call it? GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The use of the word "massacre" in Israeli-Palestinian conflict related article is a sensitive issue. See this discussion, for example. -- Nudve (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

In archaeology, we use massacre for incidents of that scale, for example the "massacre of Thalheim" is famous for the neolithic. However, mass-murder might be the better choice. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:03, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Although on the other hand, there are some incidents where the term "massacre" is appropriate (thinking notably of the Katyn Massacre). The killing of 10 people is probably not one of them. Cam ^(Chat) 23:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

<== I think massacre would be acceptable for 10..it was acceptable for 7 with the Saint Valentine's Day massacre.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

..and there were much less killed in the Alice's Restaurant Massacree! 8^D
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

There are two ways people may call something a massacre. One is if it was a genuine massacre, and the other is if propagandists call it one. The Boston Massacre wasn't really a massacre. That's the name it was given by propagandists and/or yellow journalists at the time, and that's the only reason history books call it that today. Likewise with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

It's one thing to bow to what was once propaganda, and is now commonly understood to be nothing more than a name. It's quite another to call something a massacre when there is still some argument over whether or not it was one.

We've had this discussion in Haditha killings where some people still want to call that a massacre. I've since found that serious news articles call it "killings" and they only use the word "massacre" in quotes.

I don't have access to the NY Times archives for Al-Khisas, but I see that in the NYT's reference the caption only calls it a raid. I wouldn't use that, but I wouldn't use massacre either.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 00:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, thank you all for your thoughts. I think I best leave it to someone else to edit the stub article and perhaps rename it (if one of you would be so kind?) but I did also find a reference which gives a slightly higher fatality count as well as the military and poitical background. It's a google book link, so I hope it works [1]. Specifically the reference "Meron Benvenisti, Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta (2000). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948, pg 103" it says that the attack was a relatiation for a shooting that killed one person as they were travelling in a carriage. It was assumed (incorrectly) that the perpetrator came from Al-Khisas. The term of engagement were toonly attack men and to burn property. In the end however seven men, one woman and 4 children were killed. (It sounds to me, given the erms of engagement and much higher number of men, that the women and children were collatoral damage - but putting an interpretation on it - in either direction - would I think be OR). This section of the book goes on to say that though the ISraelis didn;t realise it, this was part of the start of an all out attack, the start in fact of the 1948 war. Other attacks followed reprisal attacks followed against the Israelis... including the attack on Kibbutz Kfar Szold. I hope someone can check the reference and perhaps improve that page. Oboler (talk) 01:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

See the article List of events called massacres and its talk pages. This was a very big issue a year ago and took months and 2 AfDs to sort out a compromise . The final decision was only to list those massacres that were called massacres in several reliable sources. For an article I would suggest naming it by the name most commonly used in reliable sources. If there is no common name in reliable sources (because two groups use POV names) then see WP:NC#Controversial names. --PBS (talk) 08:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Are documentaries reliable sources?

I'm coming here from Bazooka, which is currently undergoing a GA review, which I am opposing on several grounds, perhaps the most contentious of which is the use of a documentary for multiple references in the article. I think that documentaries are not reliable since they often can't be accessed and we have no scripts of what they've been saying that can be checked for reliability, and they don't usually cite their own sources. I have other problems with the article, including the use of unreliable web sources, but I would please ask for other uninvolved editors to examine the article and its talkpage and weigh in with their thoughts. Skinny87 (talk) 13:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Replied on the talk page. However, reliability of sources isn't a GA criteria. It's totally legit to use anything as a source under the current jurisdication. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I honestly didn't realize that, but thanks. I don't see your comment on the talkpage, Wandal - which section did you write in? Skinny87 (talk) 15:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Read again through the GA review and you'll find it. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Air_Gap_(Battle_of_the_Atlantic)

Hi

This article was stubbed to resolve a redlink, but could be expanded.

I've listed three possible causes, but would appreciate some sourcing, expansion from the knowledgeable people on this Wikiproject.

I would be right in thinking that the Air Gap played an important role in strategic thinking at the time?

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:49, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it definitely did play a major role in strategic thinking, and I think it was a primary cause of the development of the escort carrier, but sadly I have neither the sources, knowledge, or time to expand it as much as it deserves. Joe (Talk) 15:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Taking a quick look, I'd have to say, "No, no, & no," so I corrected them. I'll dig out some sources in the next few days & try to back it up. If anybody's got handy Terraine's book on Bomber Command, Van der Vat's Atlantic Campaign, or Milner's on the Atlantic (North Atlantic Run?), do beat me to it, 'cause that's where I'd go first. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 02:43, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Spoke too soon.... I really do feel like I'm living in a 3d world country, some days. Local library has neither Terraine's Right of the Line nor Van der Vat. *sigh* Anybody near these places? Fortunately, the Murray has Van der Vat (& Wilmott's Barrier, which I also need), so... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 05:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

<--In re merge, please comment here. For what it might look like, have a peek at this, WIP. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 14:21, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Seeing no objection, including the creator of this, & no major criticism that can't (better) be addressed in mainspace, can somebody move or merge this (whichever is appropriate) to this? Thanks. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 18:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Which name of military unit should I use?

Some military units have different names during they history. For example 1st Guards Tank Regiment(Russia) at the WWII days has different name: 1st Guards Tank Brigade. 80% of article is about Brigade, but today it is a Regiment. Which name should I use to name the article?

We have discussion about this topic in Russian Wiki. I didn't find answer in WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME. Sorry for my English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibikoff (talk • contribs) 03:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I suggest to use its current designation (most common name doesn't make sense and searching the most popular historical name neither) and redirect there from its former designations. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:18, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

For Soviet formations, Mrg3105 and I settled on using the World War II name, as this is was usually the most notable period - with most combat etc - and the current name as a subsection. Thus we get the late Cold War 193rd Tank Division at 193rd Rifle Division (Soviet Union). Exceptions exist, such as 90th Guards Tank Division. This is the standard used for most Soviet unit articles currently, but not all. Open to discussion and disagreement on this. What would probably be really good is that all new articles list all the unit's titles in the infobox, as I've been trying to do and as per the 90 GTD example. Buckshot06(prof) 22:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

A-Class reappraisal review for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group now open

The A-Class reappraisal review for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

trebuchets in operation

Here is an article about an "old" method to safe gas. Enjoy. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Does the FAA know about this? Does Clark Kent? Does Erica Jong? ;D Fly the friendly skies... Peter Pan ^{(I'm Peter, fly me)} 16:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

What the heck....that is one odd article. Shouldn't that be in The Onion? :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

HMAS Sydney (1934)

The National Archives of Australia has (in the last few days) declassified and released a large number of documents relating to the sinking of the Sydney (see the talk page). Although already rated GA, this new information should be thoroughly digested and included. We should work towards making this the FA for 22 November 2009, the 75th anniversary of her launch. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 04:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Unreliable web sources

I'd like to open up a conversation on the unreliable web-based sources that are often being used in MILHIST articles (although, of course, elswhere on wiki as well) and how they're managing to get through the net. Whilst reviewing T28 Super Heavy Tank I found almost all the cites were web-based sources, the majority of which are unreliable per WP:RS, such as Achtung Panzer and various other websites on tanks.

However, this isn't just about Achtung Panzer or tank articles, although I would like to know how Heuschrecke_10 became an A-Class article whilst still citing Achtung Panzer as a source - and the rest of those web-based sources it uses. Other sources include HyperWar, which I've seen cited in a number of articles without apparently being reliable as a source. I realize many of these sites are used in lieu of hard-to-get books, but it is starting to worry me, especially if they're getting all the way to A-Class articles. Skinny87 (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

We could create an RS archive to list all unreliable web sources as ruled on by the RS notice board people. If editors see thier sight is red flaged it would discouragethem from using it in the future. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:06, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I like that idea - it would certainly cut down on the number of them used and reduce friction in areas such as FAC. Skinny87 (talk) 14:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, Tom. The unRS archive perhaps? Perhaps initially a section of the logistics dept? If it gets big, it can always be broken out later .... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, it will get big. Real big. And maybe with a little luck it will inspire similar efforts from other projects so we can clamp down on this aspect of citation sourcing which in theory will allow us to improve article quality. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If there's a bit more support, I'll add it to Logistics. However, it won't grow by itself so perhaps people could have a think about what to add. The other thought is that this has huge potential for battles royal over what is and what isn't reliable. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a resp to point one because I can't think clearly (allnighters take a lot out of ya, you known?), but on point 2 we could defer to the relible sources noticeboard. That body is for our purposes neutral, so they should have no qualms about ruling neutrally, and we can simply cite their rational for calling a source unreliable. Thats my thought, anyway. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably better to fight it once, rather than over and over again at reviews. It might also be worth developing a list of some web sources which are reliable, WP:G&S has a nice long essay describing precisely why one particular self-published website is regarde by them as reliable Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan/Marc Shepherd's Gilbert and Sullivan Discography. It would be good to get a bit more of a list including things like http://www.admirals.org.uk which looks pretty good to me where I've been able to comapre it against archival sources and so on. David Underdown (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It's funny you mention admirals.org.uk. Yes it does have some things going for it, but many of the subject's names are misspelt and their final ranks are incorrect. From what I've seen it's especially useful for World War II era naval officers but definitely less so for World War I. If the editos can get round to making it comprehensive (they haven't updated it for months now), then it will be an excellent source - in the mean time I prefer to use my own sources where I can check every date and name myself. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 16:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The one's I've looked at where service records, confidential reports and so on have been fully transcribed seem to be accurate. As Irecall, they themselves acknowledge taht where this hasn't yet been done they may well not be entirely correct. David Underdown (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

A source can be described by a number of objective criteria, to hopefully bypass the debates. It may still remain a judgment call as to whether it passes the threshold of reliability. But of course that also depends on the nature of an individual citation: whether it is supported by complementary sources, whether the statement to be supported sounds dubious, etc.

This could also be useful to help get an article to GA without deleting potentially useful information. Decent website citations could be replaced by better published sources for A or FA assessment.

Positive and negative factors may include:

+ The presence of specific footnotes or citations

+ A bibliography

- No sources

+ Attributed author(s)

- Anonymous author(s)

+ Specific obscure facts supported by reliable sources

- Specific disproven facts

- Specific self-contradictions

- Sloppy editing

- Foreign-language site

What else?

I also have an aversion to the overuse of self-published, unreferenced, anonymous websites to sole-source everything in the world. But not all websites are useless. Having an int summary of both online sources and the published standards on various military topics could save us a lot of work and debate. —Michael Z. 2008-10-21 15:51 z

Well, if a Coordinator were to think this had merit, I'd certainly volunteer to take responsibility for starting the project, helping to keep it going, taking websites to the RS noticeboard and the such (with help, of course!) Skinny87 (talk) 16:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Needless to say most of the above listed negative and positive factors definitely apply to many of the books cited as sources, as well as websites? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 18:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that, but of course that makes sense. A book does inherently have a few points in its favour because a publisher laid down the money for professional editing and physical production. But, especially in military history, or rather “militaria,” there is a huge amount of mixed and mediocre publishing aimed at and produced by hobbyists. In every corner of the field there are also the standards which it would be good to identify. One could do a whole wiki-bibliography project. —Michael Z. 2008-10-21 19:04 z

This is true, such as most books published by Bryan Perrett. :P JonCatalán^(Talk) 19:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Is Perrett unreliable, John? I hope not; I used his books for a university essay! Skinny87 (talk) 19:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

His book on the Panzer I is incredibly inaccurate. I used it, but always compared numbers with other sources. JonCatalán^(Talk) 20:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a health warning on using the RS noticeboard, they don't use a particularly critical method of assessing sources. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, they don't assess sources at all. The criteria for reliability has heavily biased towards humanities in the academic community and they're very uncritical, tending to accept the publisher of a source as a validation of reliability.

I'll acknowledge a vested interest, I proposed a variation on classic intelligence source assessment about 18 months ago, but the majority opinion was that source assessment wasn't a practice that they wanted to encourage.

While it might be fine for tha majority of sources, many of those that are questionable from an informed perspective, would get through the RS filter.

ALR (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) What is the consensus on this? Will an "Unreliable sources" section in the Logistics dept|Logistics dept do it for now? Are we agreed on a simple, reasonably bullet proof, criterion for inclusion? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

If I might comment, again from the perspective of a Project newbie. Some kind of list would be very helpful, as long as it was easy to find - perhaps even have a link on the MILHIST template to a "master list", which had comments on a couple of "general" websites and links to taskforce-specific ones. As to which ones to include - one way might be for someone to just throw a bot at the database, extract all the URLs from MILHIST articles and see what the Top 30 or so are. As for the use of websites in general - the best websites are clearly up their with the worst of books, but I would always prefer books in general for some of the reasons that have already been given. OTOH there may be areas where some of the least bad information available comes from websites - I'm thinking of things like sinodefence.com for contemporary Chinese weapons systems for instance. So I don't think web references should be rejected altogether, I can imagine to deprecate them for GA articles and above, but not to ban them completely. And I'd rank A class articles alongside GA, A is primarily a "quantity" measurement rather than a "quality" measurement so some web references can be tolerated there to my mind. I just get a bit wary when I see all the references in an article coming from somewhere like navweaps.com or somewhere. Which seems to be a relatively reliable reference, but it still makes me uncomfortable to see an article more or less whole-sourced from there. As an aside, is there merit in a dialogue with some of these sites, to encourage them to put up a bibliography page to help build trust? And I'm not sure you can generalise into 100% "bad" and 100% "good" sites - even within a site there can be good bits and bad bits - for instance I'm wary of some of the unsourced specifications on fas.org, but they also have duplicates of a lot of government material. Even then it would be helpful having some notes on how to get the best out of particular sites - for instance, the version on FAS is often the only copy of a document that comes up on a Google search, but with a bit of determination you can usually find the same document on a US government site such as dtic.mil, and I just feel a bit happier using an "official" source for that kind of stuff. Sometimes there can be advantages to using an unofficial website - for instance in SC-21 (United States)#Further reading, I cite an NPS thesis where DTIC only have an un-OCR'd scan, whereas FAS have a searchable HTML version. By giving both, readers enjoy the usability of the HTML version, but can refer to the scan if there's any dispute about accuracy of transcription. 82.3.246.14 (talk) 17:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You suggest that someone should do a massive amount of work. Why don't you do it yourself? Retrieve all the websites used as sources and check which ones are government sites, universities, organisation considered reliable and finally what of the rest is possibly reliable. Afterwards, we sure will establish your work within our organisation if you do the necessary maintenance work every year. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey, no need to WP:BITE, I just came up with an idea - of course you are entitled to an opinion but there's no need to be so aggressive about it. Partly because you're misunderstanding what I'm suggesting, I was only proposing to create a limited subset of a few dozen sites - and since no one person could (or should!) have a valid opinion on the quality of all of them, it would have to be done as a joint effort. As it happens, it wasn't that much work to knock up a simple script to grab all the URLs out of the MILHIST articles that are B or higher, and strip them down to domain names. There's about 12,500 domains in all, ranging from the BBC (1861 mentions) and Google Books (1825 for the .com, plus other country sites) to navy.mil(1240) and nytimes.com (1224). I've posted the numbers for the top 1000 over on Logistics Talk for want of anywhere better - feel free to move it somewhere else if that's more appropriate. It's kinda interesting just looking at the data - and I've used it to do various improvements to articles that eg pointed to dead domains, had sloppy referencing, relied on blog postings and so on. I figured that if I got some rough-and-ready data up, people more clever than me would come up with ideas of what to do with it. 81.107.206.5 (talk) 03:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

New project unit

Does this warrant a task force or department, to get the practical work started? I didn't know about the Sources Section in our Logistics Department, where members have generously offered access to their research materials (and which ruins my suggestion to call this effort the Int Section or the Pam Library).

Also noticed Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange, and its list of Shared Resources. I was just thinking that this would be a good idea the other day, but of course I wouldn't be the first in Wikipedia. —Michael Z. 2008-10-21 20:24 z

We could have an entirely new department, I suppose; but, given the number of sources potentially being listed, it might be more scalable to do this through the task forces somehow. Kirill ^(prof) 00:58, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

This seems to have grown somewhat in concept. Here's my ²/₁₀₀:

Yes, it's probably an excellent idea to have a central list of unRS sources that frequently crop up. The effort of keeping the list up to date and fighting the battle once is probably less than fighting the same battle regularly.

No, it's probably not a good idea to maintain a comprehensive list of unRS that appear infrequently or not at all. The effort of maintaining the list, especially as it would need to be split across numerous TFs, is certainly much more work than challenging the sources when they appear. Also, the larger the list the greater the scope for error.

We already have the option for maintaining source lists at TF level: these don't appear to be much used or maintained.

Overall, this is potentially a huge time sink that will distract editors from other more useful-to-the-project activities.

--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, true. Lists under the individual task forces may be the simplest solution. If they appear, then it would be nice to link to them from a central location, like the existing Sources Section. —Michael Z. 2008-10-22 16:00 z

On this topic, could I have a judgement as to whether Hyperwar is a Reliable Source or not? I've been advised to add it to 11th Airborne Division (United States), but having seen some comments by SandyGeorgia in the USS Nevada FAC, and looking over it myself, I'm not sure it's very reliable. Skinny87 (talk) 16:31, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what for, surely? Hyperwar holds a vast array of stuff, some of which is just simply transcribed official publications... Shimgray | talk | 10:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware; a user has linked several texts from that website to be used to supplement the website but I'm unsure how reliable Hyperwar's transcribing is in these areas. I'm wary against using websites as sources, personally, unless they're official ones. Skinny87 (talk) 10:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The answer is simple; use the books instead. The references I gave you are to the Green Books, not all of which have been digitised yet by the CMH (or Hyperwar for that matter), but a complete set are on my shelf, and they should be used by anyone writing a WWII article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 18:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this meant to be binding? I was once in a situation when I thought that Tamil Net was not reliable, because it is used for press releases by the Tamil Tigers and is described by CNN, BBC as a "Tamil Tiger mouthpiece" etc. However, obviously the Tamil users, including some who are columnists for the Tamil Tiger mouthpiece disagreed and took it no ANI. Anyway, every non-Tamil and non-Sinhalese except for FayssalF thought the website was inappropriate, but the Tamil guys just quoted Fayssal and said that this showed that there was a consensus that it was reliable for 3rd party facts. Then it ended it up at RSN and someone said that "it has to be on a case by case basis" at every talk article, which basically means that unless you are willing to spend all your time battling it out in nonsense arguments with members and contributors of the said mouthpiece, you can't go anywhere. In another instance I privately asked a coord if the coords had any power over enforcing WP:WTA on a swathe of military articles where a group of people from the same ethnic group were insisting on calling their brethren as "freedom fighters" and "martyrs" and invoked WP:BURO and WP:IAR to flout NPOV. The coord felt that the coords couldn't really intervene or make a concerted stance about this. I would wonder whether everything would have to be done on a "case by case" basis with mass arguing over and over. If this is how it is going to work, then some articles, particularly on ethnic wars, have no hope unless there are two armies of nationalist trolls to keep each other in check. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 01:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, then don't ask the coords, but the Singhalese to keep track of the issue. I think Tamil Net can be quoted as such if you make it obvious that the statement is likely partisan. The issue is that partisan sources about a conflict must be designated as such, no matter the nationality. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Personal Libraries

I know that some of us have subpages on our user pages with a bibliographic database of books we own. For example, my own and Cam's (who I copied the idea from). Perhaps we could make a list of different "libraries" on the logistics page, just to give an idea of what information each person can provide... and these certainly provide a good bibliographical resource for people looking for other sources to get. It also suggests that these sources are more or less (more than less, I should say) reliable. JonCatalán^(Talk) 17:24, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me add usefool sources. (More to come.) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 17:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've just set this up here. Perhaps people would like to update the section directly? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)#

Uselessness of Books as references

I'll stick my oar in here to point out that web based references have an obvious benefit completely seperate from any question of reliability, that they are instantly accessible. It is absolutely no benefit to a reader who wants an answer now to be directed to some definitive work on the subject which however is only available by some trips out and negotiations with a library. It just isn't going to happen. It is useless as a source of further information if it is not accessible to readers. It is important that at least some suggested sources of information on every page should be web links. Sandpiper (talk) 23:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

References are required for verifiability. If I cite a 1971 book by Milsom, someone will still be able to go to the library in ten years and confirm or deny my submission—i.e. it's not necessary that everyone be able do this at any time.

References are also capable of directing readers to further reading at the library or on the web, as are external links, which is what you seem to be interested in.

But to think that books are “useless” is dreadfully naïve—believe it or not, civilization did somehow perpetuate itself before Al Gore's famous invention. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a general reference which relied exclusively on web references could turn out pretty useless. —Michael Z. 2008-11-05 00:18 z

The simple fact of the matter is that the bulk of the topics we work with do not have any useful information on the web about them; and, of those that do, most have no better source of information on the web than their Wikipedia article. It may not be the most convenient thing for a reader to be directed to a hard-to-find source; but it's certainly much better than being directed to an outright inadequate one. Kirill ^(prof) 01:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

On top of the point Kirill makes that books are often more useful, generally reliable, and comprehensive as sources, webpages sometimes go dead. In that event, they are no more (in fact probably less) accessible than books. Nev1 (talk) 01:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Why should we direct readers to online pages that are likely to be wrong, and contain less information on the subject than the actual Wikipedia article? If the reader is clicking on links, it's because he or she wants more information. The Wikipedia article is likely to have the most on the topic, available on the net (unless a book is available online); so, obviously he or she will have to search for the book (either buy it, or find it at a local library). JonCatalán^(Talk) 03:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Or Google Books! :D —Ed 17 for President _{Vote for Ed} 04:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem I found with Google books is that the books are normally missing too many pages to be of any value. JonCatalán^(Talk) 04:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Not all though. I almost cried in happiness when I found Final Voyages on there for USS Nevada (BB-36)—it was missing only one page in the entire 7-10 (somewhere around there) page history of the ship. That was a good day.... :) —Ed 17 for President _{Vote for Ed} 05:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. Trying to track down a confirmation on Nautilus getting a shot at Kirishima, Google Books was a big help. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 05:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

(od) By their very nature, web links are intrinsically less reliable than publications which have been professionally published - it's much harder for someone to get an inaccurate or biased book published than it is to develop a website and books are more often reviewed by neutral third parties than websites. Your argument that we shouldn't use good quality references which aren't available to most readers makes no sense at all - the goal is to use the best references possible, and one of Wikipedia's strengths is that it draws on the references available to editors worldwide. Anyway, it's not hard for people to chase down a reference by visiting a university library or getting their local library to transfer it from somewhere else - I've done both. It's odd that you're attacking this project for not using the same B-class assessment criteria as most other projects while at the same time calling for us to ignore WP:RS and WP:V. On the topic of Google books, I agree that it's a great resource, but there is a real danger that people will cherry pick material from the book extracts by Google searching them and miss the book's actual message. I've had some very odd arguments with people where they've tried to tell me what a book says based on Google book extracts when I've borrowed the actual book and saw that they were missing the point. Nick Dowling (talk) 06:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think some people should stop responding to this...YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 06:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

That kind of cherry-picking isn't limited to WP. I've seen published sources by (more/less) reputable historiographers doing it, quoting correctly but completely missing the intent of the passage. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 09:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The whole point of references is to support verifiability of information. It completely undermines the concept of referencing to ignore the issue of reliability.

In considering the reliability of any source a number of criteria should be used and whilst Wikipedia is pretty lax the majority of editors are pretty good about their use of sources, particularly in MilHist. The format that the reference is available in is only one factor in that and isn't an over-riding factor.

Notwithstanding that a web based source raises a number of reliability issues; audit quality, authority, persistence, stability.

Suggesting that hard copy is useless completely misses the point of verifiability and source assessment.

ALR (talk) 09:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I used US government sites to reference blue water navy and end the ongoing edit war. I'm not opposed to web sources and think they're better than no source, but whenever possible a book source is to be prefered. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Mzajac, a reference to a book is as usefull as a water bottle full of diamonds to a thirsty man in the middle of a desert. This is an ONLINE encyclopedia. It is not a book. It is an internet source. It needs to be backed by other internet sources. If people wanted to read paper encyclopedias they could already go out to their local library and get better ones than this. The whole point is that it is available to people who may only look at things which are online. I don't mind including books as refs, indeed I would expect them. But they serve a different purpose. Wiki should specifically refer people to other opinions on a subject which are available online, not restrict readers to our own POV on a topic.

I have always regarded the prime purpose of references in any article is to provide further information for a reader. It is presumed that the author of a work will have dealt with accuracy and verifiability issues. Readers want sources which add to their knowledge, not simply confirm what has already been stated. Sometimes I think this encyclopedia is going backwards compared to the traditional book rather than forwards. The argument about verifiability is primarily a concern for wiki editors, not wiki readers. That's fine, but everyone seems to be forgetting the purpose of the encyclopedia is to help readers, not make editors feel good about their own work and proving how good it was. My own greatest regret about internet sources is the increasing number which are wikipedia mirrors. Obviously, it is is the task of a responsible wiki editor to update weblinks as they change so as to maintain the standard of wikipedia, and to select those which are most informative. I would not be at all surprised to find that a well written wiki page was a better resource than any other internet page, if only because the editors of that page had already mined all those other pages for information when writing their own page. wiki collects information: that does not absolve it from a proper responsibility to direct readers towards available sources which shed light on some aspect of a topic and which are available to them. It is the height of non-verifiability to only provide proof that wiki pages are accurate through references which can not readily be checked. Sandpiper (talk) 00:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with use of reliable online sources (which leaves aside how that's established...), & I broadly agree with Sandpiper. I've found some of the XT links very interesting. What troubles me is the frequency with which links die or get changed, which makes them less useful as sources (as distinct from "readings"). Hard copies are, by definition, stable, & they're liable to be more available than online paysites (try getting back articles from NYT online free). I should also acknowledge a bias, I suppose; I'm so old, I still look to libraries & books first, rather than Google (tho coming here as a 1st search is getting more common...). TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 01:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Whither reliable sources?

As someone who professionally performs a lot of open-source intelligence (OSI) analysis in the realm of defense in general and military aviation in particular, I thought I’d share a few observations relevant to the preceding conversations.

Regarding online sources, I’ve noticed over the last few years that a lot of independent resources for specialized areas have been disappearing. I don’t know whether our work here on Wikipedia’s MILHIST is driving out the good, or if it’s a matter of individual webmasters losing interest, succumbing to other real-life demands, or in some cases passing on. In any case, when I go looking for online sources, I find it increasingly difficult to find useful sites that aren’t mirrors (or unattributed rip-offs) of Wikipedia. When you include sources based on or heavily reliant upon WP articles, the risks of “incestuous sourcing” is becoming increasingly problematical.

Although there certainly are a few sites with dedicated editors (e.g., Greg Goebel and his Air Vectors site) who make a serious and creditable attempt to maintain and add reliable work – mostly on their own individual effort – these are most notable for their being the all too rare an exception. What we tend to be left with are online media reports, forums, blogs, amateur fansites, and remembrance-swapping sites by and for veterans of particular units. All of these can vary tremendously in quality and reliability, report by report, entry by entry, but only the first-listed is usable as a (potentially) reliable source, per WP standards.

The long and short of it is, to my eye, that however much more accessible (i.e., easy to find and scan quickly), the utility of freely available online sources is diminishing. The implication of this trend is that printed sources and subscription-based (i.e., non-free) online sources (like Jane’s) are increasingly becoming the main venue for reliable sourcing (aside from online editions of professional-grade media). Askari Mark (Talk) 04:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree wiki mirrors are a problem, but I would suspect that in reality the problem is the increasing quantity of wiki imagos compared to the same quantity of independent sources. This means wiki editors need to work harder to find the good ones. It would be much to be regretted if wikipedia makes matters worse by refusing to mention web sources where they do exist. Sandpiper (talk) 00:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• What are people's opinions on The long, long trail? David Underdown (talk) 16:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

To create the foremost reliable and accurate free-content encyclopedia of military history in the English language.

I just noticed your tag line at the top of the project page. The sentence appears with 'reliable and accurate' highlighted, and thus stressed even more than the plain text implies. I find it regrettable that you do not strive for an encyclopedia which is useful and informative, but merely accurate. I fear that one thing you absolutely cannot say about wikipedia is that it is reliable. This is mainly due to the vast majority of the articles being very poorly developed, yet all the emphasis here seems to be on developing those articles which are already the best? Sandpiper (talk) 23:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaking the emphasis of individual editors with the goal of the WikiProject. In any case, I don't really see a priority on developing articles which are already well written. I see new articles being brought to featured article status (articles which were not well written before hand). Although I agree with you that we should also be striving for an encyclopedia which is informative and useful, I think you are splitting hairs and over analyzing the introduction to the WikiProject. I bet Wikipedia would be far better if you spent more time developing articles, than complaining about a WikiProject's tag line. No offense, but these arguments just seem really silly to me. JonCatalán^(Talk) 00:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks good to me - there's not much point writing unreliable articles. Moreover, that's only one of the project's three goals (which are not ranked in any order of importance), with the second goal being "To improve coverage of military history by creating, expanding, and maintaining articles that describe all of its aspects" so improving article quality is by no means "all the emphasis". Nick Dowling (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

People normally place what they consider most important first, and even if they dont, a reader is likely to assume it. Do I take it no one would object if I placed the currently second objective first? But I still don't see mention of 'useful and informative'.

As to the emphasis of the project, I would suggest looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest where the project gives 1 point for creating a start article, 5 for bumoping up an article from start to B and 10 for bumping up from b to A. Why is it not 10 for creating a good start article (probably the most widely read and informative on wiki?) and just 1 point for fussing with an article which is already pretty good and just needs a lot of technical tweaks? Where here do people post about articles they are working on which they want to bring up to 'good start' level? I see you have an automated list of stub/start articles needing attention at 'Category:Military history articles needing attention to coverage and accuracy' but since it doesn't even have an index, all it is is a vast list of articles starting in 1. Apart from that 'WPMILHIST Announcements' edits are all about work on articles which are already B or above. Where is the list of 'good start' articles on th mil hist page to go with the big list of FA articles? The articles I most often look at for information are usually 'good start'. Doesnt this big list of FA's rather imply those are the ones you are proud of and interested in, not the vast bulk of mil hist article, which is what makes the collection a useful resource as an encycloipedia? How much talk on this page is about improving article to start grade? Do I need to go on? Sandpiper (talk) 08:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

A lot of start class articles are nonsensical. Most are 1 paragraph. A-class articles are not. Ok I should stop replying. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 23:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sandpiper, you seem to have a very large chip on your shoulder, and quite frankly I can't see what you're trying to aim at. I fail to see the problem with the MILHIST Contest, and even if we were to introduce C-Class ratings, I fail to see how that would improve the project, even on the long run. This Project churns out some damn good content, and if we can't fix every single problem and fix up every single start-class article, then that's less a problem with the Project and more with every single editor here, most of whom look to improve a small number of articles to their very best possible level. That is how we maintain a reliable, accurate and informative Military History Project. Hell, this is only a website and there are only so many editors who have time to devote to improving MILHIST articles. I must also question your accusation that start-class articles are often the most informative; they aren't. Hell, every single article I've expanded, from Operation Varsity to Operation Tonga was in a dreadful state as a start-class - riddled with errors and mistakes and covering barely anything to do with the subject. So, I improved them, and I improve article from start-class all the time (eight and counting, with a ninth and tenth in the works), and all of them are in a better condition now then they were when I started, and they are all more informative and reliable than they were. Skinny87 (talk) 09:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

On the topic of the writing contest, I think you completely missed the point Sandpiper. We're not putting priority on the maintenance of A-class or FA-class articles, we're putting priority on the development of the article to A-class. We are improving the quality of the material. In regards to your question, "do I need to go on?", I'd say no... because your argument is nonsensical. The problem with "good articles" is that the quality of their graders is oftentimes extremely low. There are very poor Good Articles, and these shouldn't be displayed with the better quality FA and A-class articles. JonCatalán^(Talk) 16:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Reliable and accurate is only highlighted inasmuch as it's linked to a project page on the topic of Wikipedia reliability. Personally speaking I would suggest that reliable and accurate are somewhat more significant than anything else, since both useful and informative are predicated on reliability and accuracy.

Anyway, people contribute to both Wikipedia and Milhist on a discretionary basis, so they are largely free to contribute what they want in the way they want to, subject to the content guidance available, although it should be recognised that the content guidance is pretty arbitrary and controlled by a small, self selecting cabal and it doesn't bear much resemblance to proper knowledge management. If people want to titivate already credible articles in the top end, then that's up to them. Personally I find more interest in keeping the tin-foil headgear out of intelligence related articles which by the very nature of the open source material available are unlikely to get beyond B-class. With that in mind I don't bother too much about the grading scheme. People respond to the system in different ways and some will want to pursue FA. Getting an article to FA generates quite a lot of praise for the individual who led the effort to achieve it, although it does tend to encourage ownership which is reasonably contrary to the open-editing criteria.

If you want to address the Wikipedia fetishism over FA then one project, even a large one, isn't the place to start. The reward mechanisms in wikipedia as a whole don't tend to encourage generating articles or getting low quality articles to an acceptable or credible standard.

ALR (talk) 09:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

ALR, I think you make my response to Catalan and Skinny87. The contest here and the wording of the aims of the project are skewed towards encouraging making good articles better, not poor articles good. If editors are taking bad articles and making them good, it is despite the recommendations of the project. If I am arguing this here rather than elsewhere, it is because mil hist seems to be suffering rather more severely than other places from this form of elitism. I am afraid I would take useful and informative over reliable and accurate any day. In order to be useful and informative it is necessary to be reliable and accurate, but in addition it is necessary to have content which is relevant to the needs of the reader and understandable and accesible to them (see above debate on referencing). On their own, reliability and accuracy are meaningless, since they make no guarantee of helpfull information. And ironically, wikipedia itself refutes any claim to accuracy, instead preferring verifiability, which is an even lower standard. Sandpiper (talk) 01:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet in the academic world, usefulness implies accurate. My history textbook is informative. It is NOT, however, accurate (containing more inaccuracies than your average creationist biology paper!). Several months back, Wiki was named the best online Military History source FOR BEING RELIABLE AND ACCURATE. Not because it was more useful than Britannica, but because the accuracy and reliable information was there. there's all kinds of stuff out there that's useful. infoplease.org is useful. It isn't accurate. Speaking from the perspective of a student, I'd rather have a source that was reliable than one that was useful (if it came down to one or the other). Cam ^(Chat) 01:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur that the only measure to achieve reliabilty is verifiability. With reliability the agglomeration of information is becoming useful, especially because the verifiability is providing links to reliable material on specific aspects of the subject. Sandpiper is fighting yesterday's battles by arguing to revert the development of wikipedia to verifiability and instead have the old anarchic agglomeration of content. The results of this ancient system aren't trustworthy leading to a negative feedback in public opinion that in turn discourages new editors, especially with professional knowledge. I know this very well from the German wikipedia where they run things according the Sandpiper's system. Wandalstouring (talk) 18:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sandpiper, if you think I was in any way supportive of your position, then I think you've completely misunderstood what I wrote.

Any material which is not reliable or accurate CANNOT be considered to be either informative or useful. I really do see things in those terms. Any lack of reliability or accuracy should be appropriately caveated, although I acknowledge that Wikipedia in general does not allow for that by structuring the policy and guidance around the lowest common denominator. Those caveats should allow the reader to determine just how informative or useful the article is.

I would suggest that what you're aiming for is articles that are entertaining rather than informative and useful.

And as for your views on referencing above, I articulated my objections to that in the thread above. Referencing is essential and should be to the most appropriate source, not the most convenient.

ALR (talk) 19:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I confess some confusion, here. Verifiable is, IMO, the lowest standard, i.e., it's been printed someplace. That includes garbage like Stinnett's fiction on Pearl Harbor. Reliable, IMO, subsumes (or presumes) accurate, 'cause if it isn't accurate, it can't (or shouldn't) be called reliable. (Not that error can't creep in, mind.) If it says Pearl Harbor was attacked on 8 December, probably a misprint; if it says the attack was led by Yamamoto, maybe not reliable ('cause it could be how you look at it); if it says Nagumo lost 59 aircraft, probably not reliable ('cause the right number is well known, & if something so easy is wrong, what else is?); if it says Harold Stark had a hand in planning it, definitely not reliable. In my experience, reliability & accuracy seem to always go together. When it's accurate, the reasoning & the conclusions tend to be solid, something you can rely on; when there are factual errors, the reasoning seems not to be as solid, either, as if there's an intellectual sloppiness, or undue haste, or POV.

IMO, striving for accuracy will bring reliability with it. And if it's not accurate, it's not terribly useful, either. What good is it reading Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, in an attack led by Yamamoto where Japan lost 59 aircraft & the U.S. 7 battleships, if the ignorant reader, someone who knows, maybe, what war it was (if you're lucky), can't know which of those facts is right or wrong? And just because it's verifiable, sad to say, is no help, 'cause the source could be wrong, too. I'm not going to suggest a change in policy (I have slim hope of achieving one), but IMO, the standard used in newspapers (the good ones, like you only find on TV) is one we should use: at least two reliable sources for anything remotely controversial &, maybe, two for everything. (Myself, I'd still like to know just how many BBs actually were at Pearl, 'cause I've seen 3 different numbers in 3 different sources...)

Just my C$0.02. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 19:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC) (No, that link isn't a mistake... :D)

IMO the Wikipedia policy on verifiability is incredibly weak, as it tends to focus on the label on the front of a source, rather than providing any tools to assess the source. Personally I'd advocate some form of source analysis, but there was no appetite for that and the Wikipedia majority voting model tends to encourage statism around the core policy.

that said I do think that the culture in this project encourages a higher degree of rigour, and the fact that so many are well informed around the topic helps a lot as well, some coming from the academic study of militaria and others of us coming from it as practitioners. It concerns me that Sandpiper is wanting MilHist to dilute that rigour, rather than encouraging others to aspire to it.

ALR (talk) 19:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Joseph Stilwell

I've gotten a user adding a Chinese bust of Stilwell with the argument he's the only American to get one. The editor hasn't added anything in the article about why it's significant, saying it's in the pic description. I don't see the pic of the bust adds anything alone (with some explanation on the page, yes), but I don't want an edit war over it, so I'm going to let it stand & request somebody with a stronger interest in Stilwell or China have a look & see if it can be resolved amicably. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 12:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I think, it's OK. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems fine to me as well. It needs a caption explaining it, though. Parsecboy (talk) 16:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I threw some text in there and shifted him left because he's looking right. Binksternet (talk) 17:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Action of 13 January 1797 now open

The peer review for Action of 13 January 1797 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 10:52, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Intute

Given some of the discussions over reliability of sources Intute may come in useful. Their selection of military history websites can be found here. Their general selction criteria are here (file). David Underdown (talk) 12:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Pyrrhus rides again

There are a lot of articles on battles using 'pyrrhic victory' in the info boxes as opposed to a neutral 'indecisive' or 'costly' or other description. Beside being a cliché, at this point, most of the results don't fit that description in any case. Would developing a standard neutral result rating approved by this wikiproject that editors could fall back on (no pun intended) stop the spread of pyrrhusing?Tttom1 (talk) 05:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

True, pyrrhic victory implies an assessment that can be disputed. Best list the articles with the questionable infobox content and we can work through them on a case by case basis. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the description probably needs a sourced assessment that indicates that, rather than an opinion based on the article content.

ALR (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It has been at some silly locations in the past. I seem to recall it was on the Battle of Thermopolyae (sp?) in the past. --Narson ~ Talk • 19:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Battle of the Imjin River, Battle of Guilford Court House, Battle of Cowan's Ford, Battle of Bunker Hill, Battle of Badajoz (1812), Battle of Grozny (1994–1995), Battle of Prague there are plenty others.Tttom1 (talk) 00:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, Battle of Lützen (1632), Battle of Hab, Battle of Lansdowne, listing all the articles and editing same on a case by case basis is beyond this editor. I recommend a style note in this wiki that the use of this adjective be avoided and be replaced where it is being used by a neutral adjective that more accurately describes the result without implying the victory is actually a defeat. By making its replacement a style decision editors can avoid the discussions and reverts seen on many of the talk pages (e.g.: Talk:Battle of Thermopylae) where 'Pyrrhic' has already been replaced. Tttom1 (talk) 04:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can't forbid the use for Pyrrhos's victories against the Romans. List them and I will correct them on a case by case basis. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't forbid that particular use at all - although, if you think about it, only two Pyrrhic victories by Pyrrhus are actually possible - by Pyrrhus' own statement. I have listed links to 12 articles above, beginning with Chosin Reservoir. I'll add others as I come across them.Tttom1 (talk) 04:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

More pyrrhic victories: Battle of Modder River, Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) - Battle of Yalu River (1904), Battle of Nanshan, Siege of Port Arthur - after 3 japanese pyrrhic victories shouldn't they have been undone and lost the war? Battle of Mukden yet another japanese pyrrhic victory - surely their pyrrhic victories have cost them this war by now? Nope, turns out they win the war, rather handily.Tttom1 (talk) 05:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Kosovo, Battle of Mount Ortigara (shouldn't every victory in WW1 be Pyrrhic?), Battle of Gumbinnen, Battle of Loos - (oddly Verdun is just a plain French victory, not Pyrrhic); Battle of Mars-la-Tour. Tttom1 (talk) 06:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Crete adding this from below to list. To me, this is a perfect example of the broadening of the definition of 'Pyrrhic' and its resulting overuse. Here's another: Battle of Petsamo (1939). Tttom1 (talk) 19:43, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Solving this issue

Let's agree to the definition that a Phyrrhic victory "is a victory with devastating cost to the victor". In modern warfare with the great amount of ressources to replace men and material it isn't that obvious that the loss was devastating, however, I would suggest as an example the Battle of Crete in WWII because so many German airborne elite soldiers were lost that this kind of warfare was not attempted again, for example against Malta or Gibraltar. This can be backed up with sources stating that afterwards the Germans were handicapped regarding their airborne. The problem of pyrrhic is to point out the devastating cost that in return influences the course of the war. In the case of the Romans and Pyrrhos, the Romans lost more men than Pyrrhos, but they had several times more to replace them. Same could be applied to Hannibal who won victory after victory, but short of replacements was finally confined to Croton. Just in this case only the brilliant stratagems get admired. possibly because it's not that obvious that he was losing the war while winning the battles or because Carthage could have supplied him according to some historians' perception. So here is perhaps best highlighted how to assess devastating cost as resulting in an actual handicap and to only accept pyrrhic victory if such is verifiably proven by historians. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you need a consensus of editors to agree with that definition. Personally, I can't. What you describe is a 'costly victory', not Pyrrhic. From the article on Pyrrhus: "His name is famous for the phrase "Pyrrhic victory" which refers to an exchange at the Battle of Asculum. In response to congratulations for winning a costly victory over the Romans, he is reported to have said: "One more such victory will undo me!" (In Greek: Ἂν ἔτι μίαν μάχην νικήσωμεν, ἀπολώλαμεν.)". A Pyrrhic victory is winning a battle, but losing the war because the victor's loses are more than he can bear (and because of that battle). But even at this definition, its still an inappropriate cliché and is primarily used in articles here to imply a particular victory was not a victory at all. Better to stick to well known neutral terms commonly used for military engagements: costly, indecisive, tactical victory, inconclusive, etc. I think the best solution is to remove all use of 'pyrrhic' as a qualification and encourage the use of the other terms, let the numbers speak for themselves and, IF, a particular editor can really make the case, in the body of the article, with sourcing, allow it there.Tttom1 (talk) 19:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

As an example, I changed the results in Chosin Reservoir info box from 'Pyrrhic' to 'costly'. If an editor can make the case, with sources, that the loses at Chosin caused the Chinese to lose the Korean War, it can be done in a para in the body of the article.Tttom1 (talk) 19:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Your writing abilities seem far better developed than your reading abilities. This is about how to source a pyrrhic victory. There's not going to be an exclusion of this term, especially if it's backed up by sources. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Now, now, I read just fine. I understood exactly what you wrote. I'm against stretching the definition of Pyrrhic victory to include things like 3 Japanese victories in a war they won or your suggestion above that Cannae was somehow a Pyrrhic victory for the Carthaginians. I am not against appropriate sourcing, if the editor can manage it. My opinion, however, is not to use this cliché at all - other than Pyrrhus' own battles - as it carries implied meaning beyond the initial qualification its used for. Tttom1 (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I see you're going over the list - I agree with the changes you're making, that's great, the articles are better for them. Thanks so much.Tttom1 (talk) 16:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

From Talk:Battle of Talavera:

I'm not sure what you mean by "not neutral in its point of view," (surely a Pyrrhic victory doesn't allude to the exact conditions of Pyrrhus' campaign; in this case Gates obviously meant that any hopes of an Allied campaign into Spain were completely wrecked at Talavera—not exactly what one would expect from a "victory") but for the rest I agree: it's used far too freely and often incorrectly in these pages. In fact, I would not have added it unless it was a verbatim citation from Gates, and this is a criterion I'd like to see extended across all MilHist articles. Anyway, in this case, I thought I could strike a compromise between plain "Indecisive," which would infuriate the Wellesleyites (and which can be challenged easily by dipping into the Wellesleyite scholarship), and plain "Allied victory," which is just as problematic for reasons cited above. Albrecht (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Its not neutral like indecisive, costly, inconclusive or even bloody, or pointless, would be, these qualifiers don't carry the trunks of legendary baggage 'pyrrhic' does. While its not as bad as say 'massacre', the implication is there in the same way as a neutral qualifier like 'decisive defeat' is a better description for Little Big Horn than say 'the Custer Massacre'. I can't speak to Gate's opinion (and the article or footnote doesn't tell me its his opinion) except to ask - is it supported by any other qualified historians or is it a minority view from Gates? There are other ways to qualify this. Perhaps say Allied Tactical victory, strategically inconclusive? If you are worried about the response to 'indecisive' from the Wellesleyites what would they make of 'Pyrrhic' which suggest the British lost the war?Tttom1 (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, it seems we're talking past each other here, because you're still interpreting evidence through the lens of your own fixed definition, when the applicability of that very definition is the question under review. Precisely because the British did not lose the Peninsular War does your position remain problematic: whatever his opinion on or interpretation of the precise events at Talavera, Gates' account leaves us with a military historian using "Pyrrhic victory" in the context of a single, short campaign, not a war in its entirety. To repeat: Talavera was Pyrrhic because it scuttled Wellesley's planned campaign (forcing him to retreat back to Portugal). Therefore, the exact conditions of Pyrrhus' War are not necessary to the appellation "Pyrrhic victory."

And I'm afraid the only "trunks of legendary baggage" are the ones you insist on carrying. "Pyrrhic victory" is a standardized, technical term in military science and military history—yes, it does allude to a dramatic set of events in Antiquity, but it's no more inherently loaded than pythagorean theorem or Trojan horse (computing). I object to the substitution of "costly" on two grounds: i) The meaning is not strictly the same, i.e. one can imagine Wellesley winning a "costly" victory at Talavera but still being able to pursue an effective campaign against the French, in which case the victory would be costly but not Pyrrhic; ii) The term is every bit as vague, subjective, and debatable as Pyyrhic—costly to whom? By what standard? Malicious editors could make the argument that Friedland or even Austerlitz were "costly" victories. "Pointless," needless to say, is a much, much worse breach of neutrality.

All I can suggest is a reiteration of my previous conclusion that "Pyrrhic" be accompanied with citations. But I'll grant you one point: Gates may be in a minority (vis-a-vis contemporary historians; I don't put much stock in the Anglomanic narratives of Napier or even Oman), in which case we'll need to weigh the different sources. Albrecht (talk) 00:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't agree and I've said all I have to say above. I favor a recommendation by this wikiproject to strongly discourage, if not prohibit, its use in info boxes, remove it when found if it is not explained and adequately sourced by historians in the body of the article. My 'fixed definition' of Pyrrhic victory is formed by the statement attributed to Pyrrhus himself and the common understanding of that statement for the last 2000 years or so.Tttom1 (talk) 01:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

An understanding obviously not shared by published historians, whose scholarship, from what I know of Wikipedia policy, trumps the opinions of Wikipedia editors, even one such as Tttom1 who claims to incarnate 2,000 years of accumulated wisdom. Albrecht (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the qualification 'Pyrrhic' from the info box of Battle of Malplaquet and integrated it into the article with ref and additional info.Tttom1 (talk) 02:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I would encourage you, out of common courtesy to your fellow editors, to suspend your little jihad until the members of this project have reached a consensus. Since when does "I favor a recommendation by this wikiproject to..." mean "I immediately authorize myself, unilaterally, to..." ? Albrecht (talk) 04:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Try not to faint, its a legitimate edit that keeps Pyrrhic victory.Tttom1 (talk) 04:19, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If I faint it'll be from laughing myself silly: your entire project is illegitimate and your edits are consistently quite foolish, and, at this point, Dadaesque. Albrecht (talk) 15:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If someone won the battle but lost the war, they still won the battle and later lost the war. "Won battle", "forces crippled in the following campaign XYZ" works fine without the pyrrhic value judgement, which is not required as one needs to explain exactly how the victory was pyrrhic (and so pyrrhic becomes redundant). "Pyrrhic" is especially inappropriate for info boxes, that's a judgement which, if used at all, needs thorough discussion in the article. I could call the Soviet "blockade" of the Courland pocket a "pyrrhic stalemate" which lasted until the end of WWII (390,000 dead or wounded with virtually no gain in territory). But certainly not infobox material. —PētersV (talk) 07:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

"If someone won the battle but lost the war, they still won the battle and later lost the war." This is a rather poor understanding of "Pyrrhic victory," which posits a reverse—on any operational level; I've made this clear above—due to the losses sustained in the battle, not randomly after the fact. "As one needs to explain exactly how the victory was pyrrhic (and so pyrrhic becomes redundant)" By this logic, one needs to explain how the battle was, say, "Indecisive," so indecisive becomes redundant. ""Pyrrhic" is especially inappropriate for info boxes, that's a judgement which, if used at all, needs thorough discussion in the article." Again, a personal aversion to the subject matter is provided in the stead of an actual argument. Provided the designation is sourced, I see no reason why "Pyrrhic victory" is not just at home in the Infobox as "Decisive victory" or "Tactical victory Y; Strategic victory X," all of which, you'll notice, are "judgement[s] which [need] thorough discussion in the article." Albrecht (talk) 15:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I would generally agree with the position advocated by Wandalstouring, we understand what the term mean,s but we don't use it in an infobox unless that can be sourced, so we're reporting opinion rather than coming to a conclusion.

ALR (talk) 10:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Precisely. Once something is sourced and uncontroversial, there's precious little ground for attacking it in a one-man mob. Albrecht (talk) 15:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. The standard for the inclusion of any statement is sourcing from reputable historians. If the historiography of a particular battle terms it a "Pyrrhic victory", then we should report that, regardless of whether we personally agree with that usage.

Obviously, this can get more complicated. If the use of the term is limited to only a few of the significant historians covering the battle, then we should not necessarily give them preference over the others. It may be more appropriate to have the infobox read "X victory, sometimes considered Pyrrhic", or something of that sort, with a footnote detailing each historian's view; or even leave off the term entirely in the infobox, and save discussion of it for the body of the text. But where a particular term is predominantly used by reputable sources, it seems perfectly acceptable to use it throughout the article. Kirill ^(prof) 16:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Pyrrhic rolls off the tongue (or page) so wonderfully that we should not get enchanted with its use for encyclopedic military history where more common terms will do. My point regarding not necessarily needing to use the term Pyrrhic is that a proper narrative would capture that and the reader can and should come away with "Aha! It was a Pyrrhic victory." As for use in the article, as long as it's well sourced (as in majority of sources use "Pyrrhic"), yes—although again, for an outcome/infobox it's still won, lost, or tied (regardless of future events). -PētersV (talk) 16:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I think we may also have to deal with the reality. "Pyrrhic victory" in the broad public mind no longer has the technical meaning specialists (especially specialists in the period) attribute. It's broadly understood to equate with crushing losses in a narrow victory (for which Verdun might apply, for instance). Arguing against that, IMO, is arguing against the tide, & changing it will, IMO, entail repeated reverts of edits by Joe Public, who's using the broader (even if less technically correct) view. Best luck doing it. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 02:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

what to include in infoboxes

There's an ongoing edit war on the Battle of Yarmouk. Whether or not to include very low and very high estimates made by single historians into the range given in the infobox or to present there only the range most sources agree to and provide a more detailed discussion in the article. Because for one side the inclusion of a specific author is sine qua non there's no solution in sight. Comments are welcome. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

If you can't agree what to put in the infobox, take out all the contentious data and replace the figures with notes referring to sections where they're discussed in the article. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

As well as what Roger suggests, another approach would be to identify what the most common figure is in the infobox as well as noting that there are estimates of much higher and lower figures. If there's a debate over the validity of sources it might be worth taking the matter to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for an external opinion. Nick-D (talk) 22:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Roger Davies at Arb elections

Our lead coord is running for arbitrator. Posted in the same vein as the admin notices. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to add a bit, editors who wish to vote for or against candidates may do so at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

New article

Hi WikiProject Military history. I'd like to alert you to the recent creation of 1st American Regiment (1783-1784), which is currently uncategorised. Rather than me try to guess what category to put it into, I thought it was better to notify the project, so that you can handle it appropriately. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 20:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I added Category:Massachusetts regiments of the Continental Army, and Category:Military units and formations of the Continental Army was already on the page. I think that's all the categories that article belongs in.--Patton123 22:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Template:DANFS

Please join the discussion here: Template_talk:DANFS#Problem_with_category_inclusion. —G716 <^T·_C> 02:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Creative Commons License

See Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Creative Commons licenses and Creative Commons licenses

There is a good English Civil War website authored by David Plant known as British Civil Wars and Commonwealth.

I fist came across some text copied from that site in the article Rule of the Major Generals and today have come across another article called George Joyce (Plant's text George Joyce, Agitator, b.1618).

The Wikipedia articles state in the References section:

• [RotMG] David Plant,Rule of the Major-Generals. This Wikipedia article incorporates some of this text under a Creative Commons License by, the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website
• [G. Joyce] This article incorporates text under a Creative Commons License by David Plant, the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/joyce.htm

This is worth a read. The Case for Free Use: Reasons Not to Use a Creative Commons -NC License Profit as it suggests that the use of this licence might make it difficult to include articles with CCL in Wikipedia on a disk.

1) Is it legal for us to incorporate text under the Creative Commons License used on the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website (see Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported for Plant's version of the Creative Commons License)?

2)If CC licenced text can be included in Wikipedia articles under the Wikipedia:GNU Free Documentation License, do we want to include such text? The Major General's page already has text that does not come from Plant's website, and we could stub those articles that do not have text from other sources. --PBS (talk) 12:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

We can't use it - CC-BY-NC-SA is not a free license. It looks like the person who added it got confused, and believed it was CC-By-SA (which allows commercial use). We'll have to remove all the content taken from that site and restart the article.

It's also an open question as to whether we could incorporate CC-By-SA text into Wikipedia articles anyway (the answer is probably "not right now, but in a year or so the licenses will be sorted out), but in this case that's moot. Shimgray | talk | 13:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I am the author of the site mentioned in this discussion. Although, I'm reluctant to allow full commercial use under the CC licence, I have no objection to text from my site being used on Wikipedia or any spin-off project because I support the principles upon which Wikipedia is based. Note that CC conditions can be waived with permission from the copyright holder. Hope that helps. digweed (talk) 13:58, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

We have to make sure that you are who you claim to be, but that would solve the problem in this case. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course. There's a contact page on the British Civil Wars site.. digweed (talk) 15:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

So far I have identified these articles:

Article	Date	Editor
Cromwell's Upper House	Article creation 21:41, 8 January 2008	user:Rgmmortimore
Humble Petition and Advice	Revision as of 20:09, 1 January 2008	user:Rgmmortimore
Rule of the Major Generals	Article creation 13:29, 13 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Vote of No Addresses	Article creation 13:25, 1 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont	Revision as of 14:19, 18 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Barkstead	Article creation 14:47, 18 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
James Berry (Major-General)	Article creation 14:11, 19 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Carew (regicide)	Revision as of 21:28, 8 March 2007	user:Rgmmortimore
John Danvers	Revision as of 12:06, 8 December 2007	user:Rgmmortimore
Isaac Ewer	Article creation 14:13, 27 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Humphrey Edwards	Article creation 13:27, 27 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
George Fleetwood	Article creation 14:38, 27 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Augustine Garland	Article creation 13:25, 28 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Francis Hacker	Article creation 14:14, 28 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Hezekiah Haynes	Article creation 14:36, 28 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
William Heveningham	Article creation 14:29, 28 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Hotham the younger	Article creation 13:29, 30 November 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
George Joyce	Article creation 14:47, 1 December 2006.	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Lawson (Naval Officer)	Article creation 12:02, 5 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Lisle	Article creation 12:59, 7 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Nicholas Love	Article creation 13:20, 7 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Thomas Lunsford	Article creation 13:30, 7 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Henry Mildmay	Article creation 13:04, 8 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Gilbert Millington	Article creation 13:11 8 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
William Monson, 1st Viscount Monson	Article creation 13:27, 8 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Sir Thomas Morgan, 1st Baronet	Article creation 14:21, 8 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin	Article creation 13:13, 1 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Edward Popham	Article creation 12:06, 18 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Vincent Potter	Article creation 12:16, 18 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
William Purefoy	Article creation 12:29, 18 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
John Reynolds (soldier)	Article creation 12:49, 21 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Owen Rowe	Article creation 14:22, 21 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Anthony Stapley	Article creation 14:44, 21 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Robert Venables	Article creation 15:10, 21 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
James Temple	Article creation 15:08, 17 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Peter Temple (regicide)	Article creation 14:54, 17 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Matthew_Thomlinson	Article creation 14:47, 17 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Robert Tichborne	Article creation 13:36, 17 October 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Robert Wallop	Article creation 12:03, 22 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Valentine Walton	Article creation 12:50, 22 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
William Walwyn	Article creation 14:17, 22 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer
Thomas Waite	Revision as of 21:59, 19 March 2007	user:Rgmmortimore
Charles Worsley	Article creation 15:16, 22 December 2006	User:Blue Buccaneer

As can be seen above, in late 2006 User:Blue Buccaneer seems to have been through the biography list as the British Civil War site creating many articles. However some of these entries like that for Edward Popham uses the British Civil War site as a reference but AFAICT there is no entry on the site now (see search)

There is an article called Richard Lindon and on the talk page of that article is a template called {{ConfirmationOTRS}} (see also Wikipedia:OTRS). If User:Digweed is indeed David Plant then it would seem that he should be able to give permission for the use of some of his text via that mechanism if he so desired. --PBS (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Please see User_talk:Digweed#Creative Commons License -- PBS (talk) 12:06, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Categories needs disambigusation (Category:Military personnel killed...)

Category:Military personnel killed in action by war is a subcategory of Category:Military personnel killed in action, but contains deaths not in action (ex. in prisoner/concentration camps, from wounds in hospitals, etc.). I am not sure how to easily fix this? Perhaps we should insert a parent cat of Category:Military personnel killed by war? PS. Shouldn't we actually change al instances of war to conflict? Not all conflicts are wars... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Assessment backlog

If anyone has some time for a little wikignoming, Category:Unassessed military history articles has a backlog around eighty unassessed articles. Topping and tailing with the nesting strings {{WikiProjectBannerShell|1= and }} would be appreciated where appropriate. Many thanks in advance, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:39, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I started assessing, but I'm about to crash. Will be back in a bit after some shut eye.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 05:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

It's up to nearly a hundred now. Any help would be appreciated. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to help, but if anybody sees me messing up, trout me :) Chamal ^talk 05:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Will do :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Down to 50 now, but I crashed too. Will get on with it later. BTW, have I messed up? :) Chamal ^talk 06:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

No, you haven't :) Thank you and well done, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:01, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The backlog is now down to 27, with the outstanding articles covering British battleships and French officers. I've assessed about ten battleship articles, and they were all very good and interesting reading. Nick-D (talk) 10:49, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

...And we have zero articles in the backlog. Yeah, the battleship articles were pretty good, but most of them had only one line in the lead section. Once that's fixed, they'll be all ready for B class. Chamal ^talk 11:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations. You can rest now. ;D (So what's my explanation? =]) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 11:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :P I think I was a bit hyper today, that's probably why I got into this. You're right, I need a rest :D Chamal ^talk 14:01, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Well done and thanks! Feel free to repeat anytime :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

My apologies - the battleships were my fault! I discovered yesterday that literally hundreds of RN ship articles were tagged and graded as stubs whilst having nontrivial amounts of content - I re-rated many of them as start-class, but for the battleships I felt it best to leave them unrated and let someone more comfortable with the start/B distinction handle it. Thanks all for catching them... Shimgray | talk | 15:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologise though the thought is appreciated. We can't all do everything ourselves :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Spiked again

• Current status of Category:Unassessed military history articles = 14 pages unassessed

The backlog on Category:Unassessed military history articles has spiked up again and is currently sitting on well over 200. I have just assessed twenty, and most appear to be US Medal of Honor recipients. Any further assistance from editors would be much appreciated. Thanks, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I did 10-15, but I have to go to do homework...but there are a lot of Medal of Honor guys who need to be stubbed. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Geez, I've assessed about 100 now and it got down into the 190's, but has now jumped back up to the 280's. If anyone has a few spare minutes, it would be much appreciated if you would be able to assess a few. Thanks, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hate to break the news but it's very likely that category will have articles in it for some time to come. I've been tagging articles with AWB but also trying not to overload things. I'll take a break for a couple days. --Brad (talk) 07:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

[Chuckle] Keep up the good work! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering who it was that kept filling the cat! Well if it's gotta be done, it's gotta be done; at least it gives me something to do when I'm bored, lol. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

(OD) Now at about 280 articles, mostly stub and start. All help much appreciated, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to help in the little time I have. Joe (Talk) 21:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Now back up to 260 articles. Can we make a concerted effort to clear this. If we do twenty each, it'll be gone in no time. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll get onto it and assess a few when I get home tomorrow. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Break

If any of the tagged articles happen to be a redirect please replace the milhist tag with {{WikiProject Redirect}} so they don't get tagged again. I also noticed that a large number of biography articles had the tag removed without explanation such as Jack Reed and Jerry Atkinson. The latter was a Navy Cross recipient so I'm not sure why it wouldn't fit into the scope of the project. --Brad (talk) 05:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the untagging of the two mentioned articles as I, too, believe they fit into the project. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

More "direct" assitance

The military history project currently does great work supporting its editors with finding sources, reviewing articles and providing copyeditors etc, but in a recent IRC discussion I had with JonCatalan, he complained about having to buy books in order to get sources for his articles, which he intends to bring to FA status. Someone in the IRC channel suggested a project fund we could create to buy books with, though we later realised it would probably be innefficient as people could claim money for books and then keep it for their own personal use.

Anyway, after much discussion we came up with a simple system; project members could donate money to a fund used for buying books for people that are currently writing articles—and intend to make them featured of course. This fund would be managed by the lead coordinator of the project, and anyone wishing to buy a book, rather than getting money, would have to ask the lead coordinator to order it from amazon and mail it to them. After the writer is finished with the it, the book could then be passed on to any other project members who need it—we could create a "library" page with a list of books the project owns, who currently has them and how you can procure them.

This system has the obvious flaw of assuming that everyone will be honest, and also assuming that people will actually want to donate to the project, which I doubt they will.

An alternative to this would be the lead coordinator simply emailing the relevant pages to the person who needs them and keeping the books. All this of course requires a lot of input from the lead coordinator, and I doubt he'd be willing to do any of this, but I thought I'd ask anyway.--Patton123 20:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Well...this may be a fact of life. I would love to assume that everyone is honest as part of the admittedly utopian WP:AGF, but some of these books that people will need are gong to cost some amount of money, and temptation will be there to take either the books or the money... (in no way am I showing a lack of confidence in Roger here, btw)

I asked for U.S. Battleships: A Design History for Christmas, and so I looked up how much it would be...and it is somewhere in the neighborhood of $40! (not going to double-check exact price) How many people will want to donate? 10 @ $10 each? That's 2, maybe 3 books.

However, if we could figure out a way for this to work so that there would be no possibility of seeing someone walk off with our money...my answer changes slightly. Kudos to Patton for following WP:BOLD! :D —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

My idea was slightly different. Admittedly, I wanted to see if I could get money to get a book myself, but I am willing to just spend my own money on it (since I have money available and I have a job) and instead organize some type of contest. My original idea, which I think I'm going to create a sub page for on my user page, was to hold a writing contest (not too different from Danny's Contest). The difference is that I wouldn't donate the money. The money would be donated by people interested in donating, and the people signing up for the contest. It would cost $5 to take part. Depending on the total prize the prize money could be split up between the top three (if it's a low amount it might all have to go to the winner). Articles would be judged by a panel; what they would be judged on would have to be decided upon. I, as a volunteer, would simply be a judge and would donate $5 to open the contest up. You're not going to get a lot of books, but even one helps (especially if it's a rare book). JonCatalán^(Talk) 21:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I would have money from my job too, but I happen to be in college... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm in college as well; I also work part time. JonCatalán^(Talk) 22:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Before this becomes an argument on whether or not a college student should have a job, the idea is to get money for the contest. It's unlikely to get any type of sponsorship (for a respectable amount of money), so we'll have to base it on our own donations. I mean, you could ask your parents for $5 (whether or not they trust us is another case). Unless you can get someone to donate the required amount of money. JonCatalán^(Talk) 23:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

*Smacks self* I get it now.... No, I have a job (but back at home) and I'm trying to get one up here for next semester. While I do have a bunch of money saved up from that other job, I am also trying to be really stingy (I've only spent like $125-150 total since I've gotten here!) with it - hence my second comment. But I would take $5 out of my stash for something like what you are saying. :) Anyway, sorry for any confusion! Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 23:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is the libraries individual editors already have access to. If this initiative ever gets off the ground, another useful component would be to encourage more editors to make known the books they've already got. As Patton pointed out above, trading these books wouldn't be necessary; all we'd need to do is either scan the relevant pages as Patton suggested, or the owners would simply do the citations themselves. However, I'd like to add another suggestion: if this does go anywhere, we should direct our funds towards rarer books. If someone could easily borrow a needed book from a local library, it would be a poor use of what will likely be minimal resources to buy it instead. If we do decide to start this project, I'd be willing to contribute.Parsecboy (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

This makes sense, although I would also think it would be OK to buy larger books. Books can't always be scanned in their entirety. I will start a user page on my idea, and see if it picks up. JonCatalán^(Talk) 00:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

That's true; I've got a couple of fairly old books from the WWI period from which I plan on scanning in images that will likely have to be done in several scans and then cobbled together. Basically, my point is that because we'll likely have limited funds, we'll need to be selective over how we spend them, which I think we can agree is a logical consideration. Parsecboy (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thought I'd just weigh in with my two cents. While I have much love for the MilHist project I can't see myself ever donating money to it or Wikipedia. The biggest asset the project has are of course the editors themselves, and I do hope that active editors will do more to publish their own personal libraries in their userspaces. I try my damnedest to keep my Library updated on my naval stuff, but I'll admit to having slowed down of late due to 'flu and university work, and I can only hope that people do look through it occasionally (the stats suggest so), but as of yet I don't think I've had one direct question relating to a book on the list. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Direct financial assistance in the form of grants is regurlary assigned by Wikimedia Polska Association [2]. If only a US based Wikimedia Assosiation existed you could make a request for a grant there. I have heard the UK Wikimedia Assosiation 2.0 is in the development stage so not much use use checking out there. Mieciu K (talk) 23:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The grant competition process (4 edition ends on 31.12.2008) is open to any member of Wikimedia projects. If you want a grant make a request (the statute doesn't mention it has to be in Polish) on this page: http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikonkurs/Plany_IV_edycji under "Wnioski" (requests)

The format of requests is:
===Short description of project===
Author:
Amount:
Justification:
The Wikimedia Polska Assosiation got over 140 000 zł (about 40 000 USD) in donations this year so don't be shy. If you have any questions ask Przykuta Mieciu K (talk) 00:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

World Knowledge contest

Can I get comments on this idea? Thanks! JonCatalán^(Talk) 19:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I see two major problems lack of money and lack of trust. There is already a source of funds. Some large or well organized Wikimedia Assosiations (eg. German, Polish) have more money than they can spend in a meaningful way. Additionaly they have legal problems with sending the extra money to the Wikimedia Foundation. I think it would be best to coordinate the grant contests organized by Wikimedia Assosiations, right now they are held independently and not very well known. Mieciu K (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

If it's involoving money you're likely to open a can of worms. How will you prevent criminal elements from hijacking this contest? Wandalstouring (talk) 18:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This is why I want to avoid money at first. The second problem (lack of trust) will be solved only when the contest is proved to be worthwhile. Lack of money can be solved later. JonCatalán^(Talk) 19:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Library

Setting up a library doesn't sound like a bad idea. We need a storage facilty, someone who operates it and an infrastructure where you order books. It can operate via people requesting books from this library and paying for the transport back and forth. We also need to collect and protect personnel data in case someone loses a book and we have to set a time limit for how long you can keep the book. Making the lead coordinator the manager limits its expansion and puts considerable funds into one man's hands we really don't know. I would opt for a structure supported by the wikimedia foundation. We need to acquire a room where the books can be stored, employ somebody who keeps records and a structure for raising funds and directing the ordering of books plus directing donations of books. Still, this is a lot above what we're currently able to run. The first step should be expanding the logistics departement where editors can transfer scans and Jstor material. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This would be expensive. Another idea is to have some sort of form to allow users (preferably "trusted" users) to have books loaned to them. In other words, an "inter user" loan network. For example, say user X wanted to borrow a book of mine for an article. The problem is shipping (one way in the United States would cost an average of $4 per package). You can sometimes find the book for cheaper on the internet. JonCatalán^(Talk) 19:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, lack of trust is a considerable problem. We certainly could use something like this, but a foundation-run libary with an employee is the wrong to go in my opinion; obviously if he's an employee he gets paid, which would be enough money gone out the window every month to buy about 32 hardcover books. Instead I think we should find a volunteer we all trust who is willing to buy the books from amazon himself and mail/email them to the people who need them. He would have to be identified to the foundation and/or this project, which will turn a lot of people off. At least in this system we don't need any special storage space; we can just keep track of who has a book and get it mailed to someone else if they need it.--Patton123 16:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

List of Korean War veterans at AfD

Not sure if this project had been notified but you would seem best to respond if the article is useful and worth saving. Any input on the AfD would be appreciated. -- Banjeboi 17:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I've added the AfD to the military AfD sorting list as well. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

UK Cabinet Papers 1915-77 online

The National Archives has just launched an area of its website putting online (free) all open Cabinet Papers from 1915-77 (1977 is the last year which has been opened to the public, some earlier records deemed particularly sensitive are also not open, this is indicated within the available papers). The papers include British policy in both World Wars, and other conflicts fought by British forces in that period, and general defence policy. Obviously the papers themselves are primary sources, so need to be used with caution, but there's also quite a lot of background on how the UK Cabinet operates, and who was in office at any given time, and background to events which may be useful. See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/ David Underdown (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, David! Maralia (talk) 16:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheers so much David. I've been looking for the link for my MA dissertation - so many Civil Defence documents I can use, my worries about lack of sources are over! Skinny87 (talk) 17:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Molotov cocktail, CIA Manual

Any editors like to contribute to resolving this dispute regarding an image in this article? Cheers --Petecarney (talk) 22:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Military command - question on whether it should include more than only the US chain of commands

Thanks, Marasama (talk) 07:27, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Either move it to United States military command, or {{globalize}} it or AfD it. If the latter please let me know on my talk page. --PBS (talk) 08:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

A pet hate is articles that describe US military approaches and then have interminable lists of how everyone else does things. My inclination would be to have a short, pithy, article on the concept of military command, the international legal position on the responsibilities of command and perhaps the distinction between commissioned and non-commissioned command. It might be worth drawing the distinction between those who have command authority and those who haven't; chaplains, doctors and uniformed civilians.

As it stands the article is very US focused, considering command to be only vested in the head shed, rather than at every level from Corporal upwards. Even if you renamed it to be US specific I think it would then become an AfD candidate.

ALR (talk) 09:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The text as written should be moved to United States military command. A new article should be written at Military command, one that isn't US-centric. In other words, I agree 100% with PBS. Binksternet (talk) 17:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I have added the UK Military equivalent to the US ones and additionally the Staff Officer grading system. I have additionally amended the opening paragraphs to reflect the changes made. Hope this is acceptable; welcome anyone elses changes on this. --KizzyB (talk) 13:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Light Tank problemo

Hark, I hear ye all say, exactly what we need is another problem for the MilHist project to contemplate! Well, fellow editors, never let it be said that I let you down. I have come from getting Tetrarch (tank) to GA-Class, which is also known as the Vickers-Armstrong Light Tank Mark VII, and I am about to put the finish touches on the Light Tank Mk VIII. Being a glutton for punishment I wish to continue improving all of the Vickers-Armstrong Light Tanks used by the British Army in WWII, but here I run into a problem. The Mark VII and VIII have seperate articles, as does the Light Tank Mk VI. However, the Mark II to Mark V are all redirected to a single page, Light Tanks of the UK. Now, my question is as follows: Should all of the light tanks from II to VIII have their own pages, or should II to VI have a single page like the current one and have the Mark VI merged into Light Tanks of the UK to make three pages - one for Mark II to VI, and two more for the VII and VIII as they're really seperate tanks and articles. Any thoughts? Skinny87 (talk) 15:48, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

The Light Tanks of the UK came about from assembling what little information as was readily available together rather than having several stubby articles. (It was one of my first articles back in 2005) To some extent, they are all related with overlap but if there is material to build the article on the early ones up then do so - if there's too much material then split as necessary. A rename to Light Tank Mark II to Mark V would not be amiss. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it depends entirely on the amount of information you can present for each one. "Light Tanks of the UK" (renamed Light Tanks of the United Kingdom) would still be a good article to keep as an "index", similar to Tanks in the Spanish Army. JonCatalán^(Talk) 16:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks Graeme; yes, I can see why you did that, good idea. My ideas are twofold; to expand the Light Tanks article after renaming it, and farm out the articles as neccessary; and I'm also thinking of merging the Mark VI into that article. How does that sound? Skinny87 (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Light tanks of the UK should cover the named topic, so it should mention the later marks. But I wouldn't merge the entire Mk VI article, since it is long enough to stand on its own. Another example is Patton tank, which summarizes articles on four main models, and has its own navigation box linking other related articles. —Michael Z. 2008-12-02 18:18 z

Oops, and the article should definitely be renamed: “light tank” is not a proper noun, so should not be capitalized. —Michael Z. 2008-12-02 18:25 z

Good point, just moved it. Parsecboy (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Moved again to expanded Light tanks of the United Kingdom, as suggested above. —Michael Z. 2008-12-02 18:34 z

(outdent)Thanks Parsec. I dunno though, that title still doesn't seem quite right to me, but I think it'll for now so I can get started. I'll have Mark II to Mark V just in that article, but summarize the Mark I (whatever it's called, the 6-Ton I think) and the Mark VI, VII and VIII and link to their respective articles. How does that sound to everyone? Skinny87 (talk) 18:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. —Michael Z. 2008-12-02 18:35 z

Probably a good plan would have an article the series of light tanks developed for the UK Government, and articles on various models or groups of models. A good starting point would be "British and American Tanks of World War Two", by Peter Chamberlain and Chris Ellis. This book uses the following groupings

• Mk I-III
• Mk IV-V
• Mk VI
• Mk VII (Tetrarch)
• Mk VIII (Harry Hopkins)

The 6-Tonner was an entirely different line of development. It was an export tank designed by Vickers. The Russians developed the design to produce the T-26 series of tanks, which Russian armoured formations used in both the infantry tank and cruiser tank roles. Like the German Pz Mk III it was called a 'light tank' but was intended and used for main battle tank type roles.--Toddy1 (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

That's awesome Todd, thanks. I'll structure the article that way then and won't mention the 6-Tonner in it, just II-VI summed up and with VI onwards having their own articles. Should the 6-Tonner be removed from the Commonwealth AFV template, then, as it wasn't used by the army during WWII? Skinny87 (talk) 19:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to expand on that, I'll leave the article as it is for now and expand it, adding in all the tabks from I-VIII, with VI onwards summarized and linked to their own articles. If it gets too big I'll farm it out into the suggested sub-groupings above. Skinny87 (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Even then, you could create the separate articles for each. Tanks in the Spanish Army has details on each of Jon's previous FAs, and is going for FA itself as we speak; so both the subpage and the page are fully capable of being made into excellent articles parallel to one another. Cam ^(Chat) 00:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Yerah, I was thinking that, Cam. I'll do that with the Mark VI hopefully, just depends if there's enough info on each of them; some of the sources I've found only mention most of the Marks together as a whole and not individually. Skinny87 (talk) 07:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The impression I get from Chamberlain & Ellis is, there isn't much to chose from differentiating Mks 1-4, just detail improvements. If true, it'd be pretty hard to get sep pp on each type, absent a bunch of duplication. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 07:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

>Should the 6-Tonner be removed from the Commonwealth AFV template

No - "The British Army never ordered this type, but on the outbreak of war in September 1939, the British took over several 6 tonners which were built for other nations, and they were used in the training role for the rest of the war." page 27 Chamberlain and Ellis.--Toddy1 (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey Todd. Thanks for your help on the MilHist talkpage. I just have a couple of questions. How many pages does Chamberlain et al devote to all the Vickers-Armstrong light tanks in all? And is the 6-Tonner the same as the Mark I, or is there a separate Mark I model? Thanks, Skinny87 (talk) 07:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Mk I-III. Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 20-21 have an article entitled "Light Tank Mks II, IIA, IIB, III". This article also mentions the Mk 1 (the British Army designation for the Carden-Loyd [sic] Mk VII and VIII. The article describes how the Mk II differed from the Mk I. Contains infobox type specifications for the Mk II, with bracketed information for how the Mk III differed.

Mk IV-V. Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 22-23 have an article entitled "Light Tank Mks IV and V". Contains infobox type specifications for the Mk IV and separately for the Mk V.

Mk VI. Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 24-25 have an article entitled "Light Tank Mks VI, VIA, VIB and VIC". Contains infobox type specifications that apparently apply to all four models (though a different weight is quoted for the Mk VI), plus limited details on 4 other variants.

Mk VII (Tetrarch). Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 26-27 have an article entitled "Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarch". Contains infobox type specifications, plus limited details on 2 variants.

Mk VIII (Harry Hopkins). Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 28-29 have an article entitled "Light Tank Mk VIII Harry Hopkins". Contains infobox type specifications, plus limited details on 3 variants.

Vickers Light Tank (Model 1936). Chamberlain and Ellis Page 21 has an article entitled "Light Tank Vickers Commercial Type". 40 of these on order for the Netherlands Army were taken over by the British Army on completion in 1939 and used for training. Does not contain infobox specifications.

Vickers 6 Tonner Type B. Chamberlain and Ellis Pages 27 has an article entitled "Light Tank Vickers 6 Ton Type B". "The British Army never ordered this type, but on the outbreak of war in September 1939, the British took over several 6 tonners which were built for other nations, and they were used in the training role for the rest of the war." This wasn't really a light tank in the same sense as the British Army light tanks - it is best regarded as a medium/cruiser/infantry tank. Contains infobox type specifications. Note that the 'Vickers 6 Tonner is a fairly well known tank and quite a bit has been published on it.

--Toddy1 (talk) 18:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Be alert. If you're using Chamberlain, be sure you mention the date. My PB 2001 ed appears to differ slightly from Toddy's. The infobox p.20 only lists the "Mk II or IIB & Mk III", p.22 the Mk IV, p.23 MkV (& not much else, but a big pic of a 9h Lancers' Mk V). Looks like some details may've gotten left out. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 21:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh blimey, I've got a 2000 edition. Well, I'll have to work from that and if anything seems missing I'll enquire to you or Toddy if that's okay. Skinny87 (talk) 21:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it differs greatly. And if yours is the 2000 PB ed, it's the same as mine; mine reprints the 2000 ed. I'd just use a tick of caution against it being exactly identical with the '69 original. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 03:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

One (unrelated) problem - the article does indeed describe the "Light Tanks", the mark-numbered vehicles of that name produced from the 1920s to the 1940s. But it also implies it covers other (generically defined) "light tanks" - the FV101 Scorpion, the FV107 Scimitar, and anything else postwar. Any idea how to work the title to avoid this? Shimgray | talk | 19:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey all. Just got Chamberlain and Ellis from the local library and writing up the Mk VI. As to the Light tanks of the UK article, I intend to have it cover all the Vickers light tanks used by the British Army during the interwar period and World War II. So perhaps renaming to 'Vickers-Armstrong Light tanks' might be for the best? Skinny87 (talk) 19:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This seems pretty smart! It means you can then easily cover foreign service, license-built variants, etc. Shimgray | talk | 20:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone else have a problem with renaming the article to 'Vickers-Armstrong light tanks'? That way, I can put in all the interwar and WWII tanks from I-VIII, and there can always be another article for post-war light tanks. Skinny87 (talk) 20:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that CVR(T) was ever officially designated a light tank by MoD.--Toddy1 (talk) 19:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise, the title can specify dates while "Light Tanks of the United Kingdom" can redirect to the article with the specific dates. JonCatalán^(Talk) 19:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I like “V-A lt tanks”, but alternates would be Light Tanks Mk II–V or Light tanks of the United Kingdom, 1929–45. —Michael Z. 2008-12-04 03:34 z

Are all the light tanks manufactured by the United Kingdom at the time manufactured by Vickers-Armstrong? JonCatalán^(Talk) 03:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It would appear so, Jon, I can't see any other designs that were used. Skinny87 (talk) 07:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Section Break

Just thought I'd break this up a little and ask for an opinion/consensus on what tot change the title to. The ones that have been suggested are either 'Vickers-Armstrong Light tanks' or 'Light tanks of the United Kingdom 1929-1945'. I think I prefer the former, as the latter is a bit specific and I think V-A were making light tanks before 1929. What does everyone else think? Skinny87 (talk) 07:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

If they are all made by Vickers, I don't see why not. Otherwise, I would go with the more generic title. JonCatalán^(Talk) 22:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

This may have been too much for me. I'm having trouble even finding enough info to write the article on the Mk VI. It's liek there are very few historians interested in writing about it or the other Vickers tanks. Skinny87 (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sources. There were monographs published on these vehicles in the 1970s. Unfortunately in the 1990s libraries became very interested in throwing out old books to make space for video tapes of Hollywood films, and internet terminals. Apparently librarians (being funded out of taxes) did not realise that the private sector would meet needs for video rental and that people would have internet in their homes and offices. I suggest that you try and get hold of catalogues of books, or specialist military book store catalogues to find sources.--Toddy1 (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC) Title of Article. If the title is 'Vickers-Armstrong Light tanks' then it should cover all the many export designs that Vickers-Armstrong produced in the 1930s. If the title is 'Light tanks of the United Kingdom 1929-1945' then it implies that it covers tanks used by the UK armed forces - in that case it also needs to mention the US M-2, M-3, and M-5 light tanks.--Toddy1 (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well either way it seems I'll have a lot of work to do. But perhaps 'Vickers-Armstrong Light tanks' is the better one, and the American-produced light tanks can be covered in a separate article. Skinny87 (talk) 10:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for La Grande Armée now open

The A-Class review for La Grande Armée is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Liberty incident now open

The peer review for USS Liberty incident is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Citing a US Navy instruction

Is there a preferred template or method?--Rockfang (talk) 16:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? ("Instruction"?) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Like a SECNAVINST or OPNAVINST.--Rockfang (talk) 16:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Without seeing one for sure it's hard to know. But I imagine something along the lines of this might be appropriate:

• Author [whether United States Navy, Secretary of the Navy, Commander in Chief of unit, etc.], "SECNAVINST" [wikilinked if online; enclosed within <small> tags, please], (date). Retrieved on (date) [if online]

Hope this helps. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorta. I was just hoping to find someone that possibly uses them on a regular basis and get their take on it.--Rockfang (talk) 12:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've cited some at United States Sixth Fleet; take a look there if you wish. Buckshot06(prof) 22:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"Operation Silent Sentry" redux

Hello everyone! USS Nevada (BB-36) will be featured on the main page on December 7th. I'd like to ask for help from our members to ensure that it stays vandalism-free throughout all of the time it is up - including when it is 3am in the U.S. ;) Thanks for any help you can provide! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added it to my watchlist. Parsecboy (talk) 04:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. A small thing if it helps. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 06:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I've just added it to my watchlist as well Nick-D (talk) 07:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Watch-list added to! Skinny87 (talk) 07:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys! :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll watch it. Incidentally, congrats on getting it on the main page. Joe Nutter 15:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to you too, on both counts. :D —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

←If you don't have WP:ROLLBACK, ask your friendly administrators if they would consider granting you the userright. It has been found extremely necessary to combat the levels of vandalism that plague articles that appear on the main page. -MBK₀₀₄ 17:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll watch the page, as well. JonCatalán^(Talk) 22:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

4 hours and 45 minutes to go....

Thanks everyone :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 19:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nazi era photos

It seems commons are being ever so helpful and mass deleting Nazi era images due to some new quirk of copyright law. This might affect a lot of our WW2 stuff so we might want to check if commons is deleting the images and try to save them and local upload them with fair use claim if it is compatable. --Narson ~ Talk • 16:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

When I took Third Battle of Kharkov to FAC, I found out that most of the images of WWII (of the Eastern Front, at least) shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. So I tend to agree with Common's deletion spree. We need to find new images, and give them proper and accurate copyright tags. JonCatalán^(Talk) 22:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

On which note, you may be delighted to know about the one hundred thousand images from the German Bundesarchiv being uploaded to Commons as we speak :-) It's mostly postwar material, but there's at least a thousand WW2-era images there so far, and more to come... and it's all verified by the German government as legitimately released! (So, at least, if there turns out to be copyright issues it's their problem...) Shimgray | talk | 19:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Er, link above now fixed. Categories of images by year, if interested, for the WWI/II periods: 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918; 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945. Shimgray | talk | 14:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Aewsome. The only problem, of course, is that all the captions are in German. So, who's gonna volunteer to start translating? Skinny87 (talk) 15:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Google translate usually managed well enough to get the gist of it, for me... Shimgray | talk | 17:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

On a slightly related note, I was wondering if someone could help me with the copyright status of a couple of images I've been considering uploading, or point me to the place where people could help. Three of them are in Hitler vs. Stalin: The Second World War on the Eastern Front in Photographs, and are credited to AKG London and the Rodina Archive and Leonid Pitersky Collection. Google hasn't been very helpful with either of the latter two, and although I found a web site for AKG Images, it is very ambiguous about the copyright status of their collection. I did find a photograph in another work, but it appears to be from the Bundesarchiv, so I'll try searching for it on commons. – Joe Nutter 02:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Lazare Ponticelli at FAR

User:Tony1 has nominated Lazare Ponticelli for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Soviet troop strength in Hungary, 1956

There is wide variance in estimated Soviet troop strength, both in personnel and armored vehicles, used to suppress the Hungarian revolution of 1956, according to different references cited on the discussion page. If any WikiProject Military history contributors are aware of English language references that may clarify this discrepancy, please add to the discussion. Regards, Ryanjo (talk) 20:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The Home Guard

Whilst waiting to find books on British light tanks (see above), I stumbled across British Home Guard and started to work on it with a book I got from the library. But I'm not sure of how to structure the article. I have an idea to structure it in this way:

• History
  • 1939-1940
  • 1940-1942
  • 1942-1945
• Weapons and training
• Politics of the Home Guard
• In popular culture

I've never written an article this complex before, so I'm open to suggestions as to how to structure it. Does the above sound alright, or is there a better way? Skinny87 (talk) 09:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a military land force, Skinny, so the gold standard for that is the FA-class United States Marine Corps (note that the previous also FA, Russian Ground Forces, has been demoted). Make sure you hit all the main points included in those articles, though the structuring doesn't have to follow them strictly. Also, for general structuring guidelines, Australian Defence Force and Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are both FAs. Cheers and merry Christmas, Buckshot06(prof) 16:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

...that's a very long, very detailed article. Perhaps I've bitten off more than I can chew. Still, I'll try and add in what I can from the Corps article, although not all of them will be possible for an organization that only existed five years or so. Skinny87 (talk) 17:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you help me, Buckshot? I'm looking at the Marine article, and a few areas don't seem possible for the Home Guard article. 'Mission', for example - well, the role of the LDV/Home Guard was in flux for quite some time, and I've already covered it partially in the History section, which is still ongoing. Organization I can do, same with Equipment/Weapons & Training, and I guess Culture would be the 'In Popular Culture' section already in the Home Guard article. But Personnel, for example, has me unsure of how to adapt it for the Home Guard article, and the same for 'Mission' as I said above and 'Famous Marines'. Do you have any ideas? Skinny87 (talk) 17:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Ignore 'Famous Marines' which probably shouldn't have been there anyway. Personnel is probably covered in various parts of your history sections, but pull some bits out of there and write one or two paragraphs on where the LDV/HG men [just men?] came from. Pull bits out of history for the mission part too, and then write a few sentances summarising the changing mission. Don't worry about massive amounts of detail, just write a couple of concise sentances under each heading. I'm quite happy to review later if necessary. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 20:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Could I suggest that the 'culture' section be something like 'social impact and representations' so that it covers more than just Dad's Army and the like. For instance, George Orwell was a very enthusiastic member of the Home Guard and wrote extensively about it being a useful way of challenging the British class structure and democratising the British war effort. Nick-D (talk) 07:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The Home Guard is a more complex subject than the USMC and I would be wary of slavishly following the USMC structure. The HG was a product of the changing War situation and the current social structures and its evolving nature comes through its history, though a summation of its purpose is necessary for the intro. I would also avoid terms like "Mission" when a plainer term like "role" with do; and is possibly more approiate given its civilian makeup. The former always strikes me as a case of military jargon (like "organic strength") and plain english should be preferred (like "use" for "utilize"). There is a very good book out there on the Woman's role in/alongside the (notionally) male HG and also covers the social nature of the HG and the way it was treated in the public conciousness then and now. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:10, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Go with Graeme's advice Skinny when it conflicts with mine. Role is perfectly good instead of mission. Buckshot06(prof) 11:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

McCollum memo - expert help needed

I stumbled across McCollum memo - the only source is (to be polite) a crank site - can some of our crack WW2 experts give the article the once over? --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a trifle heavy on the conspiracy theory side, & thin on sourcing, but it's not a rant, & reasonably accurate as to facts. Does need some work. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 00:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Lexington class battlecruiser now open

The A-Class review for Lexington class battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States) now open

The peer review for 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Kostiuchnówka now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Kostiuchnówka is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

template move

Without prior discussion or warning the template externalimage has been altered in layout and moved to Template:external media. The one doing that did not alter the structure that's still centered around images while merging into it several other less popular templates called external video and external audio. I voiced my opinion about this unilateral step and would ask other to do so also because this template was developed as part of this project and is used by a wide range of articles within our scope(to see the full range of articles affected click ). Here is the discussion. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Commented, yes, it looks very ugly now. By the way Wandalstouring your comment wasn't exactly that civil…--Patton123 16:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I know, it was hard avoiding some four letter words, but I think, I kept it at an acceptable level. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok great. I shall keep an eye on the discussion untill this is resolved.--Patton123 16:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue has been mostly solved. Thumperwand is still doing some fine tuning of the new template in a sandbox, but it seems like an acceptable version is being created that maintains all the old features. That's a suggestion for everybody. Before you move templates and reorganize them, provide a test version in a sandbox and discuss it. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

edit war

I have been asked for help because of the disruptive behaviour of an editor. The result is a full fledged edit war of 2 vs 1. I would recommend if others dropped by in the crossbow article and voiced their opinions on the talk page. Greetings Wandalstouring (talk) 15:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Heinrich Bär now open

The peer review for Heinrich Bär is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 17:45, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for AMX-30 now open

The A-Class review for AMX-30 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 17:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Seperate articles for different designations of the same weapon

I've been working on M249 SAW but I wonder is it really necessary to have an article on the american designation of the Minimi? That's all the M249 is, a minimi. There are a whole host of articles like this, and are they really necessary?--Patton123 20:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It depends on their length. For example, the justification of having the AMX-30E article is that it contains information that would put the AMX-30 article way over the preferred length. If there is enough development history, or the weapon has a variation, then I'd say it was justified. Otherwise, they should probably be merged. JonCatalán^(Talk) 20:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Another project that has some overlap is WP:GUNS, you might want to run it by them as well. Parsecboy (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes if a variant has enough content to warrant an article of its own fine but the only difference between these two is a differently shaped butt.--Patton123 20:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for article

I am requesting an article be created for Lou Ann Rickley, the First female Harrier engine mechanic, first to fill the position of Series Chief Drill Instructor, 4th Recruit Training Battalion. Rickley was selected to become the second female Warrant Officers in the Marine Corps, and was the only Aircraft Maintenance Officer selected and promoted to Captain in 1999, and finaly the first female Aircraft Maintenance Limited Duty Officer in March 2005. After her retirement, she became the first Program Management Air 226 West Coast CH-46 Helicopter Manager. Primary ref: http://www.marines.mil/units/mciwest/basecamppendleton/Pages/JAN0814.aspx Sephiroth storm (talk) 21:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I kind of copied and pasted the above and created it. I only added a reference. Please review and see if there are some other references to add. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 22:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this person meets the WP:BIO notability criteria. Is there more than one independent source on her? Nick-D (talk) 06:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Partner peer review for Super Mario 64 DS now open

The peer review for Super Mario 64 DS, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Video games WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! Guyinblack25 ^talk 05:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

List of fictional military organizations nominated for deletion

List of fictional military organizations has been nominated for deletion, and the current discussion appears to be heading towards a no-consensus result. Editors with a view on this list are invited to comment on the article's AfD nomination. Nick-D (talk) 10:04, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Please look over this "War service" section of a new BIO article

I just created William Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir. The Daily Telegraph obit had quite a description of his service in World War II. I condensed that into two paragraphs in the War service section, but I don't really know anything about the particulars of military service back then. If someone knowledgable would look it over to make sure I haven't made some dumb-looking mistake, and maybe add the appropriate links, that would be very helpful. Thanks, Reconsideration (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I've check it over and the content is okay, but could do with some things put into paragraphs of their own and more detail of his earlier career and when he was promoted. I have also added some links for you. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk | _Sign 21:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! -- Reconsideration (talk) 22:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Just needs a tiny bit of tweaking. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 00:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

GAN Backlog

There is currently a backlog of military history article at GAN, with the number standing at 32, of which about 25 are unassessed at the moment. Would be nice to get some more reviewers over there! Skinny87 (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 130th Engineer Brigade (United States) now open

The peer review for 130th Engineer Brigade (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Images of dead combatants

FYI, there's a discussion about the use of photos of dead combatants taking here and here. MILHIST input would be appreciated. Cla68 (talk) 02:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Attention: Newsletter, The Bugle

Here is something which I believe should be mentioned in the next edition of the "The Bugle":

My DYK hook for the article Captain Ivan Castro drew 71,300 page views while it was featured on the Main Page on December 8, 2008. That's an all-time DYK record for most page views! The list of all-time top DYK page views can be seen here, and the Castro article is now #1: Wikipedia:DYKBEST#All-time best of DYK. Not bad, right? Tony the Marine (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I added it; tweak it as necessary to make it sound better. JonCatalán^(Talk) 17:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for SMS Moltke (1910) now open

The peer review for SMS Moltke (1910) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Request review of DCEETA

Can someone cast an eye over this version of the article in the light of the ongoing discussion on the talk page here.

It's becoming clear that the author who prefers that version of the article appears to have a few issues about the US Intelligence Community and the National Reconnaissance Office in particular and is using the article as a vehicle to vent his frustrations. I would contend that much of what he's trying to write is misrepresentation of the sources, synthesis, structured to avoid the suggestion that it is OR and contains excessive use of block quoting to circumvent this policy and others. There is also fairly explicit POV in this preferred version. This is also raised at the OR noticeboard but could do with some informed comment from here as well.

Cheers

ALR (talk) 17:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Iowa turret explosion now open

The A-Class review for USS Iowa turret explosion is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Flt Lt Arnold Walker

Help please! I want to write an entry for this highly decorated RAF pilot who died recently (won DFC and Bar). However there already is an entry for a Rugby League player also known as Arnold Walker... how do I go about it? Many thanks in advance --KizzyB (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe that WP:DISAMBIG has the information you need. – Joe Nutter 01:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, you might want to use Arnold Walker (RAF officer). There are already a number of articles disambiguated in this manner. Parsecboy (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The Telegraph obit refers to him solely by his nickname "Blondie" - Telegrpah Obit - would it be acceptable to use the name Arnold Blondie Walker as the entry title and disambiguate it on the rugby league players page? --KizzyB (talk) 01:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think Parsecboy's suggestion of Arnold Walker (RAF officer) would probably be the best way to go. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it would be proper to name the article Arnold Walker (RAF officer), but the introductory paragraph and dab link on the rugby players page could use the form with the nickname e.g. "For Arnold "Blondie" Walker see Arnold Walker (RAF officer)". If you are disambiguating, then additional information is useful, especially as the rugby player has a nickname in the same format in the first line of the article. You might also consider creating Arnold Blondie Walker as a redirect as it will make anyone searching on variations of Blondie or Blondie Walker etc find it quicker. Viv Hamilton (talk) 18:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would think it would be better to use his full name Arnold Edgar Walker. MilborneOne (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I have now completed the article on Arnold Walker (RAF officer). Please could someone check that this disambiguation of Arnold Walker (RAF officer) and Arnold Walker is ok? (It's the first time I've done it and want to make sure I've done it right so know for future.) Many thanks for everyone's input on this. --KizzyB (talk) 09:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that should be good. – Joe Nutter 15:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Need help in ID a WWII german capital ship

This image from the german federal archives was tagged as german light cruiser Emden, I assumed it's an Admiral Hipper class cruiser but I'm not really sure. External appearance may also be Bismarck or Tirpitz. Any suggestions? --Denniss (talk) 22:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Judging by the date of the photo, I believe that the ship in question is the ill-fated Blücher (Hipper class) a day before she was sunk during the invasion of Norway. Also, the Emden was present as well so it makes since. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree with that. The date and the "Emden" note agree comfortably... Shimgray | talk | 22:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Definitely Hipper-Class (similarities to Prinz Eugen give it away. It's too small to be a Bismarck (turrets give it away). I'd have to agree with MBK004's assessment. Cam ^(Chat) 23:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for help. --Denniss (talk) 07:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It's almost certainly Blücher; same photo as the first image on this page, identifying the ship as Blücher. This site appears to have several other images from the same day/position on Emden. Parsecboy (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Similarly this picture has the caption describing it as the alleged sinking of HMS Tiger at Dogger Bank, despite the name Lion being conspicuous on her stern. On a side note and since both Lion and Tiger were at Dogger Bank, did the Germans claim the sinking of Lion, Stöwer drew it and the archives got the caption wrong, or did Stöwer put the wrong name on the stern? The drawing isn't especially clear but it appears to be Lion depicted, with a turret between the second and third funnel, and only one turret abaft the the third funnel. Benea (talk) 09:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I've partially answered my own question, the Germans initially thought they'd sunk Tiger. The V-5 meanwhile seems to have carried out a torpedo attack on the Lion. Stöwer's picture and the subsequent caption writer seems to have confused various reports from the battle (the damage and fire suffered by Tiger due to the German battlecruisers' shells, the V-5's attack on the Lion), and produced a garbled account. This is perhaps a useful reminder to be careful when using these images! Benea (talk) 10:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly what the disclaimer of the Bundesarchiv(the source) says. Be careful, images can be tagged wrong. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Kokoda 'track' or 'trail'?

A discussion of the name of this battle has recently begun at Talk:Kokoda Track campaign. All editors are invited to participate in the discussion. Nick-D (talk) 07:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for John Whittle now open

The A-Class review for John Whittle is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Cobra now open

The A-Class review for Operation Cobra is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

C-class question

I probably missed the discussion here, so feel free to just link me to the archives: why is the MILHIST project not using the C-class? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You're very lazy. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military_history/Archive 80#New C-Class and Milhist. Wandalstouring (talk) 18:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

He is not lazy. I never even knew about the discussion until it was closed. I think that this should've been able to be known ahead of time so that we could all know about it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It was well-advertised: it was in the announcements template, it was open for two weeks. How do you mean "should've been able to be known ahead of time?" We saw it being adopted into 1.0, we asked the project what they thought, they offered their opinions. For future reference, what else would you liked to have seen happen? Woody (talk) 20:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually pay attention to the template. I thought that it would be advertised in the newsletter or something like that. I just would've liked to have known that this was going on because i'm sure there are many others out there were in the same position as we were. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

This page is the only one related to MILHIST that I watch. I didn't know about it either until it was almost over. IIRC tho, the discussion I saw had less than 20 participants total, not quite what I would expect for a project this size. I don't believe there would be any harm in revisiting the issue, given the questions being raised about the whole issue, and the circumstances of the decision. - BillCJ (talk) 02:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

This is where the discussion took place, so I am not sure how you missed it. I am not averse to re-opening it, but that is not my decision. There was a solid consensus at the time. What are the questions being raised about the whole issue? Woody (talk) 01:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I second Bill. The Start-Class is extremely disproportionate to the project. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Best may be to see whether significant support for C-Class develops during this discussion. (To this end, I'll add it to /Announcements.) Then, if there is significant support here, C-Class could be revisited, as a referendum, during the upcoming coordinator elections starting on Sep 15. Does this seem sensible? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Roger. Yes, that seems sensible to me. - BillCJ (talk) 09:35, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What happened at wp:ships is that C ratings were rejected at first but later on after some discussion we're now using the rating. Ship articles can only be rated a C if the B class checklist is filled out and the article meets criteria 3-5. That eliminates a potential drive by rating from other projects. There was a lot of concern over having to reassess all of the start articles to look for C's but that seemed rather overwhelming so we decided just to rate new articles with the class and reassess others as we run into them. In the few weeks since, we're only holding about 150 C articles currently. There is a disproportionate gap between start and B and in my observations there are a lot of start articles that are only missing one or two criteria to become B; mostly it's the lack of inline citations. A C rating might give editors an area to work in to bring those up to B without much effort. --Brad (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

A clear frenzy of activity in the last three days. Is that an indicator that there is little appetite to discuss this. Anyway, from my perspective, adding C class appears a bit nugatory, it takes us up to seven quality classes, which is more than a military analyst would use. It also pushes both quality gateways towards the top of the scale. Notwithstanding the actual value of the additional rules creep I do recognise that the majority rules and it's highly likely that the classification will be imposed on the project, predominantly as a result of fly-by assessment or dual project tagging where there will be an impetus around imposing it to avoid disparity. It does all seem a bit nugatory, but as with so much else it'll end up becoming the norm. Whilst we may not see the need for it in MilHist I'd suggest that what we do need to do is identify how we can impliment it with the minimum hassle and diversion of effort. (can you tell that I think it's 'kin pointless) ALR (talk) 11:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Support per Brad101 (WP:SHIPS' solution) (if this is even a vote =D) the_ed17 00:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I support the WP:SHIPS solution also. FWIW, I was a proponent of that solution, but I missed the change-over there! I must be getting old in my middle-age! - BillCJ (talk) 02:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I May not be as skeptical as ALR, but he brings a good point. It may seem to be a great idea, but does really need to be done? What problem does it fix, and is it worth the effort? Perhaps we can explore that angle a little more before we start casting votes. bahamut0013♠♣ 11:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the need for it, yes yes, bureaucracy is nice and comforting and structure has its uses, but I think that this goes a little too far. That you need sources to get an article out of start class is a good thing, and should remain as incentive. Narson (talk) 12:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

bureaucracy is only nice and comforting to a very special kind of person; REMFs.

Structure and process should only be supported where they add value and don't get in the way of conducting operations and achieving the objective. First principle of war - Selection and Maintenance of the aim. If the aim is to bog down Wikipedia in superfluous process steps and nugatory admin burden then someone is succeeding :)

ALR (talk) 17:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I will not repeat my arguments here, but if you go in the talk page of WP:GREECE you'll see why I regard this category as useless and a "burden". Quality scale before the adoption of C-Class was already comprehensive. No reason to add another category.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Yannismarou. There is no real need to adopt another class, and besides, it isn't really that hard to achieve a B-class article, and what would we rather? A vast range of C-class articles or B-class? We have the B-class check lists for a reason; it acts as a guide to measure how close an article is to B-class. What is the point of adopting C-class when it will do basicly the same thing? Well, there is my two cents to opose C-class. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I support the C-Class thing. I think that even though it is easy to achieve C-Class, having an article isted as C by many projects and Start by this one makes one wonder. I whink that we might as well try this in a democratic way again. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Although this discussion has now been open for nearly six weeks, there have been even fewer participants than at the original discussion and I cannot see much support for introducing C-class. May I suggest that we perhaps defer this by six months, and revisit the question about the time of the March 2009 coordinator elections? This will give us all an opportunity to see how C-class is working elsewhere and re-evaluate it in that context. Can the supporters of C-Class live with this? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment, I see what you mean but I also think that since this started from a simple question, some people might not read the comment area correctly. I think that a more formal proposal might invite more people to join in. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

C-Class arbitrary break

I just found this flying by. It is important enough to comment; I think many contributors are missing the point. We do not assess articles just to amuse aourselves, but to help others. Thus a standard assessment scale to tell either a random reader or an editor not accustomed to this field how good an article is. This only works if the grading is consistent right across wiki. There can not be different standards applied at different projects. In particular I would point out that the standard assessment criteria for referencing a B article is a bare single book mentioned as a general reference for the entire article. This is explained at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment, citing the progress of an example article at the bottom of the page. The criteria are not intended to be variable by different projects. Or, more precisely, you can add extra tests, make up your own grades with different names, but if it is implied you are using the standard scale, then it should be by the standard criteria.

As to C grade. It requires no referencing. The reason for introducing it is that the current grading system is failing to properly separate out articles, they are all becoming lumped into class Start, not least because people are excessively marking them down. The system is currently grossly top-heavy with grades for articles considered near-perfect, even if the 'official' criteria are used. The point of the sytem is to help readers, and it fails to do so if it lumps most articles into the same category.

As to introducing C, I don't see why this is a difficulty. Articles in category Start will naturally be considered for promotion from time to time. Whereas they might fail B, someone can now mark them as C. I don't see why it is necessary to have a sudden drive recategorising everything. The sooner a decision is made by editors to use the grade, the sooner it will be done without anyone having to especially go out and do anything. Any number of article split away from the start pool is a benefit to readers. Sandpiper (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the good old If you don't agree, you're missing the point riposte. Cracking.

Anyway, if the point of C-class is to improve the grading system for readers then it would make a lot more sense to rationalise at the top of the system, rather than add padding at the bottom. As identified above, there are currently three hurdles at the top to be gone over and it's not clear to the casual reader how each of them are distinguished from the other. How exactly do A, GA and FA relate? for the casual reader it's not at all intuitive.

The way to resolve ambiguity in any knowledge system is not to layer on more administrative burden and opacity for consumers of the knowledge. A classic self licking lolly.

ALR (talk) 11:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It strikes me that one reason why this argument is flawed is because the vast majority readers at the moment don't actually know what class any particular article is. The casual reader - and we should not assume that this reader checks talk pages - is only told about stub-class (with a stub notice) or FA-class (with a star in the top right).

For editors, Stub/Start/C/B/A assessment is normally done within projects. Different projects currently apply different standards to articles, such that a single article can easily have more than one quality assessment - and these assessments can be quite different. Indeed, the page you cited tells us that "different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as this". So far as I can see, your argument assumes a consistency in assessment standards that doesn't actually exist and probably never has. Pfainuk talk 12:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. The 1.0 grading system has never been a reader-oriented one; its primary purposes, from the beginning, were to (1) aid in the selection of release version articles and (2) allow participating WikiProjects to organize their workload. As a practical matter, 99% of readers will have no idea of how the system works or what the different levels really refer to (much less the arcane details of how grades are actually assigned); merely introducing another level is not going to help them at all. Kirill ^(prof) 12:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I am sure you guys here will continue to do as you please, but hopefully you be pleased to do something which helps people other than just history project members. As you say, the system was originally intended to identify articles considered sufficiently good to present to the general public, and upcoming candidates. It must be obvious (?) that this requires consistency across projects. The criteria may vary, but in each project the result has to be to identify articles considered satisfactory. OK, maybe, for example, history requires more citations than physics? I don't see this myself. Yes, change the criteria specifically to suit the subject, but points which apply equally across subjects need to be graded equally across subjects. I suspect the assessment people are being polite when they suggest people should do assessment as they think best. I agree, it is a good starting point for an uncertain system. I am being deliberately more blunt, because I want the assessment process to be more useful than just picking a few cream articles.

The pressure for extending and expanding the grading system is because of criticism against wikipedia, that it is unreliable. This is being countered by trying to grade articles, which at least those interested can check. I think wiki is over sensitive to such criticisms and is over reacting, but I think a good grading system would be very desireable irrespective of the motives pushing it. I think, to return to my favourite example, that the great majority of readers do not care one bit if an article has no references whatsoever. They must mind a lot more if a big chunk of a topic is missing. Once a rating system becomes establish and CONSISTENTLY applied, it must become a feature of the article page, so readers will know how good we think a page really is. My own objective is a tool for readers.

By the way, I like the notion of a check list, congratulations if it originated here. I think it helps consistencey to make the process as automatic and clear as possible. It struck me though, that rather than check boxes you should have grades, say 0-5. So 0 is no refs, 1 one general ref, 2 multiple refs, 3 general refs plus some inline citations, 4 general refs and citations on at least per-paragraph level, 5 refs just about everywhere anyone could wish. (not a definitive proposal). My central suggestion is that level grading of individual criteria would make the overall assessment much easier. The same grades would automatically carry over to assessing the next grade up rather than having to start over with a different set of check box questions.

I agree the current top-end grades are a mess. Because they are the result of combining different grading systems which overlap. But the area which needs work most is the area which contains most articles. As an Alternative to having a C grade, make B and GA criteria easier so more articles are promoted into the higher grades. I suspect GA might simply be abolished as I also am not quite sure what it does.

Oh, and ALR, please be civil. Ridiculing the style of argument does not address the objections raised.Sandpiper (talk) 17:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I regret that you are offended by my observation that I think many contributors are missing the point wasn't the ideal way to get people to take your arguments seriously. Notwithstanding that, I remain to be convinced that the way to improve a defective system is to increase the complexity. If it is recognised that the top end grading is not adding value, then concentrate on rationalising that. I agree that once administrative cruft is in place it is extremely difficult to get rid of it again, so I would recommend putting the effort in there. Once the top end is rationalised, that is the time to actually look at the whole thing again and see if there is a need for anything further.

In practice, by adding C class and removing GA one has only reworked the various boundaries. That is a much easier communication message to manage than wandering around imposing additional admin overhead, then coming along a little later imposing more to accommodate a deletion of a grade. That said I have no confidence that GA can be removed, there are far too many statist opinions present amongst the various users who haunt the burgeoning portfolio of rules, procedures, noticeboards, governance and punishment mechanisms. Administranium is a self sustaining, and self perpetuating brake on progress.

ALR (talk) 18:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with his "grading" scale...not 1-5, but maybe 0-2, for simplicity's sake. Cheers, ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 19:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not arguing the details here, but I think it needs to be reasonably ambitious. The bottom grade,0, is none and the top has to be 'perfect'. So how many useful steps are there in between? There are currently 7 article grades, do they all expect the same level of referencing?

I agree 'missing the point' may have been tactless, but I still feel the preceding debate did exactly that. I also think that if the B grade is to be placed where some here seem to want it (rather high), then it has to have more grades placed below it. Normally a B is the second highest grade, and that was how it started out on wiki. Now it is 4th from top and 3rd/4th from bottom. Should be a below average article, if you discount C. FA makes sense,'featured', but GA 'good'? No one here seems happy to downgrade 'B', so the only alternative is to create more gades below it (and yes, I used the plural). I don't see that the new C necessarily has to disturb the definition of B at all. (though on the whole there is a current paranoia over referencing)

I also note that right now a grading process is being undertaken by the history project at the request of the editorial assessment team on articles to be published on DVD, and that the history version of assesment grades are being used instead of those requested by the editorial team. Now, is that insane, or what? An impartial observer might suggest this is upsetting the whole process. Sandpiper (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that a highly technical argument over the precise semantics and number of grades may be missing a more fundamental disagreement here. It's my view that subdivision on the lower end of the scale is fundamentally unproductive; all it really accomplishes is dividing a large group of inadequate articles into smaller (but somewhat arbitrary) groups of articles which are still inadequate. Any article below our (not particularly stringent, in my opinion) standard for B-Class is essentially an early, rough draft. It may be more or less rough, as the case may be; but moving an article from containing 80% uncited material to containing "only" 60% uncited material is not, in my view, sufficient cause for advancing it along a grading path (in the same way that moving it to, say, 0% uncited material would be).

Obviously, you seem to disagree with that stance; and I'm not sure that we could really come up with a precise grading scheme that could satisfy both of us, given the existence of such a fundamental disagreement. Kirill ^(prof) 00:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the increasing divisions of the various sub-B class articles is getting pointless. Articles that are worse than B-class clearly lack all but the bare bones of finished article. Even the "strict" milhist criteria isn't very strict at all, because a lot of guys self-assess and sometimes even rank articles with two-three paragraphs as satisfying the comprehensivity criteria. Secondly, regardless of what the criteria actually say, anything from GA down is a one-person assessment, and a lot of people have rather varying interpretations of the same guideline, or in a very small minority, they just ignore them altogether and just inflate the rankings. This tends to happen among some small minority of people who generally regard themselves as "seniors" within a WikiProject, and as they tend to implicitly take credit for the success of the project (Whether they actually improved any articles themselves) they do have an inclination to pass any old junk through. I'm not referring to anyone here or in this WikiProject, but one of the main guys who proposed and trumpeted the C-class criteria, well he is always engaging in grade-inflation. He does 90+% of the assessments for his WikiProject. I used an article size tool to do a calculation. For WikiProjects India, Pakistan and Vietnam, their B-class article is on average 27kb in size. The WikiProject of the C-class guy, on average has B-class articles that are only 14kb in length. When I checked it on the Start-class articles, the PAK/IND/VIET average size was about 6-7kb and the C-class guy's WikiProject had the mean size only 3.5kb. His median start-class article was 1.9kb in length and about 20% of the start-class articles were even less than 1.4kb in length! Now that there is a C-class grade, I checked what he did and most of his C-class articles were only 3-4kb in size. All this is doing is just promoting artificial inflation. Soon we will have Z-class inflation for Zimbabwe, if this trend continues. It's just going to end up wasting more time doing nothing. And per Kirill. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Luckily, because MILHIST is one of the biggest projects and a lot of people think it is good, there is little incentive/latent urge to inflate rankings to move up the WikiProject rankings because it is already ranked highly. I see a lot of smaller WikiProjects tending to have nonsensically soft ratings which is probably an indication of a latent urge to prove that the wikiproject has "come of age". The same thing seems to happen on a lot of the smaller wikis, but not on en.wiki, which is already miles ahead and has no need to inflate an edit count to win any statistical races. But on smaller wikis, lots of them create thousands of one-line stubs en masse, without even bothering with an infobox. The Marathi Wikipedia created a few hundred cricket stubs, and when the interwiki links came up, they all consisted of an empty infobox, and an expand template. About half did not even have a sentence, and for those that did, they all had the same sentence (which I couldn't understand) but it was obvious that the same sentence could not be relevant for all the hundreds of articles. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

This argument may have come full circle, because I have the urge to once again say 'you are missing the point!'. More precisely, you are making a different point. You are saying you are only interested in artcles which are truly excellent, and only interested in ranking from very good upwards. Ths is only helpfull if you wish to create a tiny sample of showcase articles. It does not help create a general source of information. If I look something up I want to find an entry on that subject and a measure of how good the information is.

You bring up a different criteria, length. My experience of the best articles is that the difficulty is keeping down the length, not increasing it. But length depends upon subject and is not an aim in itself, more a question of organisation. It sounds to me as though the chap you are talking about is creating what I would describe as a good grading system, which distributes articles between the grades. Wikipedia desperately needs a good grading system available to the public. I have never regarded having many top grade articles as a lifetime goal. My goal is a useful encyclopedia, not a showcase for rarities.

Kiril, my view has always been that most readers care little or nothing about referencing. Referencing is mainly a tool for wiki editors to use for convenience when creating articles. There is a risk, in fact a reality, of excessive emphasis on an editing tool while completely missing the central issue of how good the content is. My reason for becoming involved with this was because I was repeatedly meeting history artciles which were being marked down from being a B because they were poorly referenced despite very good content. This is not clever. I like the checkpont system, I have no problem whatsoever giving every article a grade on its referencing, but I have a big big problem on reducing overall grade on this one technical requirement. The debate here (and elsewhere) shows that even people who want to mark down on absence of refs are acknowledging the actual articles are factually OK. wiki in general has exactly the opposite problem to th UK public examination system. There, the pressure is to give everyone the top mark. Here, the pressure is to give everyone the bottom mark. Neither course is sensible. Either spread the articles between the existing grades, or introduce new ones to break up the mass of articles. The need for a C grade is precisely because people are marking the higher grades harder. Sandpiper (talk) 08:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Setting aside, for the moment, the questions of how important references are to readers—personally, I suspect that you're underestimating their impact—and of whether citations are desirable in and of themselves, let's consider the evaluation of an article's quality in practice. Without proper referencing, we're fundamentally unable to determine whether the content of an article is good or not; indeed, we cannot even provide direction on how to evaluate the content, beyond "go look in a library". It may very well be that you happen to be an expert on the topic of an article under discussion (although we would likely have no way of verifying that, and would therefore be unable to use even that as a basis for evaluation); but the vast majority of us are not.

If the assessment system is to function over the entire range of articles we cover—over 70,000, at last count—then it must use criteria that do not require the presence of a topic expert, at least in the initial stages. By far the most useful of these in practice, in terms of reducing false positives, is quality of citation; with very few exceptions (mostly highly controversial articles or deliberate attempts to game the citation requirements), there is a direct and substantial empirical correlation between the quality of an article's citation and the thoroughness with which it covers the topic. Simply put, an overwhelming proportion of well-cited articles are well-researched articles, while a much smaller proportion of not-well-cited articles are well-researched articles.

So, yes, if we had several orders of magnitude more time and labor available, we could perhaps use alternative means of evaluation which would not rely so heavily on the quality of referencing; but, as a practical matter, given our currently limited resources, we will be fundamentally unable to assess even a fraction of the necessary number of articles without relying on it. Kirill ^(prof) 00:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This has veered somewhat from the topic under argument, which is not the importance of referencing, but the desireability of a c-class. All your comments, Kiril, are arguments in favour of having a C-class, which obviously will be articles inferior to B-class. You are proposing an alteration of fundamental wiki policies, which continue to state that referencing is only required for contentious points.

I understand the point you make, that referencing makes checking and assessing an article easier. Again, this is my point: that the purpose of referencing is as an editors tool, and not an aid to readers. I do wonder whether wikipedia and the internet have not changed the way education and study work, in that information from the internet is much more difficult to check for quality than that in a book. Almost all books come with a sole guarantee of accuracy, that the author personally asserts it is correct, but that is uniquely what we cannot do.

I am only here because of a recent interest in WWI naval history. Beside me is a book about destroyer actions, written in 1956 by a naval officer. I intend to use it as a reference. It happens that I am also certain it contains a number of significant mistakes. I have other books here which contradict it. This illustrates nicely the difficulty with sources, I could base an entire article upon it, with other supporting and recogniseable refs, and thus substantiate some major blunders. A source does not guarantee accuracy. The ONLY guarantee of accuracy is an expert on the subject. It may be that a wiki editor can become an expert by reading all those references and judging between them. This is what wiki editors do. wiki does not remove the need for experts by having references. Indeed, it creates a trap, because we may believe we have become experts by reading those sources, but have missed something a real expert would know. A bigger trap is simply to count the references, presuming they accurately reflect the source.

The difficulty is that an article's quality is being equated with its level of referencing, just as you outline. The two are not the same. I would be entirely happy to rate an article on more specific grounds, one grade a mechanical count for referencing, one grade an editor rating for content, one for style, whatever categories people think are important.

You are saying that you canot make a grading for accuracy because you are not an expert, and instead will only make a grading for referencedness. I don't believe that is helpfull to a reader. You argue that indirectly it helps, but I don't agree. Or at least, I take your point about practicalities, but that simply overlooks the ability of editors as informed people familiar with a subject to make a general evaluation of its quality. In debating generally this point on mil hist in various places, I have read a dozen comments on the lines: 'the article is fine, but it hasn't got any refs'. Editors here do believe they are capable of assessing accurate content.

So to return to the issue of a C-class. This discussion simply says that you wish to restrict all classes B upwards to articles with multiple references. I think this is silly (you may agree, you may feel this is too many classes or have other issues with the scheme), but irrespective my own perspective demands a place for articles which have been assessed by us experts as having good content. Thus the need for the C. I will, however, continue to argue that the mechanical existence of references does not guarantee, and can never guarantee, content (especially if it is regarded as a purely statistical test). The only possible assessment of quality is the opinion of an editor evaluating the content.

It strikes me that the statistics you quote are chicken and egg: while the presence of refs may statistically indicate a good article, this is only because someone has spent time inserting refs to make that perfectly good article meet this requirement. People will only bother inserting those refs because they could already see it was a good article and worth the trouble. They already knew it was good, so why couldn't they just mark it as such? Refs might be an easy method for just picking out an article already worth uprating, but it is not an adequate condition for dismissing others without proper consideration. Sandpiper (talk) 21:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

C-Class redux

And what I think most have forgotten in this discussion is that C is easy to implement using the B class check list. If done correctly, the article can't be assessed C unless the checklist is there and certain criteria have been met. Otherwise, those who don't like the C rating don't have to use it. Out of 78,000 articles only about 3,500 are falling into B or higher. Expect that out of the remaining 74,500 articles only about 1.500 more will ever meet or exceed above B. Expecting anymore than 10% of total articles to become "acceptable" is highly unrealistic. --Brad (talk) 01:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Though I opposed it during the W1.0 straw-poll, I can see that C-Class arguably has some advantages, not least as an administrative tool. The major problem we have as a project is the vast number of low-level articles within our scope: by now, at least 75,000, with perhaps another 5,000 lurking out there untagged for Milhist. Many thousands of these are potentially C-Class but it will take a mountain of work to identify them.

An alternative approach is to use C-Class purely as a stepping stone to B and for identifying articles which are close to B. An example of how this might work is that any article which has a complete B-class checklist but which fails B on just one (or perhaps two at a pinch) criterion becomes C-Class. If C-Class is thus kept selective, it gives us a manageable reservoir of articles which, with some work, can become B. There is no benefit in having a huge C-Class because we don't have the resources to upgrade the material within in.

Such an approach might work well organically, as you say Brad, or within other drives but I'd be wholly opposed to embarking on the Herculean (and to my mind overloading) task of identifying all the potentially C-Class articles within our scope. However, this is to some extent academic as Milhist consensus is - for a variety of good reasons - currently strongly against it. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As a footnote I can remember articles I assessed in T&A 2008, failing B class only because of a lack of citations, if I am reading this correctley would they would now quailify as C class if the project adopted this grading ? Is there a quick way of seeing all teh start class articles in the project Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are reading it correctly. The list is here Category:Start-Class military history articles, currently 37,000 of them. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

DOH MY BRAIN HURTS , of course thats where they were thanks Roger

So if this is correct Category:Military history articles needing attention to referencing and citation we have identified just over 16,ooo C Class articles that just need start changed to C Class, as mentioned above a Herculean task Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this should be done with a specific drive though it could perhaps be done with template changes. This would involve changing the {{WPMILHIST}} template – the one with the B-class checklist. At the moment, the template assigns B-class if all the parameters are "yes" and "start" if they aren't. If the template could be modified to put articles with just one "no" into C-class, the whole thing could be done automatically. Whether this modification is practical, I couldn't say. Kirill is the template expert, as he put it all together. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm reasonably certain the template could be modified to support that. Kirill ^(prof) 12:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That would seem a good soloution if its possible, but just how much support is there for a C Class ? I voted against it last time and I have not yet seen anything to change my mind and if we do adopt it are we then opening the door to a D class using the B class checklist

• ticks all the boxes = B
• ticks 4 out of 5 = C
• ticks 3 out of 5 = D ?
• ticks 2 out of 5 = Start
• ticks 1 out of 5 = Stub

Where will it end Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It will end by bot linking c,d, etc to criteria for choosing B:C class is defined by the assessment team at a lower level in all respects inferior to B, so it could be a fail on every B level. That is the normal way such things are organised. Sandpiper (talk) 08:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I am coming round to the idea that it will be useful administratively. We have so many articles, it's good to find ways to break them into slightly more bite-sized pieces. Your mileage may vary :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:SHIPS uses the same B-Class checklist as WP:MILHIST and has adopted the C-Class rating. To be assessed as C-Class for WP:SHIPS, the articles must meet criteria 3 through 5. I just yesterday modified Template:WikiProject Ships/Class to properly auto-assess C-Class articles. Changing Template:WPMILHIST/Class to do the same is trivial (and in fact I've taken the liberty of creating a template sandbox that contains these changes in case C-Class is adopted by MILHIST and/or for testing.) — Bellhalla (talk) 14:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, very helpful. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Roger, I agree with you that the implementation of additional classes could assist in finding articles which are currently sub-standard but could be brought up to standard without great effort. Like many people have referenced above, the majority of articles under our project's scope are below B-class now, and many of them could become B-class or better with minimal work. However, I feel that these articles in question have already been identified. Category:Military history articles needing attention and its sub-categories lists thousands upon thousands of articles that could be improved upon. I will admit that many of these articles are in need of severe attention, and there is no simple way to sort them without looking at each individual page (an arduous process to say the least).

I don't think the problem is necessarily identification of the articles in need. Eveywhere you look, there are articles to be improved upon; simple probability shows that because the majority of our articles are in need of some form of attention, any given article will probably be one of them. I will also concede that an editor may find an article in need of help, and decide to pass on it because it needs a great deal of work.

My main point is that the resource to identify articles in need of help already exists, and that a new assessment class simply duplicates that resource. I would be interested in hearing any arguments about other possible advantages of the C-class. My opinion, still open to change with a convincing argument, is that the C-class would add nothing of value, and simply serve as instruction creep and self-feeding bureaucracy. bahamut0013♠♣ 22:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, that it simply adds another potentially useless feature. I say that you can never go wrong with more specificity in assessments, as it helps reader see exactly what type of article they are looking at. I see both sides of this issue and I am wary of the argument of "where does it stop?" but I don't think adding a C class would hinder the project, and if anything it could help it just a little. Either way I don't think it is a big or drastic change. --Banime (talk) 23:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The proposed manner to implement this rating hardly adds instruction creep or bureaucracy. If you're filling out a B-class checklist it is simply a matter of filling it in and the template will assign the rating accordingly. As long as there is a "start" in the class rating it will add B or C automatically. This is no-brainer assessment. --Brad (talk) 17:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I say that if it can be done more or less automatically, let's go for it.... —Ed 17 for President _{Vote for Ed} 17:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If I might comment as an "outsider" to the Project? I think MILHIST in general - and the B class checklist in particular - has played a large part in the class "inflation" which in turn led to other Projects perceiving a need for a C class to fill the gap that opened up below B. I understand the right of Projects to tailor the grading system to their ends but in practice it does have ripple effects across the whole of Wikipedia, and it is helpful if people stick to a single system as far as possible. For me the absolute cornerstone of the grading system is GA, which is defined as "approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia". It's the only really objective definition in the system - if you were to copy and paste the equivalent article from say Encyclopedia Britannica or Jane's Fighting Ships, that article by definition would exceed the GA threshold. The way I see it, every article should be capable of reaching GA - if you think only 10% of articles will make it then you need to rethink your understanding of the GA criteria. For instance, take a moderately significant battle in one of the best-documented wars of all time, the Battle of Lyngør. It wasn't much more than one ship sinking another, so the article is never ever going to be look like the Battle of Waterloo (a GA of almost 100kb). In fact at 5kb it's already looking close to what you might find about that battle in a professional encyclopedia. Obviously it needs referencing, the lead could be a bit longer and a map would be nice - but even a map might be the sort of thing you'd expect in a treatise on the Gunboat War but not a professional encyclopedia. I can imagine that for many MILHIST articles, a GA might consist of only 2-3 paragraphs (plus references etc).
Once you've got a firm idea of what the GA form of an article might look like, you can classify immature versions of the article. If you have only three grades below GA, then the greatest utility surely comes from saying that a stub represents 0-33% of progress towards GA, Start represents 33-66% and B 66-99% of a GA. In practice I think most people would regard stubs as maxing out at no more than 15-20% of a GA (if that), so if you start saying that a B class must be at least 90% of a GA then you can see how other Proejcts might have felt Start was starting to look unhelpful. Obviously as you go up the scale, "progress" is more about quality than quantity, so you might have 90% of the quantity of text when you're still only 66% of the way to GA, but I still feel that the MILHIST checklist is a bit too demanding of B classes. For instance, WP:1.0/B normally only requires citing of "important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged", and GA only requires direct citations for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons", whereas MILHIST requires inline citing of "all major points" for B class which I would view as more demanding even than "standard" GA let alone "standard" B. Hence my suggestion of class inflation on this Project. ;-/
On the C-class front, people should note that the definition of C class includes an article that "fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class" and "may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup." So saying that C class articles can only have one failure of B class criteria will once again lead to "class creep". If you're going to automate it, I'd say anything with two B class failures can be automatically assigned to C class - but there should be a way for even articles that technically fail all 5 criteria but "sort of" comply with all 5, can still be graded as C class as the "primary" definition of C class makes no reference to the B criteria.
Just in general, I think people should pay more heed to WP:CREEP - in particular the bit about "Page instructions should be pruned regularly. Gratuitous requirements should be removed as soon as they are added. All new policies should be regarded as instruction creep until firmly proven otherwise." Another alternative to the "overwhelming number of articles" would of course to implement some kind of importance scale. :-))) <dons flame suit> 82.3.242.144 (talk) 20:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting points. I agree that the threshold should be one or two B-class criteria fails but disagree with a broader discretion for articles which fail all five but "sort of" comply as it introduces complexity. The effort there, in my view, ought to go into improving the article (the bar for B-Class is really not high) rather than finding ingenious ways of circumventing the classification. To clarify, if we do introduce C-Class, it must be easy and painless. In other words, it must be an automated system that runs itself rather than manual input that tied up thousands of editor hours. This imperative takes the discretionary element out of the loop. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd favour the solution by WP:Ships. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see someone other than me commenting on grade inflation. Grading is not simply an exercise in identifying nearly-FA articles but also an attempt to classify all articles in a sensible way. Sensible does not mean 90% lumped into just one category. I also do not understand why people here are concerned about this causing a vast work load. It is not necessry to rush out and grade everything at once. It is simply necessary to grade things in passing when working on an article. I have posted elsewhere that I like the notion of a check list to help in grading (that is, help editors assign grades, not implement a computer algorithm to do it automatically). However, it is rather trying to fit the square block into the round hole to use a check list designed to assess B grade to determine C grade. C is below B, logically an article could be off on every point to a standard just below B, yet qualify for C. That is how it has been defined, and how anyone would define a grading system. I quite like the grading idea, but if you want to use it generally then a yes/no system is no good. It needs to have something like a 0-5 mark in each category, then you might, say, be able to semi automate and have a score on three points at least 1 and an average at least 1 for 'start'; all points at least 1, 3 points 2 and average at least 2 for 'c' etc. But you are subverting the idea of C to arbitrarily say it must be nearly as good as B. Any automated system needs to be flexible. I would also observe that your using a different standard to everyone else is downright confusing, and you should not be surprised that passers by will grade articles on the scale they are accustomed to using generally. Sandpiper (talk) 08:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

And just to demonstrate my objections to an over emphasis on checklists, have an in-depth examination of Francis Harvey. It's a FA., main page featured 14 September 2008 (Oops!). It had factual errors, and it still does. It reads like it was copied from a puff piece extolling the glory of Royal Marines. I spotted some likely factual mistakes. It is now significantly difference in its essential details than when it became FA. The reality seems to be that sources disagree on the exact circumstances, but you wouldn't know from reading it. I'm not criticising those that promoted it, but I am pointing out that judgement is needed when assessing, and time spent checking up on refs, etc. We come back to the big bugbear that the simple existence of a ref list doesn't guarantee anything. All this fuss refusing to accept the existence of low-end classifications, yet the system fails at the top. Sandpiper (talk) 09:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

But FA doesn't run on checklists, it's based on consensus. At FAC, different editors focus on different things and if the refs person is away, the article slips through the net. The advantage of checklists is that they act as reminders of what to look for and thus make assessment accessible to nearly all editors. They also provide a consistency that would be absent in a "gut-feel" system. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I looked it up yesterday, and I think you (Roger) were one of the people recommending that article for FA. I presume, therefore, you recommended it on the basis it had a superficially satisfactory refs list? I can't honestly say whether the article at that time was consistent with its refs, only that it contained errors. I don't mind reminders of what to look for, but you don't have a system like that, either: you have an automated one which requires the existence of a number of refs, irrespective of whether the article has bad content. This might 'make assessment accessible to nearly all editors' (excepting those interested in useful and complete articles?), but how does that help if it is only testing check points which ultimately do not guarantee accuracy? Contrariwise, although someone knowledgeable (or merely superficially knowledgeable like myself) might be able to see that an article respectably covers the topic, you consign it to start, or even stub, anonymity for the absence of detailed referencing which ultimately proves nothing unless it is thoroughly checked....which contradicts the argument for requiring refs in the first place (that it is an easy fix).

By the way, I quite often find that going off and reading the refs (particularly online ones since they are immediately accessible), can give quite a different perspective on the quality of an article. But the simple existence of a list of them in itself doesn't really prove much one way or another. Its not that I overly object to the 'so many refs is a B pass' idea, but I do object to the 'not enough refs is a B failure'. You can argue the simple existence of refs might be a good indicator of a certain quality (on the average), but it is impossible to argue their absence makes an article a bad one. Sandpiper (talk) 18:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

(reply to Roger)Trouble is Roger, this insistence on classifying C class with reference to the B class criteria is a classic WP:CREEP. Just use the standard definitions of C-class - it'll allow anyone to rate articles for the project rather than a small overworked coterie who understand the Project-specific version of the rules. I'd almost go as far to say that if you can't use the normal rules, you might as well not use C class at all. There may be scope to use a "tight" definition for an automatic classification, but the way I'd do it is define C class as per WP:ASSESS, but run a one-off bot to assess all articles with >3 B-criteria as a C class. Don't be like WP:Ships and incorporate a "narrow" definition into the template that is different to the definition that everyone else uses, consistency with the rest of Wikipedia is important, and the WP:Ships route gives a repeat of the problems with class creep seen with B class. But a one-off bot would get a useful number of the potential C class articles classified at relatively little effort, and the remainder can be done as people come across them, it's no big deal. And to be honest it's not terribly important if an article that is 52% of the way to GA is classified as a Start and one that is only 48% of the way to GA is a C. But it is useful to get some idea of which articles are <50% of the way to GA - I appreciate the importance of getting articles to GA, but getting rid of bad articles on subjects that are reasonably significant is at least as important. Those jobs may appeal to different people, but they're both important. Roger, I'd also disagree that "the bar for B-Class is really not high" - the MILHIST bar is significantly higher than that used by other projects, and the referencing criterion is arguably higher than the general standard for GA. The fact that >95% of MILHIST articles are of a lesser standard than B also suggests that B class is not as "easy" as you make out. JMO 82.3.246.14 (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

(reindent)I couldn't resist. Just couldn't. I just had a wholly typical example of what is useful about wikipedia. I am sitting here and there is a TV program about General Snow. I think, oh, wonder if wiki has anything about him. I look. Naturally, some complication finding him. But then....there it is. perfectly decent little article...and of course its a 'start'. With a little tick for coverage and accuracy...which is the only one which really matters. All I'm interested in is the facts. Like the majority of mil hist articles, its a 'start'. Like 95% its either start or stub. This grading system relegates the great body of wikipedia, which is its one greatness and unique strength, to the status of bad articles. Hmm. No one sees a problem with this?Sandpiper (talk) 23:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand several languages other than English and read other wikis. Unlike the English wikipedia they don't have an inline reference system and are considered rather unreliable by specialists on the subject. The inline refernce system on the other hand is the core reason why people also check the English wiki for refernces and literature on the topic. While inline citations don't guarantee highest standards, they can be checked and corrected. And since the argument is centered around this core of MILHIST article assessment, I admit being proud that we set it as a standard and don't give out lollies below it. Still, if there would be more people than Sandpiper and an ano (who finds a project page and a specific discussion, but isn't able to login), we could discuss the solution by WP:Ships and select the 1-2 easiest to fulfill criteria of the B-class checklist at no for C-class. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

C-Class redux redux

We already have several subcategories in Category:Military history articles needing attention, whose nature is self-explanatory. This is perfectly sufficient for administrative purposes.

I'm not crazy about lumping a few of these into an automatically-generated “C-class”, which may give the reader a sense that the article has been assessed as “okay”, but remaining oblivious about whether it just has a few minor missing references or has serious problems. —Michael Z. 2008-11-03 23:58 z

re 'military history articles needing attention'. You do mean the categories of articles which have failed a criteria for promotion from start to B? You are offering evidence that the project concentrates on B and above articles to argue that there is any attention on promoting stubs to starts, or bad starts to good starts? Surely you are making my point, that there is no differentiation of start articles between poor ones and good ones. C class should not be B class rejects but a class on its own with its own criteria all at a level lower than B. The only criteria which really matters is coverage and accuracy. Sandpiper (talk) 08:36, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I am making my point. I am objecting to automated classification of articles. And to the the idea of taking several categories of articles which aren't B-class for a great variety of reasons, and lumping them together into C-class which would give readers a false sense of their worth.

Please don't say I am supporting your point, which I don't think I even understand. But if you are saying that some articles which haven't been classified are better than other articles which haven't been classified, then you can add C, D, E, and F classes, and this will still remain true of all the others. —Michael Z. 2008-11-05 00:08 z

Well, criterion B-1 is coverage and accuracy; so if you're making the argument that it's the only criterion which matters here, then we could define all three classes as a function of the criteria:

• B: meets B-1 through B-5
• C: meets B-1, but not all of B-2 through B-5
• Start: fails B-1, may or may not meet B-2 through B-5

In essence, C-Class becomes the set of articles which have sufficient coverage and accuracy, but are missing other components for B-Class; and Start-Class becomes the set of articles which lack coverage and accuracy. Kirill ^(prof) 13:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I would be happier with that as the limiting requirement than any of the other criteria. If I was making the rules, I might do something like that and I think it would then be a worthwhile grade for the general public. Except, that it isn't what the assessment team have specified. Their definition of B is rather more like what you are suggesting now for C (given your own interpretation of the standards), whereas for C it specifically states the article is substantial but still missing important content. The issue is really that a C grade is defined as less good than a B in some/all respects, though still passing some alternative minimum standard. I understand you are looking for a quick fix, and I would be happier there is a compromise definition than none, but the principle being discussed here pegs the C grade to being a B grade annex. Having had that moan, there seem to be quite a lot of articles (maybe 10,000) which would pass on coverage and accuracy while failing other grades (an estimate, does anyone have a good figure on how many articles have a pass on this count but fails on others?), which would be a reasonable proportion of the whole start class to go into this grade. Sandpiper (talk) 19:35, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

If my figure is correct, actually I would be reasonably impressed that a category finally existed with recognised worthwhile content, and more than a tiny proportion of the articles in it. I find it a common sense contradiction that many people use wikipedia article for reference, yet wikipedia itself doesn't consider the articles they are using worth grading. Sandpiper (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The assessment team has no supremacy over the definition of B-class. Our version and its derivate are far more widespread and adopted on a voluntary basis. The problem is, most wikipedia contributions don't meet these B-class criteria, mostly because of a lack of inline citations. Obviously, the contributions are being made by contributers who don't care about the verifiability of their work. This is the core of the problem of wikipedia and the only solution is to keep the lowest project recognition at a level where complete verification is required, simply because people want that feedback to have the feeling of an achievement. You shouldn't confuse WP:Verifiability with complete coverage or nice to read. They're different animals. Thus the core of your arguments that there are complete articles out there with nice to read content maybe true, but who knows they are correct and who will ever be able to check them? Naturally, we have discussed improving wikipedia and now all our 10 viewed articles are B-class or above. The question is how many of the sub-standard articles are needed based on their access rate? Of course, we still do have lots of material that is often viewed and below B-class, but B-class is steadily growing and articles can also be safely cut back to a verifiable version per {{sources}}. Thus we are on the long march to a verifiable wikipedia. A C-class adds nothing but a hindrance because of the early feedback on a too low level. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I would have it the other way around. From the statistics, it would seem likely that most of the articles people are actually looking at are start or stub and their opinion of wikipedia depends on the quality of those, not the miniscule proportion of graded articles. To make wiki better, the most important thing is to deal with the great body of its articles. It is much better to improve the worst articles than fine polish the best.

I dont confuse content with 'nice to read'. your tick box B1 is referencing. Your tick box B2 is content. B3 is organisation. B4 is language. B5 is illustrations. You seem to be confusing B2, content, with B1, referencing. These are not the same (which is why they are separate, presumably). I am arguing the only one which matters to most readers is a reasonable standard of content (B2). You also confuse matters by claiming that because people do not insert inline citations they do not care if their work is verifiable. 'Verifiable' does not mean 'easily verifiable', it means 'verifiable in principle'. Making it easier for people to verify material may be nice but is not the essential requirement. It remains questionable just how useful all these references are to most readers. There is no requirement in WP:Verifiability to reference uncontentious facts. Sandpiper (talk) 00:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Philosophical debates aside (the discussion is admittedly very interesting, but I suspect we can argue the relative value of citations, content addition, and so forth ad infinitum without really reaching a conclusion), is there any practical interest within the project in implementing a C-Class by checking only one of the B-Class criteria, as outlined above? I can put together a prototype template if there is. Kirill ^(prof) 02:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The suggestion is that C-Class is for articles which meet B1 B2 but fail on one or more other B-Class criteria? A C-class thus formulated strikes me as being more a pat on the back for the author than of benefit to the project. If we go down the C-Class route, I would rather it applies to article that meet B1 but fail on only one other criterion. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, the request is to use B2 rather than B1. I suppose there may be some value to having a set of articles which are "content-complete" but require citation/formatting/copyediting to bring up to B-Class, since those are a good starting point for someone with the ability to obtain suitable references but little knowledge of what they should begin looking for; but I'm not convinced that we have many editors who would value such a selection, or that the content-completeness will be adequately assessed without references.

It would not be difficult to change the precise selection criteria after the fact, of course; the major time investment will be in creating the initial infrastructure for C-Class, not in changing the automatic assessment algorithm. Kirill ^(prof) 03:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, my first "B1" was a typo :( I've corrected the text above.

I really don't see much point in certifying that articles are "content-complete", especially when the decision is likely to be made by someone who is far from expert on the subject. I suppose this general caveat could apply to all the criteria, but this one seems the most subjective to my mind.

However, on the greater issue of incorporating C-class functionality, I'd say go ahead. The climate of opposition appears to be changing, albeit slowly. I don't know whether you saw it but Bellhalla has posted the patch used for WP:SHIPS here. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I've received the following message from TomStar81 which he's asked me to add to this discussion.

I am (albeit distantly) keeping tabs on wikipedia, and have been following the C-class discussions. After putting some thought into the matter I have come up with my own idea for assessing an article within our scope as C-class.

By our current B-class criteria most articles fail criteria 1 and 2, but pass 3, 4, and 5. I would therefore suggest two options for implementing C-class in the project:

1. Assessing article that meet 1 and 2 but fail 3, 4, and 5 as C-class, or

2. Assessing article that fail 1 and 2, but meet 3, 4, and 5 as C-class.

By alternating between these two criteria we can create a balanced C-class should we move to adopt such a system: option 1 allows for article that comply with the coverage, accuracy, and referencing, in which case an article could be graduated to C-class but held to the B-class criteria; if the article fails to maintain criteria 1 and 2, it gets demoted to start again, whereas option 2 would allow an article with a defined structure and visual medium that are larger free from major spelling and grammar mistakes to be promoted to C-class, which would enable larger articles within our scope but still at start to be promoted provided they meet B-class 3, 4, and 5. If any one of these three checks should be revoked the article would be demoted to Start-class.

In arriving to this conclusion I have attempted to wiegh the concerns of those who have stressed a need to maintain article quality and expressed concern over what C-class could do to that quality with the desire of those who want to see us adopt C-class, and after meditating on the matter (before and after my leave of absence from wikipedia) I came to the conclusion that this would likely be the best fit for all involved parties in the matter. Split like this we allow the B-class criteria to govern any advance on C-class on very specific grounds, and since most start class articles meet the criteria outlined in option 2 we allow for the immediate promotion of certain start-class articles to C-class thanks in part to the BCAD.

I invite you to present these options to the C-class group, if you want to, and see where the community lies on the matter. You can even copy/past the whole email if you want. I do not know if anyone will take to the idea, but I submit it for consideration none-the-less.

That's it, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) If we're going to implement C-class at all, I think that the most logical opinion would be to have B-2 (coverage/accuracy) as a required criterion for C-class, as that is the foundation for any decent article. Also, B-3 (structure) should be a required criteria, as it reduces readability if not met, but is also quite easy to fix. On the other hand, B-4, B-5, and B-1 are elements that need to met for the article to reach B-class. A C-class with at least B2 and B3 covered, would be prime candidates to be promoted to B-class after some work. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:29, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Let me make a comment here. If we choose to adopt the C-class (which, for the record, I am not in favor of), we need to be careful no to deviate too far from the Wikipedia assessment criteria, lest we confuse readers who are not associated with WPMILHIST. I'm not explicitly saying that is what we are doing here, but I see the potential to creep in that direction.

For example, the concept that an article which fails one or more of the B-class criteria is automatically better than a Start-class is flawed. Regardless of whatever criteria you pick as being essential for C-class, the article may not be "substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup." This is especially the case if the change is automated instead of done manually with the judgement of an experienced editor. bahamut0013♠♣ 18:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This went nowhere

Are we hopelessly stalled on the argumentative instead of the implementation? Can't hurt to try and if you don't like it, don't use it? I think its as simple as that really. --Brad (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)