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Archive 1Archive 2


Format Feedback

As noted, we have implemented a new format for the bugle, but are we requesting feedback on the format on what you like and what we could improve on. Please share your thoughts with us below. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Location of archived editorials

Do we want to move all editorials to subpages under this division, or would it be easier to move them into the essay space ("Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Essays/...") instead? I would imagine that many editorials will either start as essays or be suitable as standalone pieces after publication; given the vague distinction between the two types of documents, it might be easier to pool everything into the essay category and simply link things from here as needed. Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It might make sense to keep them all together. I agree there's very little difference between editorials and essays, and only the most recent is actually on a subpage of WP:MHNEWS. I completed the archive table by linking to past issues of the newsletter - is it worth moving past editorials when we decide on a venue? EyeSerenetalk 07:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Since nobody seems to have any other ideas, I've gone ahead and moved the last editorial over to the essay space and updated the instructions. As far as the older editorials go, it probably would be a good idea to save them off as individual essays at some point. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox military conflict

As this was done by Kirill there is probably no need for a reminder. But I had asked for a change to the Template:Infobox military conflict to include units involved as well as strengths. You probably know where this came from. Happy to say this has been done and we just need to publish it. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Cheers Jim - I've added a note to the Project news section to remind whoever writes it up not to forget to mention this. EyeSerenetalk 14:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

July newsletter

Copied across from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Coordinators#July_newsletter. EyeSerenetalk 10:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

With August now upon us (how fast the time flies!) We need to see about getting the July Bugle out there for the readers. The above links still need work, and I am open to ideas on what our editorials for the month should be on. I would also suggest that we consider interviewing Parsecboy since he has received only the second A-class medal with swords to be issued. A few words of encouragement for students may also be worth including being as how over the next eight weeks most students will be marching back to the classrooms for the new school year. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

  • An interview with Parsecboy would be a good idea.
  • Nick was developing an editorial (here) - I don't know how far along it is. I'll drop him a note.
  • We could also mention the new discussion as the main STT talk page here on developing a notability guide for units and formations (it's an interesting topic and might help the STT gain wider participation and publicity).
  • I don't know if we want to mention Monnriddengirl's copyright cleanup notice to attract helping hands?
  • Kirill's sorted the MILMOS split, so that should probably be mentioned.
...and that's it from me :) EyeSerenetalk 10:59, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Also, it just dawned on me that we will be holding our next coordinator elections in September, it may do to remind people of this so they can start thinking about weather they want to run or not, all the more so since the next election cycle will be the inaugural roll out of the one year term the members ratified in March. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:47, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Heh, I'd completely forgotten about that. Good point :) I think Nick's editorial will be ready shortly, so we're sorted for this issue. Do we want to put out a general request for editorials (maybe with reference to the missing articles on the main STT page) in this issue, or would that be information overload as there's quite a bit to go in already? EyeSerenetalk 07:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
PS: I've dropped Parsecboy a note about the interview. Awaiting his reply. EyeSerenetalk 08:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Good. On the matter of Moonriddengirl's copyright notification: why don't we run that as a special report and devote a full page to the matter. We can go over a time line for the edits and outline all the articles identified or suspected of being in violation of the copyright provisions here, and setting up the story in this manner could allow us to tie in a cleanup effort by setting up a spot on the main talk page where users can 'adopt' one of the suspected copyright articles and clean it up for a copyright barnstar or wikichevrons, depending on their preference. How does that sound? TomStar81 (Talk) 08:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I've just submitted my article via Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy think tank/News and editorials division. I'd appreciate it if someone (or some people!) could look it over for typos, nonsense, etc. Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks great to me - plenty of ideas there to get people thinking :) The only thing I wondered about was if it's worth mentioning our own notability guidelines in the Article worthiness section? EyeSerenetalk 20:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
That's a good idea - I've just added it. Thanks also to the people who've tweaked the article (though I've tweaked it back in one instance) Nick-D (talk) 08:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Heh, no problem. I was trying to avoid duplication of "surrendered" (it's used in the next sentence too), but I wasn't entirely happy with my edit because it did change the sense of your words slightly.
Re Tom's suggestion for a interview, I've left some questions for Parsecboy here - please anyone feel free to amend etc as you see fit. I've also passed the link on to Parsecboy. EyeSerenetalk 09:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Update: Parsecboy's kindly answered the questions (see Members section), and I've added Nick's editorial. I think that apart from the contest results, task force report, front page teasers and the odd tweak, we're approaching completion. EyeSerenetalk 20:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Glad to here it. I had a feeling Parsecboy would be open to an interview if we asked him. I have another suggestion I thought I might raise here: I would like to see our A-class and FA-class articles promoted during the month mentioned in the bugle with the intro text so that those reading through the articles promoted during the month can read up a little on the promoted article's material. This wold also allow us to include a picture in with the description, which I think would help improve the bugle even more. What do you guys think about this? TomStar81 (Talk) 21:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a weird coincidence. I actually had exactly the same thought yesterday and wrote something up for Ernest Augustus I of Hanover (basically a picture plus long caption that gave a very potted summary of the article). However when I previewed it, it pushed the next header down a long way and created loads of whitespace, so I didn't bother saving. If you're thinking the same though, maybe it's worth another shot :) EyeSerenetalk 22:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
This proves that great minds do think alike. I took a stab at reformatting, let me know what you think about the new format. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not a fan, it's too much wall-of text, and you've also used some fair-use images. You may be aware that those cannot be used in any namespace outside of articles. -MBK004 01:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
It might be best to just grab a single sentence from each article (generally the first sentence) as is done in the Signpost's regular Features and admins section. Nick-D (talk) 01:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
That might be better; the current blurbs are a little too long, I think, and the overall effect is closer to a wall of text than to a list of snippets. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed with the above. Just too much to read :-)  Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Noted, I'll pick and trim and see if we can't cut down on this somewhat. I'd like to have a little more than one sentence, but I'll take a stab at it and see where it goes. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I just learned that I am going to be on the road for most of the day tomorrow, so the trimming may have to wait. I'll take crack at it when I get back to the house (the one in El Paso). TomStar81 (Talk) 07:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the trimming. I also wonder about the additional workload we're taking on by summarising every article - one alternative might be to just pick an article from each section and summarise that (a sort of 'selected article of the month'). Obviously there's problems with that too... :) EyeSerenetalk 09:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

On a different topic altogether, can I suggest that the para in Tom's introduction which begins "Finally, we wish to extend our best wishes to all of our student contributors as the school year inches closer to starting." be omitted or tweaked - it's a bit northern-hemisphere (and US?) specific. The second semester in Australian universities started about three weeks ago... ;) (and I'm being forced to re-live how under-heated my university is twice a week as a result!) I do like the sentiment of it though. Nick-D (talk) 10:32, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe "school" changed to "academic" too? Dunno about in the antipodes, but "school" sounds very odd to British ears when used to refer to any form of post-16 education. Just being nitpicky really :) EyeSerenetalk 10:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll fiddle with the academic message a little later, for now I would like some feedback on the reformatting of the article page. I've implemented three different styles so everyone can get offer an opinion about the formatting: the first is a one or two liner about the article, the second just lists the article as we had before, the third options is the same as previously implemented (most if not all of the introduction) so you can window shop such as it was to see what works best for you. Based on the above comments I am guessing that option number one is going to have the most support, but I believe that there will be some suggestions for improvement on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Surely someone must have an opinion on the change? TomStar81 (Talk) 22:54, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

New page for The Bugle

I'd like to propose that we move the task force of the month out from its current project news section and create a new page for the TF of the month which would include special project and working group related news as well so that we can better cover these aspects of the the project. At the moment the special projects and the working groups have no official place for news within their scope such as it were, and the extra page would allow us a greater degree of ease in covering these areas.

On an unrelated note, what task force for the month should we cover? No one has written that section yet, and I would like to get some feedback on what should be covered for July. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:54, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's probably a bit late in the game to do a TF of the month piece, unless someone wants to write one in the next day or so. We should probably just publish with what we have at this point. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter delivery

Starting a new section for this as it's not really related to the above. Last month we seemed to go from the situation where members received either a link or the full newsletter on their talk pages, to everyone regardless of which section they list themselves in here receiving the full front page. Was this just a delivery hiccup or do we need to look at the options? EyeSerenetalk 11:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Hiccup, Tom forgot to tell Cbrown that everyone receives the shorter front page now (similar to the Signpost). ;-) It was only corrected about partway through the run.  Ed (talk • majestic titan) 02:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

August newsletter

Just noting here that Moonriddengirl has agreed to produce our August editorial, focusing on copyright vio detection and cleanup (I believe!). EyeSerenetalk 13:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! :-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:58, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

So, where do we stand with the August edition?

  • I assume Moonriddengirl is still up for writing the editorial?
  • We still need something for the "From the coordinators" block on the news page.
  • I'm not sure that copying an entire Academy article into the page is a good idea; it's fairly lengthy, and people will likely get bored and stop reading a short way into it. Perhaps we should have a brief introduction or summary and a link to the course, similar to what we have for FAs?
    • It was probably not a good idea, but I figured I'd add the whole thing and then let people trim what they felt was the excess information out of the page. In this case I thought it better to have too much than not enough. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:49, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
  • The "Task force of the month" section should probably not be introduced until the current discussion about the future of the task force system concludes; there's little point to starting up a series if we're going to make major changes to how things work in the near future.
  • The promoted articles need summaries.

Anything I missed? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

A few small points:
  • Are we tying Moonriddengirl's article into trying to drum up support for the current copyright cleanups? I'd be happy to oversee a drive, hand out awards etc (perhaps even a custom-designed milhist copyright cleanup award!) if we decide to do this.
  • Although Tom's mentioned the current TF brainstorming session at the STT, I wonder if it might be nice to split this out into a regular "STT report" sub section (in the same vein as the TF of the month subsection).
  • The front page text about receiving the newsletter needs tweaking to reflect current practice.
I think that's all :) EyeSerenetalk 08:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Having a section for the STT would probably be a good idea; we seem to be getting enough activity that we can put a couple of things in it every month, and it would help prevent the coordinator section from becoming a grab bag of all the project's news. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Update re the editorial: Moonriddengirl's about finished (I've added a link to the submissions table on the project page), but she's concerned that it might be too long. I understand where she's coming from, so I think we've got two options:

  • Trimming
  • Split into a two-part series

I favour the latter (per my post on my talk page here), but I wonder what others think? EyeSerenetalk 11:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to take either approach. Just let me know your will, o Military History Project. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
My will would be that you stand in the upcoming milhist coordinator elections, but WikiProject Copyright Cleanup would never forgive me :) To clarify my earlier post (since we've moved here from my talk page), my suggestion for splitting the editorial is:
  • This issue: What copyright violation is, and why it's bad
  • Next issue: What we do about it
This might entail additional work for our honoured guest (for which I apologise!), but would I think retain the current excellent content and probably be no less work than trimming to a single issue. EyeSerenetalk 12:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with this option. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:33, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I concur as well. Additionally, I wonder if Moonriddengirl would be open to the idea of having this two part editorial become an academy piece when all is said and done. From what I see it has the potential to be an excellent course, all the important aspects of our existing courses are in the piece and this would help us in the long run with copyright issues for the newbies. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 18:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Great minds do think alike (or as my mother always used to add: small ones seldom differ...) I mentioned the very same to Moonriddengirl as part of the reason for our request for an editorial. I think it'll make an excellent addition to the Academy. EyeSerenetalk 19:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Definitely a good idea. I assume we'll publish it in two segments and then place both on a single page for the Academy? Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I think that makes sense - we may want to split it into individual lessons at some point (or equally maybe not!), but a single page seems sensible for starters. I've updated Moonriddengirl on the consensus here and offered our assistance for the final phase of preparing the two editions (if she wants it, of course). EyeSerenetalk 09:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the editorial is the only thing we're waiting on now? Or are we still missing something else? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Just the editorial. Moonriddengirl has not yet added it to the letter, which is why we have not yet sent it out. I intend to ping her about that on Tuesday since its a holiday now, but I would like to get the newsletter out this week. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl is aware of the consensus here - she's busy though so I've taken a stab at organising her article into two editions (link here; sections are divided by the blue header banner and designed to be complete pages in themselves ready for copy/pasting hence the cite error). If we're all happy, I think we could probably go ahead and copy the first section across into this month's editorial page. EyeSerenetalk 07:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I've been bold and pasted the first section across :) What do we think about using the blue sections headers? I'm not convinced they are particularly readable, but if they're ok and no other alterations need to be made I think we're good to go. I'll leave Moonriddengirl a note asking her if she doesn't mind looking over everything first though. EyeSerenetalk 08:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The headers seem a bit washed-out; if we're going to go with coloring them, it'd probably be better to use steelblue rather than lightsteelblue. I'm not sure why we wouldn't just use either the section header blocks or regular headers, though. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Good point :) Used normal headers instead - better? EyeSerenetalk 12:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Warship Good Articles

Hi the Warship Good Articles has just reached 292 and there are at least ten waiting to be reviewed. Getting to 300 would be a good milestone to include in the next edition of the newsletter.--Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

September newsletter

I've posted up part II of Moonriddengirl's article; she's away for a few days so any editorial input would be welcome :) EyeSerenetalk 10:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We're waiting on a couple of things, notably the expansion of the articles section and the project news. I can finish off the articles stuff tomorrow afternoon when I get back from Spanish, and my recommendation would be that we continue w/ tradition and have the lead coord (Nate/Parsec) write the project news section about the coord-election results. Thoughts? Comments? Cam (Chat)(Prof) 04:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

A new page for your watchlist: WT:MHNEWS :) EyeSerenetalk 07:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I wrote a paragraph on the election results - is there anything else worth including? Thanks to everybody who have put the rest of the newsletter together. Parsecboy (talk) 12:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Well seeing as we're doing this here (cough), I think Moonriddengirl's editorial is about ready. Is it worth mentioning ongoing discussions at the STT? Also, are we likely to get the review awards out for this issue per the thread above? EyeSerenetalk 12:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest mentioning the ACR and C-Class STT discussions, since those seem likely to keep going for some time yet; the others are either concluded or lacking enough interest to continue at the moment. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added something about ongoing discussions to the Project news page (under the header STT, although one of them isn't strictly speaking still at the STT). Please amend as necessary! EyeSerenetalk 09:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Looks good. Aside from summaries for the FLs and ACs (are we doing those?), I think we're ready to go. Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
We're well into October - it looks like preparation work has finished so should we think about getting this out in the next day or so? EyeSerenetalk 09:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
We can't really hold this much longer, I think; if there are no objections, let's publish this in its current form. Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
It looks complete to me. Who wants to contact Cbrown? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is. There still is not summaries for the FLs and A-class articles. We have them for the FAs. That needs to be fixed before it goes out. -MBK004 07:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Do we have a volunteer to pull together the summaries for the ACs? (I'm not sure that summaries for the FLs are particularly useful, as they tend to be rather obvious, but I suppose it can't hurt if someone wants to do those as well.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
I've just added summaries for the AC articles. These are shorter (deliberately) than the FA ones. I've added no pictures: if any one thinks theyt're important, perhaps they could add them. This needs to go out now though; it's two weeks late.  Roger Davies talk 13:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Do we need FL summaries, or can we go ahead and publish this as it stands? Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Not explicitly, and since this is two weeks late, go ahead and publish. -MBK004 05:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Now done.  Roger Davies talk 04:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Roger. EyeSerenetalk 07:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Editor needed

The Bugle is probably now too complicated/has too many loose ends to be efficiently handled without an editor, which should include ensuring that it goes out in the first week or so of the following month. Thoughts? Anyone want to step up for the role?  Roger Davies talk 04:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd be interested. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
No objections here if you want the job Ed. I'd be interested too but realistically I can't commit to being regularly available :( EyeSerenetalk 08:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I can commit to being an editing assistant as well if need be. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 14:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Duly added to the main Bugle page.  Roger Davies talk 07:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible new feature?

Last night I cooked up an idea for a new feature – how about letting an editor do an opinion piece on some current event, or an on a (necessarily OR) article on what went wrong in a battle/what could a commander have done differently/anything along those lines, defined broadly? It doesn't have to be a section done every month, but it would be there as an option for editors looking to do some writing outside of the normal Wikipedia article editing constraints. It would be completely free of Wikipedia, being entirely focused on some aspect of military history and driven wherever the author wants it to go. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but I'm not sure how well it would play with some of the more controversial battles and so forth. Perhaps a variant approach would be some sort of point/counterpoint article written by two editors who disagreed?
I would, in any case, avoid current events entirely, unless we want to become a political battleground. Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
That's a fantastic idea, assuming the editors are able to get along while writing it. While controversies could and, given time, probably would become a problem, but I'd still like to test the idea; if it doesn't work, we can get rid of the section for subsequent issues. Perhaps we could ask authors to make mention(s) of major opposing views if they are advancing a controversial or widely debated opinion? (ex. HMAS Australia (1911)#Decommissioning and fate, fifth paragraph)
That's a very valid point I completely agree with, so I've stuck it above. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
I like this idea :) Perhaps we could also invite comments on the article by including a comments section (as the Signpost currently does). We all like to debate our subjects of interest but, per WP:NOTFORUM, there's little scope for this on article talk pages. I think Kirill's point is important though; we'd need to be careful about becoming divisive. EyeSerenetalk 07:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
That would be a good idea too – it could function as a (sort of) peer review. I don't know how we could prevent being decisive, but we could limit it by Kirill's method... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:43, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter non-delivery

For some reason I didn't receive a post with the Bugle on my talk page today. Not sure why, but I guess that I wasn't the only one affected by this. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Ditto just realised when posting on User talk:AustralianRupert and saw he had received it.--Jim Sweeney (talk) 13:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Have I ballsed it up? I asked CBrown1023 to despatch to:
Is this right? Have I missed a list off?  Roger Davies talk 13:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Did the bot stop partway through for some reason? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
It appears to have done just exactly that. I think we had this problem once before on my watch, and if I recall correctly Cbrown simply reran the bot to get the newsletter out to everyone. Incidentally, has anyone brought this to his attention yet? TomStar81 (Talk) 19:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
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