I'd like to propose the creation of Portal:Military history. It would aid those interested military history immensely. They would be introduced to the subject and shown many important articles within our scope. What do you guys think? If we did create it it would be yet another tedious task for the coordinators but it would be worth it. Maybe we could get other users to maintain it?--Phoenix 15 (Talk)21:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Woo, another obvious redirect that nobody had thought of creating. ;-)
It exists?well, maybe it should be moved? or another created? Military history and war are different; Military history takes in peace time developments and other things--Phoenix 15 (Talk)22:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The exact name of the portal seems a minor issue, given that renaming it would involve moving close to 500 pages; while our scope is broader than only war itself, I think redirects handle the matter adequately. (The reason for the choice of name, incidentally, is that the portal predates the formation of the consolidated "military history" project.) Kirill22:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Per some comments at Template talk:Infobox Military Conflict#Width and font-size, I've reduced the font size in our infoboxes to 90%, which seems to be the standard value across other infoboxes & navboxes. If anyone has major problems with this (or has other suggestions regarding the sizing), please drop by the linked discussion. Thanks! Kirill03:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
The discussion is also getting into the size of the lead image in the infobox, for anyone interested. Kirill04:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
(I made this comment in the discussion on the conflicts infobox, but I'll leave it here as well.) In my opinion, it is too small. I preferred the easier-to-read size that we've had. — ERcheck (talk) 05:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I like the decision. The differing font sizes allow for greater style differences between the infobox and the main text, helping a reader's eye track more quickly to the infobox, potentially creating faster access to the article's information. The human eye generally looks for differences, and differing the infobox from the main text is definitely important, IMHO. JKBrooks8510:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I've just been notified that assessments should include a task force tag. Is this the case, and if so, can the instructions be so modified? I've been just putting the regular tag and class into the talk pages. JKBrooks8520:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Nope, it's optional though various editors are including them voluntarily. The taskforce structure is rather complicated for people outside the project or without much military history knowledge to get to grips and asking them to add taskforces may cause more trouble than it's worth. The instruction overload involved will also significantly reduce the number of people helping. In any case, taskforce tags can be added later in a second pass of a much reduced list. Kirill is, incidentally, updating the taskforce tags so that they're shorter (to save typing time). Once Kirill has sorted this, the instructions can be updated with a link to the taskforce list for those that want to include them. Hope this helps ... --ROGER DAVIESTALK21:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
It does. I'll be including the tags from here on out -- I just wasn't sure if I needed to go back and add them to all of the assessments I've already made. Thanks for the clarification. JKBrooks8522:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
It is rather relative. I believe there are some exceptions. I'd rather include El Alamein while not Dresden. As the article says "El Alamein played a major role in the outcome of World War II. Two extended battles were fought in that area..." There are some places who are notable only because of its military history. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 20:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any idea how to make this project dept./section work better? I've got some ideas but i'd like first to hear about your opinions and see if anyone is interested in moving forward before we discuss it in detail. For now, at least we can make it explicitly visible at {{WPMILHIST Navigation}}. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 18:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, there's a reason it was deactivated after the writing contest had begun. ;-)
Quite simply, editors are not generally willing to work on an article that doesn't interest them, and, given our range, it's almost impossible to pick a single article that interests enough people to make it worthwhile. The program ran for a year, and only a handful of the articles it "worked on" actually saw any meaningful editing; most of them had only incidental edits by people unconnected with the collaboration, if any. I don't think trying to bring this back to life is going to produce any results that are worth the trouble, to be honest. Kirill18:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
We can wait until we finish the ongoing contest :)
The idea is to reinforce the role of the task forces. Low profile task forces will at least increase their chances to get more featured articles and thus become more important. The other important point is that we really have forgotten vital articles covered by this project and it would be a shame to let them suffer (i.e. Arms race, Military service and the list in long).
Every week or fortnight we'd pick a task force and get a vital B-Class article which will be selected as the collaboration.
We have 42 task forces and 52 weeks (probably by next year we will be creating a few new task forces). So it will be better to base the collaboration on a weekly basis.
Well, the real question is this: will editors actually be willing to invest enough time to improve the articles on a regular basis? We can certainly keep the collaboration "running" in the sense that all the paperwork gets done, new articles get selected, and so forth; but, looking at the results over the year the effort was undertaken, the actual editing doesn't seem to match up with it. Most articles were not, in fact, collaborated on to any significant degree; I don't see anything which is likely to fundamentally change that.
This is all aside from the fact that the old collaboration format may not be the best approach for something like this, since it presumes no pre-filtering of articles. So setting up something like a "Vital articles drive", with the task force rotation being only one aspect of it, may be closer to what you have in mind. That's certainly something that can be considered further. Kirill18:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Kirill. Well, it would be better then to consider this discussion a starting point whenever we'd get back to the collaboration dept. issue. The idea of a drive and a contest may be effective but better wait and see the outcome of the ongoing drive first. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 18:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
There's been some discussion started at Template talk:War#New Template about possible ways to redesign the {{war}} template; the ideas are all in the extreme prototyping stages now, and any suggestions and critiques would be very welcome! Kirill17:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Fortification task force?
Are there editors who would be interested in participating in a task force covering fortifications (notably medieval castles, but other types as well)? Kirill01:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
In theory, yes; we're considering creating a more specific group (similar to how the Weaponry task force covers a narrower portion of the T&E scope). Kirill12:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
That's the general intent, although the exact specifics of what will happen vis-à-vis WP:Castles are still somewhat hazy. Kirill16:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been using the memorials task force to tag fortifications. I support a separate task force since most of the forts and castles aren't considered memorials officially. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah. I've been putting them into technology and enginerring. Perhaps best is to tag as "fortifications=yes", which the template can pick up in due course, and maybe redirect as necessary if the Fortifications Task Force doesn't go ahead. --ROGER DAVIESTALK17:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
While waiting for its creation, i've just started using Fortifications=yes. Is there someone interested in creating it? If not i'll do it but not today or tomorrow. Probably this coming week-end w/ the help of someone else. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 19:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yep, seems rather confused. There's probably potential for an overall campaignbox covering the Allied advance across the Rhine and into Germany (probably pulling in the Siegfried line one as well); but putting bombing raids into it on a chronological basis is overkill. Kirill12:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I've removed the strategic bombing. I'm not sure about merging with the Siegfried Line though, as that'll basically divide the Western European Campaign into "Overlord (June - August)" and "Everything else (September - May)". Right now, I see it broken down into four basic sections "Overlord" --> "Siegfried Line" --> Ardennes Offensive" --> "Central Europe"; the first three already having navigation boxes / categories. Oberiko15:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it may actually be possible to condense everything post-Overlord into a single campaignbox. There aren't that many articles, and things tend to follow a nice chronological pacing. Kirill16:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
This template seems to be a template for template's sake, not to combine related knowledge. Can we agree that templates are the means to show existing knowledge in a structured way, not aims in their own end? Arnoutf17:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Something of a USA bias in that name the West European campaign started in 1939! I think you mean "West European Campaign (1944-1945)". Also I think it should be "West European" not "Western European", and it needs to redirect to Western Front (World War II)#1944-45: the Second Front ie
I agree. Perhaps the alternative would be the Allied North West European campaign? To distinguish it from the 1939 German campaign. But then again, Dieppe Raid should be listed as Allied NW European battle. Mmmm, perhaps 44-45 is not so bad. Arnoutf09:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I know that the English and the French do not like each other very much but they were Allies in 1939 the alliance did not start when the Americans joined it 8-0 -- Philip Baird Shearer12:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
'Military of the United States' is simply wikipedia convention for those armed forces which don't have known formal names. 'United States Armed Forces' is not formally defined or used. What do people think about having the page moved to 'United States armed forces', making it clear that there is no single formal title?
Please respond at Talk:Military of the United States. Cheers Buckshot0602:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
In fact, once we'd change the title of the "Military of the United States" we'll be obliged to change most of other titles (Spanish Armed Forces, Brazilian Armed Forces, etc). -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 18:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes we would have to do that, and I recommend to do that, as we shall respect the official designation of those armed forces. Example: the translation of Forças Armadas Brasileiras is Brazilian Armed Forces. Why not posting the official name? --Eurocopter tigre19:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
That ws my point in fact. If it has no official or formal name then there's no need to start changing everything everywhere. I am just against changing 10 and leaving 200. Whether we change all or keep the status-quo for all. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 20:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Different countries may use different names for their military/armed forces. The choice here is to adopt the name closest to the 'official' name for each country, or alternatively to choose one format for all armed forces. This is not a trivial choice and we should consider well the implications. Arnoutf21:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I would have thought that the article that describes the military of a particular country should all be Military of XXX it would then branch down into the correctly titled armed forces of that country. Military of XXX is clearly a wiki convention and could be seen as an overview and not an official title of anything. MilborneOne21:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
As an extension of the above, we get into the old never-quite-implemented suggestion (don't quite recall who started that discussion) of abandoning the use of the "Military of X" categories as the top level ones for each country, and instead moving to something like:
Military history of X
Armed forces of X (or X Armed Forces, etc.)
Finally, I'd suggest that, while "X Armed Forces" would be a good title where it matches an official one, "Armed forces of X" seems like a neater one if we're simply going to construct. Adjective forms tend to be more trouble than they're worth, and most of our by-country categories avoid them.
"Military", "military history", and top-level categories
Some (likely very rough, and possibly silly) thoughts:
There is, in my opinion, some confusion regarding how "military history" is used in category names that has led to some fairly bizarre category trees. In the broadest sense (e.g. the one used in, say, the name of the project), "military history" includes all aspects of history that deal with warfare and military affairs. In a narrower sense, "military history" is used to refer to the historical discipline of military history—the study of military history, in other words.
For example, one of the areas that military science studies is military history. The development of military science is, however, itself a part of military history. This type of relationship may work (albeit confusingly) in prose, but breaks down when dealing with categories; in the past, it's led to things such as Category:Military history being both a parent and a child category of Category:Military science, and so forth.
"Military", conversely, is always used in an over-broad sense, often referring not only to formal armed forces, but to anything that's related to military history. This has led to a rather peculiar twin-tree model of how the various categories interact with each other
I'd like to suggest something along the lines of the following:
(The category names are somewhat convoluted, obviously; I'd welcome suggestions for better ones.)
We might then wind up with a top-level category tree along these lines:
Military history - top-level category
Military history by country, by era, by armed force, etc.
War - root for things related to warfare
Armed forces - root for things related to armed forces
Military organization, facilities, personnel, etc.
Military science - root for study of military affairs
Military history (discipline)
Military historiography, etc.
Military operations, art, images, etc.
Obviously, working out the exact category structure would be a major undertaking; but I think it would be worth it in the end to finally form things into a single tree.
Military conflicts (which is a sub-category) does; but not all military operations involve actual warfare, so I wouldn't think that nesting the two completely would work. (This is the way it's currently set up, incidentally; military operations are a sub-category of military, but not of war.) Kirill02:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it is better that "Military ..." is the highest category and "Military history" is a sub-category. As current events move into history then articles can be moved from current into history. So "Military" becomes the top level category. (This seems to me to be a re-run of the debate over combining the projects "Military" and "Military history"). --Philip Baird Shearer09:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
It could be done that way, I suppose; but that leaves us with two issues that don't appear here:
There have been multiple complaints that the most common usage of "military" (at least outside the US) has a narrower meaning, referring only to the Army. (Whereas "military history" seems to take the broader sense everywhere?)
If the distinction is going to be based on current events versus historical ones, would it make sense to push most things down to the military history level anyways and only have current events explicitly at the military level? So, something like:
Military
Current military affairs
Military history
War
Military operations, treaties, etc.
Military art
Military science
Armed forces
Military organization, personnel, etc.
(I'm not set on either approach; my main intent here is to get us to have a single category tree, regardless of what the root category winds up being.) Kirill12:30, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a big fan of dividing it into current/historical for the simple reason that what is current has a way of becoming historical very quickly. If a conflict is wrapped up in a week or two, it becomes history, and then there's the problem of recategorizing everything that's been labeled current. Using military history as the parent for everything, while not as precise, saves a lot of time in the management and organization phases, and that's not something to be ignored. JKBrooks8514:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Achieved GA class.... Oct 2007 help requested with new tag please. See discussion regarding This article's representation of one or more viewpoints about a controversial issue may be unbalanced or inaccurate. Thank you.SriMesh | talk05:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Characters (such as we have—there are major pushes going on to merge character articles in with the associated works) would probably follow the same rules as the work they're from. If a movie is considered to be relevant to us, then (military-related) characters would probably also be. Is this going to be much of an issue? I would think that most characters to have their own articles would be from works of no interest to us (e.g. sci-fi, etc.).
Other media presumably follow the same principles as films; if they're based on real events/people/groups/armies/etc. to the extent that a discussion of historical accuracy is relevant to them, or if they are significant in discussing the cultural impact or influence of real military affairs, then they're in our scope.
I've not been including fictional characters, games, or novels in my assessment -- there are other wikiprojects that are far better suited for each, and I just think that trying to make them a part of the military history project runs the risk that we'd stretch ourselves too thin. We don't even have task forces for any military fiction other than films, anyway. JKBrooks8520:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, over-stretching is something we need to keep in mind. I'm not sure if it's really a practical concern as far as simple logistical tagging is concerned; the project members will devote—or not—time to those articles regardless of whether they're formally tagged or not.
(As a practical matter, I doubt that this particular area will be a very fertile one for us regardless of what approach to tagging we take. Aside from military literature, which may have enough material to hold up a task force in its own right, the topics in question are going to include rather few articles; whether we tag them now, or when we get a group together to deal with them, or not at all isn't really going to impact us too much.)
A task force to deal with wargames might be an interesting idea to consider, incidentally; but most video games with "military" content wouldn't really qualify for that regardless. Kirill22:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. While specific task forces might be overkill, a collective "Military Fiction Task Force" could work. I'm just not sure that there's the demand or the will for such a thing yet. JKBrooks8502:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Same thing as w/ JKB. I haven't not been taking care of them but still had doubts. In fact, we have Category:Fictional military personnel and it is well organized. It could be better if we used "characters" than "personnel".
From Kirill's interpretation(s) i understand that there aren't thousands i believe of articles. Again, it is about notability, relevancy, etc. There must be a kind of a relationship between the character, the novel or the movie and the event itself. M.A.S.H series for instance is an example. It would be up to us to decide who/what's notable and who/what is not. In case of doubt, one can read a few lines and verify quickly the references section and see what can be done. So these are our limits.
In fact my main query was about tagging/task forces. i wanted to know exactly about which task force that stuff would fit into. Would it be better to have a Media task force and merge the existing Films one into? i am afraid we are tagging articles while not being sure yet if we would get back changing those same tags a few weeks or months later. Everything would change but how? Maybe we can temporarily stop this drive until we define the main columns of this project. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 03:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I don;t think it a good idea to stop the drive - we are to far into already. My suggestion would be to tag only the obvious military stuff. When the tagging and assessing drive is largely over we can go back and take a closer look at the article that seem iffy then decide if they should be in our group or not. Since the article deemed to fall outside our perview are being crossed off and left on the page rather than removed from it we can afford to wait and work out the specifics rather than risk delaying the opening moves for the drive. In fact, I was going to suggest that we invite some of the other projects in after our dive to look at the articles we got in our dragnet and see if any of them happen to fall within their scope; the Anime and Manga project and Game project both seem to be well represented here. Thats just my take. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, stopping the drive isn't really needed here. It's worth keeping in mind that the task force tagging is only a secondary aspect of it; the main point is to get articles into the project's core assessment system. We'll no doubt continue to create new task forces over time, and they'll need to update the tags on articles within their scope; but this will (a) be done primarily by the editors participating in the newly formed task forces, and (b) run over those articles that we know are in the project's scope already, rather than having to spread out over vast lists of completely unrelated things. Kirill03:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Agree guys. Contacting some concerned sister projects and ask their members for some help. At least they would get informed. I also agree that task forces' members would get back there sooner or later (we like it or not) tweaking or reorganizing stuff depending on the development of new task forces. Sounds reasonable. Thanks. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 04:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
European Theatre Europe: Poland - Scandinavia - Western Front - Eastern Front Mediterranean and Middle East: Mediterranean Sea - Balkans - North Africa - East Africa - West Asia - Italy Other Atlantic Ocean - West Africa - Madagascar Asia - Pacific Theatre China - Japan - Southeast Asia - Pacific Ocean and Oceania - Manchuria - Australia - Indian Ocean
I propose this for a few reasons. First, it looks much cleaner, and, IMO, is easier to navigate. Second, if we include "campaigns", then we potentially can have dozens of entries, as WWII was notorious for both nested campaigns and each nation having its own definition of what actions constituted a campaign, especially as during the course of the war the boundaries of various command areas shifted with the situation. I think it'd be better to explain those details within within the theatre articles themselves.
To facilitate this, I'd create theatre articles for those that don't have them (ie. Balkans theatre of World War II). If a theatre is adequately explained with a single campaign/battle (ie. North Africa, Italy, Madagascar), I'd just keep it as the link. Thoughts? Oberiko16:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't we add answering questions about military history on the reference desk, especially the humanities reference desk, to our project goals on the project page?--Phoenix 15 (Talk)13:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
It's a good idea but aren't we spreading ourselves very thin just at the moment? Adding new taskforces every couple of days, major tagging initiative, FAC re-writing initiative, possible restructure of the category system ... The hardcore of volunteers is still quite small. --ROGER DAVIESTALK13:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose we are, just a bit, but we wouldn't have to form any new task force or other group, we could just add it to our goals and some of our less-dedicated members could do some work there. I think it would give extra attnetion to the reference desk also--Phoenix 15 (Talk)14:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. More generally, while it's certainly a worthwhile goal to do this, it's unlikely that we have the interest needed to do it in any particularly organized fashion at this point, especially given that there's no easy way of directing project members to needed areas.
(The old proposal of having an in-house military history reference desk would solve the second problem, but wouldn't mesh neatly with the main reference desk. So I think we're not really going to make very good progress in this area until we figure out how to work through the technical issues.) Kirill15:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
We (the coordinators) have come up with a possible system for tagging articles according to the sources used; this would have obvious statistical uses, but would also be helpful in tracking and raising the quality of sources in the entire set of article we work with. (This has been mentioned before, if I recall correctly, but not at a developed stage.)
In more detail: the {{WPMILHIST}} tag would allow for a set of additional parameters, which would correspond to commonly-used types of sources:
For cases where specific sources are used across a wide range of articles could have their own tags (which would replace the separate tags currently used); for example:
|uses-source-DANFS=yes
|uses-source-VC=no
All of these tags would, obviously, generate appropriate categories for tracking the articles.
So, the questions:
Are there any comments on (particularly objections to) implementing this system, at least on a provisional basis?
What types of sources do people want to see tags for? There's no real limit, so long as we avoid having redundant tags, so we might as well get all the capability we need.
I think it's a good idea Kirill; we certainly have a lot of garbage web inputs in places. I have just removed a probably phantom Afghan expeditionary force to Tajikistan, 1987-90, to a talk page. However, are we allowed to use primary sources? I thought that was OR. I would also suggest we have some way of distinguishing any old website from reasonably authoratative ones - the DOD from a blog. Maybe you could break down website into govt website, blog, thinktank/academic source, etc Buckshot0620:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to ask an obvious question -- what purpose would it serve? Do we benefit by categorizing articles that way? I mean, we've already broken down everything by task force... the tag-and-assess drive is going to make sure pretty much every article possible is a part of the project... why should we add this? It's just a question of utility. JKBrooks8513:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the main practical benefit would be an indication of which articles are more likely to have questionable sources, or sources that can be improved on. Most websites aren't particularly reputable sources, for example; so looking through the articles that rely heavily on them would be a good way of finding things to improve. (It may be more useful, in this regard, to have a count of the sources used rather than their presence; for example "|uses-website=5" for an article that used five different websites. But this may be making things overly complicated.)
The other aspect of this is the purely statistical one; it's useful, in some vague sense, for us to know what kinds of sources our articles are based on. But this is a minor thing, I suppose.
Whether either of these points justifies the effort in putting this system together is open for debate, of course. Kirill16:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The approach as outlined above would not, by itself, make clear which articles are reliable and which are rubbish. Sure, websites are usually questionable sources, but so are many non-scholarly books. And what if the article uses once-reliable but now out-of-date scholarly sources? (This will be a growing problem on Wikipedia, because with Google Book Search, we now have free, easy access to lots of old, public domain history books, which is great but potentially misleading if you don't read the modern works too.) And so the categories created by this approach would not really be a clear indicator of how reliable the sources are.
Perhaps more useful approach (or an addition to the above) might be to create more specific "attention" fields, e.g.:
|check-website=yes (article may cite unreliable websites)
|check-books=yes (article may cite unreliable books or has inadequate cites, etc.)
That's an interesting approach, certainly. One drawback, though, would be that there's no explicit indication that an article does not need a source check; so we'd wind up with some articles known to have problems, and a lot of articles in an unknown state. Perhaps we'd need an additional parameter to indicate that the sources had been reviewed and no problems found?
But, obviously, the general idea of this approach is somewhat different than that of the first one proposed; so which one we should be oriented towards is something that's open for further discussion. Kirill23:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
"attention needed"
I feel compelled to mention that the prospect of more parameters in {{WPMILHIST}} makes me want to jump off a bridge just a tiny bit. Seriously, though, I wholeheartedly support the purpose—improving sources—but I'm not sure how productive another set of template parameters would be. With all due respect, would articles tagged for source improvement honestly get any more attention than Category:Military history articles needing attention does? Maralia23:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree for the most part with Maralia. I agree with the intention of the parameters, the problem of adequate sources is a wikipedia wide problem and it does need attention. It goes hand in hand with the overall wind-change of wikipedia to quality and not quantity. The trouble is we already have the articles needing attention category which no-one gives any attention to. I agree that we need to have some sort of system to judge the quality of the sourcing. Yet i don't think this is perhaps the best way of going about it. For what it is worth i do think that Kevin's suggestion is the most workable. Do we have enough "experts" to try and remedy the sourcing problems though when they arise? Woodym55523:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
We don't, unfortunately, have any accurate statistics on whether articles that get tagged as needing attention are actually receiving it. My impression matches Maralia's—I don't think we've really solved the problem of getting editors to where they're needed on a reliable basis.
Would breaking down the monolithic "needs attention" label to something more specific (e.g. "needs sources", etc.) be helpful?
We could, for that matter, get something potentially useful by having the B-Class criteria generate categories. This would remove the need for extra parameters, and produce "needs sources", "needs structure", etc. categories with no extra effort; it would, however, be limited to those articles where the B-Class checklist is filled out. Would this be at all useful? Kirill00:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be quite useful. For every article i tag during the drive, i add the b-class tags and usually the has adequate references is "no". I find that many articles are well-written, follow the MOS, but are simply without any sources whatsoever. I think Nelson is a good example, although i am steadily trying to rectify that. The prose was FA but the sourcing was start class.
I agree that the "needs attention category" needs attention. Most of the problems that i have seen from a small sample, seem to be about sources. How would a changeover work though? If we do implement the new tags, or categorise the b-class tags then the new categories need to be monitored and occupied. Do we have enough editors at the moment to a) categorise those missing sources and b) rectify the problems? I think categorising the B-class tags would be a good start but it would need a concerted effort to implement. Are we not stretching ourselves a little bit, with the drive and everything else? Woodym55500:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
We probably don't have the manpower to go through the problem articles quickly; but I don't see any reason why run-of-the-mill lack of sources would need to be a matter for urgent attention. We can afford to go through those articles at our normal pace, I think. (Conversely, if we can limit the use of "attention needed" to articles with active accuracy disputes and such, we'd be in a better position to use the category as more than a long-term dumping ground for inadequate articles.)
In any case, I don't think that generating the B-Class categories will require any extra effort; they'll be populated as a side effect of the normal assessment process. What we choose to do with the contents is a long-term question; but we'll at least have the lists available for the benefit of any editor that wants to do specific sorts of article work. Kirill01:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with everything above really. The needs attention category needs to be used for those articles with serious editorial problems including accuracy, NPOV etc. I think adding a category to the B-class tags would effectively be the same as Kevin Myers suggestion although it dilutes the point about accuracy of sources. That needs to be worked in somewhere, somehow, in the future. Woodym55501:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty neat. Those categories are (or will be) massive, however, limiting their practicality. Is it possible to subcategorize by subject or task force? If editors could browse "attention needed" categories within their area of interest, that should increase the chance that articles needing attention might actually get some attention. —KevinMyers14:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Good idea; it would be quite easy (if a bit time-consuming—this will involve creating ~300 new categories) to create a miniature version of this category scheme for each task force, as that's all being fed through meta-templates in the project tag; I'll try to set up the code for this today, and then create all the categories over the next few days.
One question: should the "incomplete checklist" category also have task force counterparts? Or do we only need the central category for that? I'd be inclined to keep things in one place—there's no real reason why filling out the checklist would be directly tied to a particular task force—but it would be easy enough to implement this either way. Kirill16:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that the incomplete checklists should just remain independant of the taskforces. I agree that there is little reason for taskforces to go through the backlog of those requiring checklists. I think the separate subcategories in terms of "Maritime with references problems", would be highly useful though. Great work. Woodym55516:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Providing this is an automated process, I'm happy with it. I'd be very reluctant to support any measure that diverted editors away from the tagging drive or that further complicated assessment. --ROGER DAVIESTALK17:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it would be essentially automated, in the sense that these categories would be generated "for free" on the basis of the existing B-Class checklist.
If we're going to move in this direction, incidentally, it may be helpful to get rid of the manually-tagged parameters ("needs-infobox" and perhaps even "attention" itself) and have everything driven by the checklist. Kirill18:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
How many of the B-list checklists are actually filled out completely? Every time I look at one, it seems as though it's simply assessed as B-class without someone filling out the checklist. JKBrooks8519:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, the code is done, and the categories should be getting generated; I've added automatic links to them at the top of every task force's open task list. I'll be creating the category pages themselves over the next day or so. Kirill01:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Wow, great, barnstar-worthy work, Kirill. I hope these categories pay off. They should: an American Civil War buff, for example, could visit this category and then fix the problem articles in just a few minutes. —KevinMyers03:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is really great work Kirill. The B-class assessment template is now really really helpful for finding out which things needed to have sources added (virtually everything!) Is it possible to break the 'missing B-class list' (tens of thousands of articles) down by task force? Cheers Buckshot0613:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It's possible, but it was suggested that this wouldn't be very useful just above; we need to figure out what we really want! ;-) Kirill14:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
This is outside my area of expertise/interest, but Amnesty Act needs some attention. It's a stub, but more pressing is at least one sentence that makes little sense.GreenGourd16:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
It made little sense because it was just original research. Did some cleanup and added a some content w/ ref. I think the appropriate title is the General Amnesty Act of 1872. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 02:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Reviewing the list of featured articles needing attention to citations for articles that can be moved, Pagrashtak (talk·contribs) identified Władysław Sikorski as an article that appears to be mostly cited now. It still needs some cleanup, but it should be able to avoid a featured article review. Can folks here please have a look and help with the final cleanup? In particular, I don't know what to do about all those infoboxes in the lead, one seems to be oversized, and their placement leaves a big chunk of white space before the text on my browser. Also, jsut a general checkup, tuneup from MilHist editors would be appreciated. Also, Pagrashtak mentioned that it may have image issues, but I don't really speak Fair Use. Thanks! Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Took a look at it, fixed a few things (namely configuring the one source citing). Took a look at the images too; most of those could be double tagged with {{nosource}}. Hope this helps. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
For your information, the recently created article Enemy (military) is under AFD. Please note, this is not an advertisement or solicitation to participate in the process, it is to note the AFD occurrence. Chessy99913:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Siege of Metz 1552
Hi! I'm not well traversed in military history, but... I'm reading a book where a Siege of Metz in 1552 is mentioned, shouldn't this event an article?
From the article Francis, Duke of Guise:
"He won international renown in 1552 when he successfully defended the city of Metz from the forces of Emperor Charles V, and defeated the imperial troops again at the Battle of Renty in 1554. The siege of Metz is detailed well in Ambroise Paré's "Journey in Diverse Places" (written around 1580)."
From the article Metz: "Francis, Duke of Guise, commander of the garrison, restored the old fortifications and added new ones, and successfully resisted the attacks of the emperor from October to December, 1552; Metz remained French."
Definitely a worthy topic; but since there are only a couple of editors working on the Italian Wars, it might have to wait a while before it gets a real article. ;-) Kirill00:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. It'd also be a quicker process and you might be able to create a bot to assist, though I'm not sure how it would work. JKBrooks8502:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
What does the cross symbol stand for under 'Commanders.' Does it mean they were killed? Surrendered? I'm confused. FinalWish19:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes. (If done correctly, you should be able to click on the symbol and get to an article that explains it, by the way.) Kirill00:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi all, I believe from a couple of searches that the Institute for the Study of War, which appears to be a Washington thinktank [1] operating in conjunction with the Weekly Standard may be copying the Iraq War order of battle article without attributing it to Wikipedia. Their latest OB is here [2], and it and the two previous ones look very similar to the article. Do I understand correctly that citing us without attribution is not looked well upon, despite the GFDL? Buckshot0622:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, but you'd need to show that they're copying us, as opposed to us copying them, or both copying a PD (US government) source. Kirill22:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The article in question has been put together by a whole bunch of people, including user:Dsw, from personal contact with officers in the field and culling through a huge bunch of material. See User talk:Dsw#iraq orbat. I'll see about amassing some evidence. Buckshot0623:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is the most often quoted source without credits. If we track down every case, we would need several task forces for the job. On the other hand proofing wiki as a relied upon source is something good for our image. Wandalstouring14:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
The main problem with allowing Wiki articles as evidence for other is (IMHO) large.
First of all, assuming good faith an unsupported idea may eaily become "truth" by circular reference. (e.g. article A claims "Fish can fly", article B takes up article A for reference that "fish can indeed fly". Article C now quotes B tat "fish can fly". There is critisism in Article A that the claim is unsupported. The editors who put it in go looking for support and find article C, and use that as a reference. This will be hard to spot, as C never links to A. For this reason alone Wiki articles should not be used as sources for other articles. it allows editors with bad intentions who want to make a point to do so by first creating a chain of articles that cite eachother, and then use these to make the point. This can only be checked at much effort by good editors.
Secondly, in an edit war a bad faith editor may start inserting points through similar techniques, if the chain is complex and long enough. The burden is now on the good-faith editors to disentangle this.
To have a chance at preventing this kind of problems, the article that is used should be a high quality article (GA or FA); however, this would complicate the guideline and not all GA and FA articles stay as good, as the moment of review.
We have wikilinks for internal connections, we have external sources to confirm credibility; let's keep them apart. Anyway this kind of discussion is beyond even the largest and best organised project and should be discussed at Wikipedia:Citing sourcesArnoutf15:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
A proposal to move "Civil war in Iraq" to "Sectarian violence in Iraq" is inconclusive after five days. It has been proposed that outside opinions should be sought in order to further the discussion. You are welcome to comment here. Thank you.--victor falk11:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
It's probably not going to be particularly useful for us, unfortunately; as the progress of the assessment drive shows, there are a lot of non-military history articles that wind up (by one means or another) inside the military category trees. Kirill01:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
