User talk:UnDeadGoat

Project news

• In the contest department, Kevin Myers and Climie.ca were the monthly leaders, with ten points each. Kevin Myers is the overall leader, with twenty points.
• The subject-area contacts initiative is off to a good start, with several contacts having been named. Further exposure of this list is planned.
• {{Infobox Military Cemetery}} and {{Infobox Military Memorial}} have been merged into a single infobox for both types of articles.

Current proposals and discussions

• A discussion about military categories by nation has begun.
• A discussion about military personnel categories by nation is ongoing.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines
2. B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base
3. Pontiac's Rebellion
4. Russian-Circassian War
5. Shen Kuo
6. Webley Revolver

New A-Class articles:

1. AHS Centaur
2. Operation Lam Son 719
3. Ronald Niel Stuart
4. Zveno project

Awards and honors

• Kevin Myers has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on early modern warfare in North America, and, in particular, the creation of four featured articles on the topic.

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Project news

• The contest department has completed another month of competition. The leader for this month, with 16 points, is Kevin Myers; Carom and Cla68 tied for second place with 10 points each. Kevin is also the overall leader, with 36 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• Work has begun on a publication about the military history of Athens.
• A number of new subject-area contacts have been approved; we are looking for more capable editors to join this program.
• A brief history of the project has been compiled.

Current proposals and discussions

• A proposal to standardize the layout of navigational templates is being discussed.
• Several category reorganization and renaming proposals have been made; comments are welcome!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. AHS Centaur
2. Battle of Cape Esperance
3. USS New Jersey (BB-62)

New A-Class articles:

1. Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope
2. Battle of Arras (1917)
3. Battle of Red Cliffs
4. Ironclad warship
5. Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident
6. Victoria Cross

Awards and honors

• Noclador has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on structural graphics for land-based forces worldwide, his contributions to the Alpini and other regiments, and all his other military graphics.

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Project news

• The fourth project coordinator elections have now concluded. Nine coordinators have been selected to serve for the next six months: Kirill Lokshin, Carom, FayssalF, LordAmeth, Kyriakos, TomStar81, Cla68, Eurocopter tigre, and Roger Davies. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all of the candidates who put themselves forward for this responsibility, and to the retiring coordinators for all of their efforts to improve the project!
• The contest department has completed another month of competition. The leader for this month, with 23 points, is Blnguyen; JKBrooks85 is in second place, with 17 points, and Carom is in third place, with 13 points. Carom is also the overall leader, with 45 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• The project's article tagging and assessment drivecontinues; project members are cordially invited to assist with this effort.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Attack on Sydney Harbour
2. Augustus
3. Cædwalla of Wessex
4. Confederate government of Kentucky
5. Ine of Wessex
6. Harry S. Truman
7. Hispanic Americans in World War II
8. Ironclad warship
9. Pham Ngoc Thao
10. Victoria Cross for New Zealand

New featured lists

1. Surviving veterans of World War I

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of the Plains of Abraham
2. Enfield revolver
3. Fort Stanton (Washington, D.C.)
4. Ho Chi Minh Campaign
5. Jacques Le Gris
6. Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Current proposals and discussions

• A set of flag icon usage guidelines has been proposed; discussion is ongoing.
• Potential guidelines on military unit notability are being discussed.

Awards and honors

• Wandalstouring was awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and dedicated service as a project coordinator and his many contributions to the structure and operations of the project.

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Project news

• The Taiwanese military history and War films task forces have been created.
• The contest department has completed its sixth month of competition. The leader for this month, with 57 points, is JKBrooks85; Kyriakos is in second place, with 16 points, and Blnguyen and Woodym555 are tied for third place, with 10 points each. The overall results for the past six months show JKBrooks85 in first place, with 92 points, followed by Carom, with 45 points, and Blnguyen, with 38 points. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• A stress hotline is now available for project members' use.
• The bulk of the project's guidelines have been moved to a separate subpage.
• New guidelines for flag icon use have been adopted.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope
2. Battle for Henderson Field
3. Battle of Greece
4. Battle of Ramillies
5. Egbert of Wessex
6. Frederick Russell Burnham
7. Freedom Monument (Riga)
8. Issy Smith
9. Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
10. Omaha Beach
11. Victoria Cross (Canada)
12. Winfield Scott Hancock

New A-Class articles:

1. Barton S. Alexander
2. Battle of Barrosa
3. Byzantine-Arab Wars
4. Cleomenean War
5. Fort Bayard (Washington, D.C.)
6. Fort Corcoran
7. Fort Runyon
8. George Jones (RAAF officer)
9. Jean de Carrouges
10. Operation Passage to Freedom
11. Smolensk War

New Featured lists:

1. Army Groups of the National Revolutionary Army
2. Puerto Ricans Missing in Action in the Korean War

New Featured topics:

1. Victoria Cross

Current proposals and discussions

• A proposal to formalize the project's style guide as part of Wikipedia's Manual of Style has been made and is being discussed; comments and suggestions would be very appreciated!

Awards and honors

• SandyGeorgia was awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of the instrumental role she plays in the featured article process, both by checking the project's featured article candidates to ensure that citations are formatted correctly, and by helping clear out the backlog of featured articles that no longer meet the criteria. Sandy is the first non-member of the project to receive this award.

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Project news

• The contest department has completed its seventh month of competition. The leader for this month, with 22 points, is JKBrooks85; Kyriakos is in second place, with 21 points, and Blnguyen is in third place, with 10 points. Overall, JKBrooks85 remains in first place, with 114 points. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• The Biography WikiProject's military work group has now been integrated into the project as the Military biography task force.
• The Romanian military history and Fortifications task forces have been created.
• The popular culture content guideline has been updated.
• {{WPMILHIST}} now supports short-form task force tags; see the project banner instructions for more details.
• The B-Class checklist in the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner now generates categories corresponding to the areas in which an article needs attention; similar sets of categories exist for each task force as well. The available categories are:
  • Category:Military history articles needing attention to referencing and citation
  • Category:Military history articles needing attention to coverage and accuracy
  • Category:Military history articles needing attention to structure
  • Category:Military history articles needing attention to grammar
  • Category:Military history articles needing attention to supporting materials

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm
2. BAE Systems
3. Battle of Barrosa
4. Prince Louis of Battenberg
5. Second Ostend Raid
6. Thomas C. Hindman

New A-Class articles:

1. Alexandru Averescu
2. Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081)
3. Fort Jackson (Virginia)
4. Richard Williams (RAAF officer)
5. Tet Offensive
6. Wallachian Revolution of 1848

Current proposals and discussions

• Discussions about tagging articles by sources used and as needing attention have begun.
• A discussion about re-structuring the top-level category scheme has begun.
• A discussion about infobox width and font sizes has begun.
• A proposal to create a formal project style guide is on the final stages of discussion.

Awards and honors

• JKBrooks85 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his diligent efforts to improve our coverage of fortifications in the American Civil War, and, in particular, his creation of a substantial number of A-Class articles.
• Tony the Marine has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his considerable efforts in raising Puerto Rican- and Hispanic-related military history articles to featured status.

What is Tag & Assess MMVII? We'd better explain. A month or so back, we ran a script to list all the articles in categories related to military history. This gave us about 165,000 articles. Some of these are already tagged and assessed as military history; some are military history but not yet tagged and assessed; some are not military history articles at all. This huge project — working thorough 165,000 articles — is called Tag & Assess 2007. To make it manageable, the list has been broken down into 330 ranges each of 500 articles. This is where you can help.

Just... adopt-a-range from the available worklists then keep track of your tally on participants' list. The tagging is easy, just follow the simple instructions. Afterwards, as our way of thanking you, you'll be presented with service awards and barnstars based on the number of articles you process. Remember... the ranges are broken down into sub-sections of ten articles, so you work through them at twenty or thirty articles a day if you wish. To make Tag & Assess 2007 a success, we need your help. Please sign up now. Thanks.

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Project news

• The military history style guide has been integrated into Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
• The contest department has completed its eight month of competition. The leader for this month, with a massive 92 points, is Blnguyen; Woodym555 is in second place, with 32 points, and Cla68 and TomStar81 are tied for third place, with 15 points each. Overall, Blnguyen is now in first place, with 140 points, followed by JKBrooks85, with 120 points, and by Woodym555, with 63 points. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• The American Revolutionary War and Baltic states military history task forces have been created.
• Tag & Assess 2007—the project's first major article tagging and assessment drive—is continuing; all project members—and anyone else who's interested—are invited to assist with this effort.
• The number of articles tagged as being within our scope has now exceeded 50,000.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Red Cliffs
2. James II of England
3. Lawrence Sullivan Ross
4. Pre-dreadnought battleship
5. Thomas C. Hindman
6. USS Kentucky (BB-66)

New featured lists:

1. List of Australian Victoria Cross recipients
2. List of Canadian Victoria Cross recipients

New featured portals:

1. Military of Greece

New A-Class articles:

1. 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident
2. Battle of the Gebora
3. Battle of Vaslui
4. Le Quang Tung
5. Morotai Mutiny
6. Phan Dinh Phung
7. Truong Dinh
8. USS Illinois (BB-65)
9. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
10. Yen Bai mutiny

Current proposals and discussions

• A proposal to introduce a project motto is being discussed.
• A discussion regarding flag icons in biographical infoboxes has begun.

Awards and honors

• Mike Christie was awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on Anglo-Saxon military history, including the production of numerous featured articles.

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Project news

• The Intelligence task force has been created.
• The contest department has completed its ninth month of competition. The top scorer this month is Blnguyen, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter, with 8 points, and Redmarkviolinist, with 6 points. Blnguyen also remains the overall leader, with 162 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• Help with converting deprecated infoboxes is needed; any assistance is welcome!
• {{WPMILHIST}} now supports an explicit tag (class=DAB) for marking disambiguation pages.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Albuera
2. Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081)
3. Battle of the Gebora
4. Constantine II of Scotland
5. Francis Harvey
6. Vasa (ship)
7. Wulfhere of Mercia

New A-Class articles:

1. 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing
2. Evacuation of East Prussia

Current proposals and discussions

• A discussion about minimizing terminological ambiguity has begun.

Awards and honors

• Blnguyen has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his efforts in improving the quality of articles related to Vietnamese military history, including the creation of numerous A-Class articles.
• Woodym555 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on topics related to the Victoria Cross, notably including the creation of featured articles, featured lists, and a featured topic.
• For their outstanding efforts as part of Tag & Assess 2007, Bedford, TomStar81, and Parsival74 have been awarded the gold, silver, and bronze Wikis, respectively.

Tag & Assess 2007

Tag & Assess 2007 is now officially over, with slightly under 68,000 articles processed. The top twenty scores are as follows:

Although the drive is officially closed, existing participants can continue tagging until January 31 if they wish, with the extra tags counting towards their tally for barnstar purposes.

We'd like to see what lessons can be learned from this drive, so we've set up a feedback workshop. Comments and feedback from participants and non-particpants alike are very welcome and appreciated.

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Project news

• The project coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14!
• The contest department has completed its tenth month of competition, which saw an unprecedented 44 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 95 points, followed by Cla68, with 42 points, and Ed! and Woody, with 21 points each. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 182 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• A new auxiliary infobox, {{operational plan}}, is now available.
• A new page for military history essays has been created; project members are encouraged to post their own advice and opinions on matters within the project's purview.
• New guidelines concerning precision and ship pronouns have been added to the style guide.
• Featured picture candidates and picture peer reviews are now accessible through the project's review department.
• An effort to convert deprecated infoboxes has begun; any assistance is welcome!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident
2. Battle of Musa Qala
3. George Jones (RAAF officer)
4. Italian War of 1542–1546
5. Jim Bowie
6. Józef Piłsudski
7. Matanikau Offensive
8. Offa of Mercia
9. Suleiman the Magnificent
10. USS Illinois (BB-65)

New featured lists:

1. List of Knight's Cross recipients
2. Order of battle at the Glorious First of June

New A-Class articles:

1. 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt
2. Cold War
3. Hans-Joachim Marseille
4. Krulak Mendenhall mission

Current proposals and discussions

• Discussion about top-level operational categories continues.
• A discussion about non-English operational codenames has begun.
• A category restructuring workshop is now open; brainstorming regarding the arrangement of the top-level military history categories is currently ongoing.

Awards and honors

• Bwmoll3 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his superior contributions to a variety of articles about the United States Air Force, including a great number of those dealing with wings and installations.
• Bedford has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of the outstanding contribution he has made to the project's organization by going above and beyond the call of duty in tagging, assessing, and classifying a massive number of articles during the 2007 assessment drive.

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Project news

• The fifth project coordinator election has now concluded. Roger Davies has been elected to serve as the project's Lead Coordinator, and Blnguyen, Eurocopter tigre, Kyriakos, LordAmeth, Nick Dowling, TomStar81, Wandalstouring, and Woody will occupy the eight Assistant Coordinator positions. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!
• In the simultaneous referendum on project organization, you voted almost unanimously for a primus inter pares structure. As a tangible reflection of this, Assistant Coordinators are now known as Coordinators.
• The contest department has completed its eleventh month of competition, which saw 10 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 28 points, followed by Smsarmad, with 13 points, with Blnguyen, Ed! and jwillbur also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• The National militaries task force has been created.
• A new automatically-generated clean-up list is available to track articles that have various clean-up tags applied to them.
• A new logistics department has been created. The aim is to provide a pool of useful article creation skills that anyone can draw on. These include copy-editing, photograph retouching, and reference material sourcing. If you can contribute, please do so.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident
2. Carlson's patrol
3. Coenwulf of Mercia
4. Glorious First of June
5. Koli Point action
6. Operation Camargue

New featured lists:

1. List of Victoria Cross recipients by nationality

New A-Class articles:

1. 51st Army (Soviet Union)
2. Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999)
3. Le Paradis massacre
4. Military of East Timor
5. USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

Breaking news

• A new B-Class Assessment Drive ("BCAD") will go operational no later than 11 March. Of great interest to experienced wiki-gnomes, it is small in scope, about 4,500 articles, and will be supported by the usual awards, including a golden wiki. To keep up to date with developments, and to get off to a flying start when it opens, add WP:MHA-BCAD now to your watchlist.

Awards and honors

• Kirill Lokshin has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding organizational work, his painstaking maintenance work, and his unstinting advice, throughout his two years of project leadership.
• MBK004 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding effort to improve our compliment of naval ships by updating infoboxes, replacing deprecated infoboxes, and locating sources for ships in the employment of their respective countries' navies.

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Project news

• The Crusades task force has been created.
• The main project talk page is now automatically archived; MiszaBot II will archive any sections that have had no comments for 21 days.
• The contest department has completed its twelth month of competition, which saw 13 entries. The top scorer this month is Woody, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter with 13 points, with Ed!, jwillbur, Redmarkviolinist and Borg Sphere also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• A Sources section has been added to the Logistics department, for help tracing and locating JSTOR articles and other source material.
• A Linguistics section has been added to the Logistics department, for help with non-English language sources and translation of snippets. It supports 19 languages so far.
• An Administrators section has been added to the Logistics department, for help with admin related tasks. Administrators willing to help out are cordially asked to list their names in the section.
• Reminder: Editors are always needed to review various military history articles at all levels.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Æthelred of Mercia
2. Cannon
3. HMAS Melbourne (R21)
4. Huldrych Zwingli
5. Timor Leste Defence Force
6. USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

New featured lists:

1. List of countries without armed forces
2. List of foreign recipients of the Knight's Cross
3. List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Battle of Iwo Jima
4. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy

New featured topics:

1. Atlantic campaign of May 1794

New A-Class articles:

1. Armia Krajowa
2. Heuschrecke 10
3. USS Siboney (ID-2999)
4. William Stacy

Awards and honors

• Kirill Lokshin has been appointed coordinator emeritus to reflect his on-going involvement in the project. The appointment ends concurrently with the other coordinators' terms in September 2008.
• The following editors have been awarded the Content Review Medal for their work on reviews at various levels of military history articles: Carom, Cam, Blnguyen, Howard C. Berkowitz, Kevin Myers, Maralia, MrPrada, SoLando, and Wandalstouring. Similar awards were made last December to: Buckshot06, Cla68, Eurocopter tigre, Hawkeye7, Ian Rose, Jackyd101, JKBrooks85, Kyriakos, LordAmeth, Nick Dowling, Roger Davies, The Land, TomStar81 and Woody, most of whom are still active reviewers.

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Project news

• Tag & Assess 2008 launched on 24 April and will run until 4 July. We have around 60,000 articles to check, so all assistance is very welcome. As usual, there are barnstars galore and service awards for contributing editors.
• The project scope has been amended to include specific reference to historically accurate video games. Songs and music with long military associations are also now included.
• The Contest department has completed its thirteenth month of competition, which saw 27 entries. The top scorer this month is Ed! with 37 points, followed by Cam with 22 points. Woody, Howard C. Berkowitz, Redmarkviolinist, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• The coordinators have "adopted" task forces to act as prime point of contact. A list of which coordinators have adopted which task forces is here.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt
2. 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing
3. Lazare Ponticelli
4. Maximian
5. Peterloo Massacre
6. The Third of May 1808
7. USS Orizaba (ID-1536)
8. USS Siboney (ID-2999)

New featured lists:

1. List of Irish Victoria Cross recipients
2. Order of battle at the Battle of Tory Island

New featured portals:

1. Portal:American Civil War

New A-Class articles:

1. 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States)
2. Battle of Bonchurch
3. Battle of Tassafaronga
4. Early thermal weapons
5. HMS Cardiff (D108)
6. USS Comfort (AH-3)
7. USS Orizaba (ID-1536)

Current proposals and discussions

• An interesting proposal to set up teams to deal with specific tasks, like taking the Top Ten most frequently read military history articles to featured articles status is here.
• The coordinators are exploring ways of developing and improving our fifty or so task forces. More information is here.
• All editors are invited to contribute to a discussion about the naming of military operations in an endeavor to reach consensus.

Awards and honors

• Congratulations and kudos to the four top-performing editors in BCAD: CAM (1st); Legotech (2nd); Harland1 (3rd) and Smsarmad (4th). They helped assess 4303 B-class Milhist articles. Well done!
• To belatedly commemorate the first anniversary of the Contest department, the overall annual winner, Blnguyen, has been awarded the Chevrons and the March monthly winner, Woody, and runner-up, Dreamafter, each receive the Writer's Barnstar.

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Project news

• Editors needed for Tag & Assess 2008. To coincide with the summer holidays, it will be gearing up from 15 June. As usual, barnstars galore!
• Partner peer reviews: for a thirty-day trial period, we'll be running joint peer reviews with Wikiproject Video Games. The idea is simple: we help with their reviews; they help with ours. This way both wikiprojects benefit from new reviewers and new ideas!
• We're notable: A new book, Simon Fowler's 2007 Guide to Military History on the Internet (UK:Pen & Sword, ISBN 9781844156061) rates Wikipedia as "the best general resource" for military research (p. 7). Of the military pages, he says: "The results are largely accurate and generally free of bias" (he also suggests people join the wikiproject). When rating WP as the No. 1 military site (p. 201) he says "Wikipedia is often criticised for its inaccuracy and bias, but in my experience the military history articles are spot on."
• A-Class reviews: the usual four-day review period may now be extended by up to three days (ie seven days in total) in the following circumstances:

1. the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
2. the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.

The full text is here.

• The special projects department has opened. It will focus on specific ad-hoc high-priority tasks and implement them with informal, short-term groups of editors.
• The Contest department has completed its fourteenth month of competition, which saw 16 entries. The top scorer this month is Cam with 21 points, followed by Redmarkviolinist with 11 points. Woody, Dreamafter, Kyriakos, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Tassafaronga
2. Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood
3. HMS Cardiff (D108)
4. Krulak Mendenhall mission
5. Le Quang Tung
6. Operation Passage to Freedom
7. Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi

New featured lists:

1. List of Texan survivors of the Battle of the Alamo
2. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy
3. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Indian Army

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of the Kalka River
2. Battle of Verrières Ridge
3. Brian Horrocks
4. Byzantine navy
5. Erich Hartmann
6. Montana class battleship

Current proposals and discussions

• A discussion has been opened into the structuring of top level operational categories, starting with Category:World War II. All interested editors are invited to help establish a consensus.

Awards and honors

• Congratulations go to Hlj, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his many consistently fine and valuable contributions to military history articles within the American Civil War task force.

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Project news

• With the holiday season upon us, we're very short of reviewers at A-Class Reviews and are likely to remain so for the next month or so. If just five new reviewers each reviewed one article a week, the problem would be solved! To keep track of Milhist articles for peer and A-Class reviews, simply paste the code – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} – onto your talk page.
• Similarly, copy-editors are currently in short supply. If you can help out at the Copy-editing section of the Logistics Dept, it would be much appreciated. If you can help with A-Class Reviews and Featured Article Candidates so much the better! To keep up to date with Milhist articles needing copy input, just paste – {{WPMILHIST Copy-editing alerts}} onto your talk page.
• The debate on whether Milhist should adopt the new C-Class has been closed, with a strong and clear consensus against adopting. The archived discussion is here.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Lissa (1811)
2. Battle of Verrières Ridge
3. Benjamin Franklin Tilley
4. Brian Horrocks
5. Lince (tank)
6. Montana class battleship
7. Saint-Sylvestre coup d’état
8. Verdeja (tank)
9. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

New featured lists:

1. List of Crimean War Victoria Cross recipients‎
2. List of German World War II jet aces (promoted in May)

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse
2. Battle of Strasbourg
3. Operation Brevity
4. Operation Tractable
5. Operation Varsity
6. Roman-Persian Wars
7. SS Kroonland

Current proposals and discussions

• The Milhist review structure is itself being reviewed. The idea is to see how it can be improved, or whether it needs changing or updating.
• The month-long trial of partner peer reviews with Video games is being discussed. All feedback welcome!

Awards and honors

• Congratulations to Buckshot06, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his consistently excellent edits and his continued commitment and tireless efforts towards improving the quality of articles pertaining to military history.
• Congratulations to Piotrus, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Polish military history, including the creation of numerous Featured Articles, A-Class articles, and Good Articles on the subject.
• Reviewers: Many thanks go to Kirill, TomStar81, Eurocopter tigre, Nick Dowling, Ryan4314, Woody, Wandalstouring, Jon Catalán, Kyriakos, Maralia and Oberiko for their work on A-Class Reviews and Peer Reviews, during the quarter March-May 2008. They have all been awarded the Content Review Medals.
• The Contest department has completed its fifteenth month of competition, which saw 15 entries. The top scorer this month is JonCatalan with 32 points, followed by Cam with 20 points. Ed!, David Underdown, CyclonicWhirlwind, and Blnguyen also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 193 points in total. The Chevrons go to JonCatalan and Cam gets the Writer's Barnstar. The May 2008 winners, Cam and Redmarkviolinist have been belatedly awarded the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar for coming first and second respectively. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
• Tag & Assess '08 has now closed, with approximately 10,000 articles successfully tagged. Many thanks to all those who participated. The top three scorers were Jim Sweeney (Gold Wiki), Dashiellx (Silver Wiki) and Ejosse1 (Bronze Wiki).

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Project news

• The criteria for Military history A-Class reviews have been overhauled. The new standard is deliberately set higher than before, and is much closer to featured article quality. The new criteria are:

• A1. The article is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations as appropriate.
• A2. The article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail.
• A3. The article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents.
• A4. The article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant.
• A5. The article contains supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where appropriate.

• The timescale for A-Class articles has also been changed to give more editors an opportunity to participate.
• The six-monthly Coordinators' election has been moved back a month to avoid clashes with the holiday period. The sign-up period will run from 1–15 September and the elections themselves from 16–30 September.
• The military land vehicles task force has been created.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Concepción
2. Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse
3. Battle of Tory Island
4. Early life and military career of John McCain
5. Grass Fight
6. Leopard 2E
7. Operation Varsity
8. Roman–Persian Wars
9. Uriel Sebree
10. USS Princess Matoika (ID-2290)

New featured portals:

1. Portal:World War II

New A-Class articles:

1. 11th Airborne Division (United States)
2. 2007–2008 Ethiopian crackdown in Ogaden
3. 2008 invasion of Anjouan
4. Auxiliaries (Roman military)
5. Citadel of Saigon
6. HMS Ark Royal (91)

Current proposals and discussions

• Input wanted from people who didn't participate in Tag & Assess '08. Please comment at the Tag & Assess workshop so we can improve future drives.

Awards and honors

• The Contest department has completed its sixteenth month of competition, which saw 22 entries. The top scorer this month is new entrant Bellhalla with 41 points, followed by Blnguyen with 33 points. Cam, Ed!, David Underdown, and Ferbess also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 226 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Blnguyen gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is underway, to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on 14 September! Voting starts at 00:01 (UTC) on 15 September and runs until 23:59 (UTC) on 30 September.
• A new barnstar specifically encouraging and recognizing excellence in Milhist article creation and development has been introduced. Any editor who has made a significant contribution to three or more Milhist A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008 under the new A-Class criteria is eligible. Nominations for the medal should be made here; should list the three A-Class articles for which the medal is sought; and must be subsequently supported by three or more project coordinators, who will be responsible for making the award. Editors may nominate themselves or any other qualifying editor.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Domitian
2. HMS Ark Royal (91)
3. John McCain
4. Operation Ke
5. Panzer I
6. Warwick Castle

New featured lists:

1. List of Korean War Medal of Honor recipients
2. List of USAF Test Pilot School alumni

New A-Class articles:

1. Harry Murray
2. Horses in warfare
3. Kaunas Fortress
4. Kiev Expedition (1018)
5. Napoleon I of France
6. Operation Ke
7. Panzer IV
8. SS Dakotan
9. SS Pennsylvanian
10. TAM (tank)
11. United States Naval Gunfire Support Debate‎
12. USS Mercy (AH-4)

Current proposals and discussions

• A new discussion about whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is underway. All comments are welcome.
• The 2008 Tag & Assess Workshop is still open, seeking input on ways to improve the efficiency, user-friendliness and organization of future Milhist drives. All comment is welcome, especially from people who didn't participate in the drive!

Awards and honors

• Durova has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of her exemplary work on military history featured pictures, sounds, and articles.
• JonCatalán has been awarded the new Milhist A-Class medal for his work on three newly-promoted tank-related articles: Panzer I, TAM and AMX-30E.
• The new Milhist A-Class medal also goes to Bellhalla for his three ship-related articles: USS Mercy (AH-4), SS Pennsylvanian and SS Dakotan.
• The Contest department has completed its seventeenth month of competition, which saw an unprecedented 54 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with a record 120 points, followed by JonCatalan with 56 points. Abraham, B.S., Cam, Ed!, Woody, David Underdown, Gaia Octavia Agrippa and Kyriakos also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 226 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and JonCatalan gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
• Thanks go to Abraham, B.S., Bedford, Benedict of Constantinople, Borg Sphere, Canglesea, Climie.ca, Dashiellx, Ejosse1, El Greco, Fusionmix, Geoff Plourde, Jim Sweeney, Judgesurreal777, MBK004, Mifter, Parsecboy, Red4tribe, Rosiestep, Suyogaerospace, and TomStar81 for their help with the 2008 Tag & Assess Workshop.

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Project news

• The sixth project coordinator election has now concluded. The following editors have been elected to serve as project coordinators until 31 March 2009: Bedford, Cam, Eurocopter, JonCatalán, MBK004, Nick Dowling, Roger Davies (lead), TomStar81, and Woody. Kirill Lokshin has been appointed coordinator emeritus for as long he wants the position. Congratulations to those elected, and thanks to everyone who participated!
• Following a successful RfA, Buckshot06 has been promoted to administrator. We wish him every success in his new role!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. AMX-30E
2. Battle of Goliad
3. Guadalcanal Campaign
4. Harry Murray
5. Morotai Mutiny
6. Phan Xich Long

New featured lists:

1. List of Indian Mutiny Victoria Cross recipients
2. List of Zulu War Victoria Cross recipients‎

New featured topics:

1. Guadalcanal Campaign

New A-Class articles:

1. 2nd Canadian Infantry Division
2. Air Combat Group RAAF
3. Battle of Berlin
4. Blair Anderson Wark
5. Late Roman army
6. Operation Lüttich
7. SMS Von der Tann
8. SS Minnesotan
9. SS Montanan
10. SS Ohioan (1914)
11. SS Panaman
12. SS Washingtonian
13. USS Iowa (BB-61)
14. USS West Bridge (ID-2888)

Current proposals and discussions

• The W1.0 Editorial Team have selected 1133 Military history articles for inclusion in the W0.7 test release. For convenience, these are broken by task force and you'll find a list on each task force headed "Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for [task force name]" on the task force talk page. You may nominate extra articles for inclusion or existing ones for removal. If you can improve any of the articles on the list, by adding references, or copy-editing, or cleaning up generally, please do so.
• A new discussion has started about naming articles on Soviet WWII operations. All contributions are welcome as we hope to resolve this longstanding issue once and for all.
• The debate over whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is continuing. All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Awards and honors

• Bellhalla has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his exemplary work on military history articles and DYK entries.
• For their work improving articles through the Military history review process, Borg Sphere, Cla68, Eurocopter, Nick Dowling, TomStar81, Woody, JonCatalán, Brad and Cam, have been awarded the Content Review Medal.
• The Contest department has completed its eighteenth month of competition, which saw 45 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with a record 151 points, followed by Abraham, B.S. with 27 points. Woody, Cam, YellowMonkey, Piotrus, David Underdown, Borg Sphere, Tartarus, Ed!, and Out also fielded entries. Bellhalla is now the overall leader, with 300 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Abraham, B.S. gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• Following a lengthy discussion, three new coordinators – EyeSerene, Maralia and the_ed17 - have been coopted. The purpose of the appointments is partly to fill the place left by the retirement of TomStar81 and partly to provide increased/improved coordinator capacity to cover existing coordinator absences and to help with upcoming major projects. As a reminder, coordinators are merely editors who have committed to go the extra mile for the project and that there are very few processes that require coordinator input. Specifically these are closing A-Class reviews, and endorsing two project award nominations. Any editors who wish to help with the nitty-gritty of this busy project (cross-posting A-Class review, peer review and featured article candidate alerts; responding to member questions and queries, helping with drives) are positively encouraged to do so.
• A workshop has been set up to redesign and improve the newsletter. In our recent competition, a new name was chosen – The Bugle. All editors are welcome to participate, especially those with graphic and design skills!
• Administrator and Milhist coordinator, Nick Dowling, has changed his user name to Nick-D.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Albert Speer
2. Anglo-Zanzibar War
3. Operation Epsom
4. Operation Tractable
5. SMS Von der Tann
6. TAM
7. USS Nevada (BB-36)

New featured lists:

1. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service
2. List of New Zealand Land Wars Victoria Cross recipients
3. List of Second Afghan War Victoria Cross recipients

New A-Class articles:

1. Admiralty Islands campaign
2. Battle of Fort Donelson
3. Battle of Fort Henry
4. Battle of Vigo Bay
5. Clarence Smith Jeffries
6. Frederick III, German Emperor
7. Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette
8. MS West Honaker
9. Percy Herbert Cherry
10. Joseph Maxwell
11. SS Iowan
12. Third Battle of Kharkov
13. USS Constitution

Current proposals and discussions

• Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with discussions approaching their fourth month of debate. More views are sought on this.

Awards and honors

• Kyriakos has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from February 2007 to September 2008.
• LordAmeth has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from August 2006 to September 2008.
• EyeSerene has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his diligent and excellent copyediting of vast quantities of Military History articles—notably his work on multiple Featured Article Candidates.
• TomStar81 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of both his long and distinguished service as a coordinator of this project from August 2007 to October 2008, and of his exemplary contributions to articles on the vessels of the U.S. Navy.
• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal twice for his six ship-related articles: SS Montanan, SS Ohioan (1914), SS Panaman, MS West Honaker, SS Iowan, and USS West Bridge (ID-2888).
• Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for his three biographies on Australian First World War Victoria Cross recipients: Percy Herbert Cherry, Blair Anderson Wark, and Joseph Maxwell.
• The Contest department has completed its nineteenth month of competition, which saw 35 entries. The top scorer this month is the_ed17 with 39 points, followed by Bellhalla with 38 points. David Underdown, Abraham, B.S., Woody, Piotrus, Rosiestep, Tartarus, Gaia Octavia Agrippa and Harland1 also fielded entries. Bellhalla is now the overall leader, with 338 points in total. The Chevrons go to the_ed17 and Bellhalla gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• The Lebanese military history task force has been created.
• The recent promotion of Tom Crean (explorer) brings the number of featured articles within the scope of the Military History Project to 300.
• Following a lengthy discussion, a new section - Personal libraries - has been added to the Logistics Department. The aim is to make sourcing and citation checking easier by sharing information about editors' personal book holdings. If you have half an hour to spare, why not add a list of your Milhist reference books?

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Lipantitlán
2. Battle of Khafji
3. Richard Williams (RAAF officer)
4. Tom Crean
5. Third Battle of Kharkov
6. SS Mauna Loa
7. SS Montanan
8. SS Ohioan (1914)
9. USS Constitution

New featured lists:

1. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service

New A-Class articles:

1. 13th Airborne Division (United States)
2. Alaska class battlecruiser
3. Edmund Herring
4. Revolt of the Comuneros
5. Rheinmetall 120 mm gun
6. SS Black Osprey
7. Stanley Goble
8. Tanks in the Spanish Army

Current proposals and discussions

• Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with discussions approaching their fifth month of debate. More views are sought on this.
• What is a Pyrrhic victory? There's an interesting and lively discussion on this here. (And the short answer is: follow what the sources say.)
• Can you design logos? We're looking for a snappy new logo to go with the new title of the newsletter. See the ideas so far at the newsletter workshop.

Awards and honors

• The Contest department has completed its twentieth month of competition, which saw a record 78 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 143 points, followed by Catalan with 42 points. Georgejdorner, Ian Rose, Abraham, B.S., the_ed17, Skinny87, Rosiestep, ERcheck, David Underdown and Gaia Octavia Agrippa also fielded entries. Bellhalla remains the overall leader with 481 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Catalan gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• Appearing on the main page on 8 December 2008, Ivan Castro's DYK drew 71,300 page views in a single day - now the all-time high for DYK views.
• As a result of the 2008 Arbitration Committee elections, Lead Coordinator Roger Davies is the fourth coordinator of the project to be appointed to the Arbitration Committee. The others are Kirill Lokshin (2007-2009), FayssalF (2008-2010) and YellowMonkey (2007-2008).
• This month saw 14 military history-related articles promoted to featured status, the highest number for a single month since the project's establishment in October 2002. Congratulations all round!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 13th Airborne Division (United States)
2. 2nd Canadian Infantry Division
3. Action of 13 January 1797
4. Akutan Zero
5. AMX-30
6. Arena Active Protection System
7. Blair Anderson Wark
8. British Empire
9. Frederick III, German Emperor
10. Phan Dinh Phung
11. Rheinmetall 120 mm gun
12. SS Dakotan
13. SS Washingtonian
14. Tanks in the Spanish Army

New featured lists:

1. Timeline of the Adriatic campaign, 1807–1814

New featured topics:

1. Spanish Tanks

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Salamis
2. Bruce Kingsbury
3. Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell)
4. George Ingram
5. Jagdgeschwader 1 (World War II)
6. John Whittle
7. Lexington class battlecruiser
8. Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment
9. SM U-5 (Austria-Hungary)
10. Tetrarch (tank)
11. USS Iowa turret explosion
12. Zanzibar Revolution

Current proposals and discussions

• Design competition Editors with design skills urgently needed to design an eyecatching logo for this newsletter. The logo needs to incorporate a bugle motif as well as the newsletter's title, "The Bugle". Fame and honour (a barnstar) guaranteed for the successful design. Submit entries here please.
• Who will be the three "2008 Military historians of the Year"? There are 13 candidates so far and the number is rising rapidly. The winning editors will receive the Gold, Silver and Bronze Wikis; and all other nominees the WikiProject barnstar. To nominate editors you admire, or to cast your votes, please visit here!
• A new drive has been started to identify the core topics of World War I with the aim of improving their quality before the centenary of the start of World War I in 2014.
• A discussion is underway regarding flag icons and whether to rewrite the current guidelines to reflect the Manual of Style.

Awards and honors

• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for three ship-related articles: SS Black Osprey, SS Mauna Loa, and SM U-5 (Austria-Hungary).
• JonCatalán has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Battle of Khafji, Rheinmetall 120 mm gun, and AMX-30.
• The Contest department has completed its twenty first month of competition, which saw 58 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 113 points followed by Abraham, B.S. with 32 points. Ed!, Chamal_N, JonCatalan, Skinny87, Rosiestep, the_ed17, David Underdown, Maralia and Terrakyte also fielded entries. Bellhalla remains the overall leader with 594 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Abraham, B.S. gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• Don't forget the six-monthly Coordinator elections will take place in March for the April-September term. If you want to become more involved in the project, now's the time to start thinking about it!
• Upon the improvement of World War I or Alexander the Great to featured article, Lead Coordinator Roger Davies has pledged to donate US$250 per article to the Wikimedia Foundation. This pledge is listed at the bounty board and will expire on 31 December 2009. The two articles are both listed at the Special Projects Department as the second and ninth most frequently-read MILHIST articles.
• Following extensive discussion, the structure of the A-Class Medal System has been changed to include three new medals: The A-Class Medal with Oak Leaves, the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves and Swords, and the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds, each of which is respectfully awarded after 5, 10, and 20 groups of three A-Class Articles.
• The number of our A-Class articles grew by more than 25% during this month, compared to the total number of A-Class articles existent at the end of December.
• Following a successful RfA, Cam has been promoted to administrator.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Alaska class cruiser
2. Bruce Kingsbury
3. Fred Moosally
4. Isaac Shelby
5. Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment
6. Operation Brevity
7. Operation Uranus
8. SS Minnesotan
9. Stanley Goble
10. Tetrarch (tank)
11. USS Iowa (BB-61)
12. USS Iowa turret explosion
13. Woodes Rogers

New featured lists:

1. List of Second Boer War Victoria Cross recipients

New featured topics:

1. Adriatic campaign of 1807-1814

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Aachen
2. Battle of Grand Port
3. Battle of Kaiapit
4. Bob Chappuis
5. Dreadnought
6. Elmer Gedeon
7. George Alan Vasey
8. George Julian Howell
9. Heinrich Bär
10. James Newland
11. John S. McCain, Jr.
12. Landing at Saidor
13. List of tanks in the Spanish Civil War
14. M249 squad automatic weapon
15. Military history of Australia during World War II
16. Neil Hamilton Fairley
17. North Yemen Civil War
18. Operation Cobra
19. Operation Winter Storm
20. Operation Totalize
21. Percy Statton
22. Port Chicago disaster
23. SM U-14 (Austria-Hungary)
24. SS Timothy Bloodworth
25. Tom Derrick
26. U-1 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)
27. U-3 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)
28. William Bostock
29. Willie Gillis
30. Yamato class battleship

Current proposals and discussions

• A drive is underway to identify the core topics of World War I with the aim of improving their quality before the centenary of the start of World War I in 2014.
• A Survey is currently underway to determine how MilHist's processes, logistics, and management can be improved.

Awards and honors

• "Military historian of the Year": the winners of the gold, silver and bronze wikis are: in first place, JonCatalán; in second place, Cla68; and in joint third place, TomStar81 and Skinny87. The runners-up in alphabetical, who each receive the WikiProject Barnstar, are: Abraham, B.S., Bellhalla, Dreamafter, Durova, Ian Rose, Nick-D, Saberwyn, Woody, YellowMonkey and Ynhockey.
• For their work improving articles through the Military history review process during the fourth quarter of 2008, Joe N, JonCatalán, Skinny87, The_ed17, YellowMonkey, Abraham, B.S., Cam, Woody, Roger Davies, Redmarkviolinist, Jim Sweeney, and Nick-D, have been awarded the Content Review Medal.
• Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his many valuable contributions to the project as an active reviewer, a thoughtful contributor to military history discussions, a fine content contributor, and a gentleman.
• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oakleaves for three ship articles: SS Washingtonian, SS Minnesotan and SS Timothy Bloodworth. He is the first editor to receive the Oakleaves.
• Abraham, B.S. has also been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal twice for Clarence Smith Jeffries, George Ingram, John Whittle, Harry Murray, James Newland and George Julian Howell.
• Cam has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, Operation Lüttich, and Yamato class battleship.
• JonCatalán has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal twice for Panzer IV, Third Battle of Kharkov, Tanks in the Spanish Army, Arena Active Protection System, Operation Winter Storm and List of tanks in the Spanish Civil War.
• Cla68 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Operation Ke, Guadalcanal Campaign and USS Iowa turret explosion.
• Eurocopter has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Operation Epsom, Operation Cobra and Battle of Berlin.
• Hawkeye7 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal twice for Neil Hamilton Fairley, Edmund Herring, Admiralty Islands campaign, Battle of Kaiapit, Landing at Saidor and George Alan Vasey.
• The_ed17 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for USS Nevada (BB-36), Alaska class cruiser and Lexington class battlecruiser.
• TonyTheTiger has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell), Bob Chappuis and Elmer Gedeon.
• The Contest department has completed its twenty second month of competition, which saw 62 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 93 points followed by Abraham, B.S. with 52 points. Cam, Georgejdorner and 11 other editors also fielded entries. Bellhalla remains the overall leader with 687 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Abraham, B.S. gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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From the Coordinators

This month has been interesting for MILHIST, as we reorganized a few departments. The Outreach Department has been replaced by the tabs at the top of our totally redesigned project page; thanks to Kirill for the design and Bellhalla for the logo. We also created the Academy, a hub for practical advice about creating, editing, and reviewing quality content. All project members are cordially invited to fill in some of the red links, and new ideas are always welcome.

As you can see on the right, our A-class and featured content is growing quite rapidly; these numbers have now gone up by 45 for the second straight month! Great work! In addition, thanks go out to those who recently helped in reducing the A-class nominations backlog. Reviewers are still needed; if you feel up to it, please stop by and leave comments on an article—every review helps!

Lastly, the contest results for the month: Bellhalla took the cake again with 77 points and gets the Chevrons, while Ian Rose gets the Writer's Barnstar for his 60 points. Other participants included Bryce (49 points), Cam (25), David Underdown (11), Kirk (5), Parsecboy (20), Piotrus (?), Rosiestep (3), the_ed17 (27), Wild Wolf (6), and YellowMonkey (35). 51 total articles were improved as part of this.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Dreadnought
2. Edmund Herring
3. John Whittle
4. Murray Maxwell
5. SS Kroonland
6. United States Military Academy
7. USS Connecticut (BB-18)
8. William Bostock

New featured lists:

1. List of Australian George Cross recipients
2. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Kriegsmarine

New featured pictures:

1. 1917 surrender of Jerusalem
2. WWI Canadian war bond poster (french)
3. WWI Canadian war bond poster (english)
4. Lexington class battlecruiser
5. Battle of Ticonderoga attack plan, 1759
6. Military College of Chapultepec, c. 1847
7. Machine gun corps, Tell el Sheria Gaza line, 1917
8. First Battle of Manassas map
9. Aftermath of Wounded Knee, January 1891
10. Ottoman camel corps at Beersheba, WWI
11. Japanese archer with targets, 1878

New featured topics:

1. Iowa class battleships

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Sio
2. Battles of the Kinarot Valley
3. Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
4. Clare Stevenson
5. Edgar Towner
6. Falaise pocket
7. Frank Hubert McNamara
8. Japanese battleship Musashi
9. Japanese battleship Yamato
10. Joe Hewitt (RAAF officer)
11. Keith Miller
12. Lee-Enfield
13. Military career of Keith Miller
14. Operation Mole Cricket 19
15. Powder Alarm
16. SMS Moltke (1910)
17. SM U-66
18. SM U-68
19. Sydney Rowell
20. U-5 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)
21. U-20 class submarine
22. USS Texas (BB-35)
23. Walter Nowotny

Project news

• On 22 February, four military history articles—all of them on battleships—appeared on the Main Page: USS Connecticut (BB-18) was the day's featured article, Japanese battleship Haruna and Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais appeared as part of the DYK section, and French battleship Danton (1909) was one of the in the news items.
• Six articles in our scope appeared on the main page this month: Woodes Rogers (1 February), Action of 13 January 1797 (6 February), 300 (film) (13 February), Theramenes (17 February), Third Battle of Kharkov (19 February), and USS Connecticut (BB-18) (22 February).
• The main project page has been redesigned.
• Article alerts are now available both for the entire project (on the status page) and for each task force (on the task force page).
• The Military history coordinator elections, to appoint coordinators for the period April–October 2009, take place this month. If you are thinking of standing as a candidate, the schedule is as follows:

Nomination period: 00:01 Sat 7 March - 23:59 Fri 13 March

Voting period: 00:01 Sat 14 March - 23:59 Sat 29 March

Awards and honors

• Ian Rose has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Australian military history articles (including four Featured Articles, an A-Class article, and four Good Articles), his highly civil and collaborative editing, and his willingness to provide advice and assistance to other editors.
• MisterBee1966 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his contributions to seven featured lists on German military awards during the Second World War, and for contributing to four good articles and being instrumental in promoting three of them to A-Class status.
• Raul654 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his contributions to six current Military History Featured Articles, his flexibility in managing the "Today's featured article" list to accommodate relevant main-page appearances, and his generosity in providing many images for our visual library.
• The Land has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his significant contributions to the area of maritime warfare, as he has authored six of the seven articles in the "history of the battleship" series, with four of them now being featured.
• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oak Leaves twice for six ship articles: U-1 class submarine (Austria-Hungary), U-3 class submarine (Austria-Hungary), SM U-14 (Austria-Hungary), U-5 class submarine (Austria-Hungary), U-20 class submarine, and SM U-68.
• Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Percy Statton, Tom Derrick and List of Australian George Cross recipients.
• Cam has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Operation Totalize, Japanese battleship Yamato and Japanese battleship Musashi.
• Ian Rose has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Stanley Goble, William Bostock and Frank Hubert McNamara.
• Nudve has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for North Yemen Civil War, Battles of the Kinarot Valley, and Operation Mole Cricket 19.
• TomStar81 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for United States Naval Gunfire Support debate, USS Iowa (BB-61) and USS Texas (BB-35).

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From the coordinators

The big news of course was the seventh project coordinator election covering the period ending 30 September. The quality of the candidates was extremely high, with some of the project's top content builders running alongside highly experienced backroom people. Of the eighteen candidates, sixteen were finally appointed, giving us probably the most rounded coordination team so far.

Those elected were: Abraham, B.S., Bellhalla, Cam, Eurocopter, EyeSerene, Ian Rose, Jackyd101, Joe N, Lordoliver, Maralia, MBK004, Nick-D, Roger Davies (lead), Skinny87, The ed17 and TomStar81. Kirill Lokshin continues in his role as coordinator emeritus. Thanks must go to the departing coordinators – Bedford, JonCatalán and Woody – for helping make the project what it is today

The C-class referendum, held at the same time, produced a slight majority of votes for introduction, but was insufficient to demonstrate a clear consensus. So, for the time being at least, therefore, the project will continue without C-class. Otherwise, focus is likely be on the Academy and the development of courses to develop reviewing, copy-editing and article-building skills. Some review of our task forces is also probable, perhaps consolidating some of the smaller, quieter, ones. As ever, input from everyone is not only welcomed but positively encouraged.

The coordinators' gratitude goes not only to those who participated in the election and referenda but also to everyone who works quietly and conscientiously away to make participation in this project rewarding, successful and productive. Milhist is very fortunate in its membership! Thank you all,  Roger Davies ^talk 16:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Byzantine navy
2. Falaise Pocket
3. Frank Hubert McNamara
4. Heinrich Bär
5. Juan Davis Bradburn
6. Operation Cobra
7. Port Chicago disaster
8. SM U-66
9. SMS Moltke (1910)
10. Surrender of Japan
11. Tom Derrick
12. William Henry Harrison

New featured lists:

1. List of United States Naval Academy alumni
2. List of United States Naval Academy alumni (astronauts)
3. List of United States Naval Academy alumni (Chiefs of Naval Operations)
4. List of United States Naval Academy alumni (legislators)

New featured pictures:

1. USS Texas (1892)

New A-Class articles:

1. 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing
2. Ba Cut
3. Battle of Artemisium
4. Battle of Fort Washington
5. Battle of Morotai
6. Battle of Tippecanoe
7. Battle of Vimy Ridge
8. Battle of Wau
9. Design 1047 battlecruiser
10. Fountain of Time
11. Frank Horton Berryman
12. Gia Long
13. Henry Wells (general)
14. Hill 262
15. Hue chemical attacks
16. Japanese battleship Haruna
17. Jon Burge
18. Nassau class battleship
19. Operation Freshman
20. SM UB-43
21. SM UB-45
22. Stanley Savige
23. Xa Loi Pagoda raids

Project news

• With 12 entrants working on 63 articles, March was another good month for our article improvement contest, entering in April its third year of operation. The coveted Chevrons go to Bellhalla for his outstanding 127 points, with YellowMonkey bagging the Writer's Barnstar for his highly commendable 65 points. Lordoliver came third with a very respectable 57 points. Our thanks go to our other stalwart article builders: Abraham, B.S. (34), Parsecboy (31), Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus (17), Cam (15), Ian Rose (12), David Underdown (12), the ed17 (10), Backslash Forwardslash (6), and Wild Wolf (1).
• Three articles in the project's scope appeared on the Main Page as today's featured article this month: Lazare Ponticelli (12 March), 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt (17 March) and Operation Varsity (24 March).

Awards and honors

• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oak Leaves for three ship articles: SM U-66, SM UB-45, and SM UB-43.
• Hawkeye7 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Battle of Sio, Sydney Rowell, and Battle of Wau.
• Parsecboy has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for SMS Von der Tann, SMS Moltke (1910) and Nassau-class battleship.
• Skinny87 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for 13th Airborne Division (United States), Tetrarch (tank), and Operation Freshman.
• TonyTheTiger has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Willie Gillis, Jon Burge, and Fountain of Time.
• YellowMonkey has been awarded two Milhist A-Class medals this month; the first for Military career of Keith Miller, Keith Miller, and 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing; the second for Hue chemical attacks, Ba Cut and Xa Loi Pagoda raids.
• The following editors received the WikiProject Barnstar for their help coordinating the project during the past six months: Bedford, Cam, Eurocopter, EyeSerene, JonCatalán, Kirill Lokshin, Maralia, MBK004, Nick-D, Roger Davies, the_ed17 and Woody.

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From the coordinators

Once again, this month, we have a bumper crop of featured and A-class content, and our heartfelt thanks go to editors who have worked so hard to write these. But with our growth in quality content comes increased demand for reviewers. Which is where you can help.

Reviewing is easy and rewarding. You don't need any prior experience and you don't need to write a full review. Any input is helpful so you initially can just comment on what you're comfortable with. Most reviewers start off by focusing one or two things – say, the historical context, or the text, or the references, or the layout, or the images – and as they gain experience, they broaden the scope of the review. You can easily keep up to date with which articles need review, by copying this text – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} – to your userpage or talkpage. Thanks in anticipation,  Roger Davies

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing
2. Battle of Tippecanoe
3. Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
4. Design 1047 battlecruiser
5. Hue chemical attacks
6. M249 squad automatic weapon
7. Nassau class battleship
8. Raymond Brownell
9. Take Ichi convoy
10. Zanzibar Revolution

New featured lists:

1. List of United States Air Force Academy alumni
2. List of United States Military Academy alumni (astronauts)
3. List of United States Military Academy alumni (non-graduates)
4. List of United States Naval Academy alumni (Medal of Honor)

New featured topics:

1. Lists of United States Naval Academy alumni

New featured pictures:

1. Richmond after the American Civil War
2. Charles P. Stone
3. Idi Amin caricature
4. Joan of Arc WWI lithograph
5. M777 Light Towed Howitzer
6. Robert McGee, scalped as a child by Sioux Chief Little Turtle

New A-Class articles:

1. Adrian Cole (RAAF officer)
2. Amagi class battlecruiser
3. Arthur Henry Cobby
4. Battle of Barnet
5. Battle of Ticonderoga (1759)
6. Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes
7. First Battle of Târgu Frumos
8. Fort Ticonderoga
9. Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay
10. John Northcott
11. Keith Johnson (cricket administrator)
12. Landing at Nadzab
13. Landing on Emirau
14. Moltke class battlecruiser
15. Moro River Campaign
16. Operation Charnwood
17. Operation Deny Flight
18. Otto Becher
19. Polish culture during World War II
20. Roman–Parthian War of 58–63
21. Samuel Burston
22. SMS Seydlitz
23. SM UB-10
24. Ton That Dinh
25. Wolfgang Lüth

Project news

• Our top Peer and A-Class reviewers over the last quarter are Joe N (55), The_ed17 (49), Cla68 (38), TomStar81 (37), Nick-D (34), Abraham, B.S., Wandalstouring, YellowMonkey, Cam, Ian Rose and Woody: who each receive the WikiChevrons. The following editors received the Content Review Medal of Merit for their help: Catalan, Skinny87, Bellhalla, Jim Sweeney, Jackyd101, Patar knight, Hawkeye7, EyeSerene, Harlsbottom, MBK004, The Land, Piotrus, Binksternet, GraemeLeggett, IceUnshattered, Lazulilasher and Parsecboy. Thanks also go to: Eurocopter, Hlj, Lawrencema, MisterBee1966, Nudve, Patton123, Tpbradbury, AdjustShift, Amore Mio, AshLin, Bachcell, Buckshot06, Ceedjee, Cool3, Dapi89, EnigmaMcmxc, Fnlayson, Giordaano, John Smith's, Kevin Myers, Kyriakos, LinguistAtLarge, Maralia, Mjroots, Nigel Ish, NuclearWarfare, Perseus71, Piotr Mikołajski, Randomran, Redmarkviolinist, Saberwyn, Stepshep, Shimgray, Sniperz11, Tartarus and Una Smith.
• The Contest department has completed its twenty-fifth month of competition, with 78 articles entered. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 103 points followed by Sturmvogel 66 with 95 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Cool3 commendably came third with 33 points, with honorable mentions going to Abraham, B.S. (32); Ian Rose (26); the_ed17 (25); YellowMonkey (25); Cam (20); Parsecboy (20); Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus (17); and David Underdown (12). Thanks also go to Wild Wolf, Belissarius, Kirk, and Lordoliver, who also fielded entries.

Awards and honors

• JonCatalán has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his distinguished service as a coordinator of this project, his thorough article reviews, and his exemplary contributions to 14 featured articles, one featured topic, and many A-Class and good articles.
• Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oakleaves for Edgar Towner, Henry Wells (general) and Raymond Brownell.
• Hawkeye7 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oakleaves for Landing at Nadzab, John Northcott and Landing on Emirau.
• Cam has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Japanese battleship Haruna, Moro River Campaign and Operation Charnwood.
• Eurocopter has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Falaise pocket, Hill 262 and First Battle of Târgu Frumos.
• Hawkeye7 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Frank Horton Berryman, Stanley Savige and Samuel Burston.
• Ian Rose has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Clare Stevenson, Joe Hewitt (RAAF officer) and Adrian Cole (RAAF officer).
• Magicpiano has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, Powder Alarm and Fort Ticonderoga.
• MisterBee1966 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Heinrich Bär, Walter Nowotny and Wolfgang Lüth.
• Nick-D has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Military history of Australia during World War II, Battle of Morotai and Australian light destroyer project.
• Parsecboy as been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Moltke class battlecruiser, Amagi class battlecruiser and SMS Seydlitz.
• The_ed17 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Design 1047 battlecruiser, Amagi class battlecruiser and Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes.
• YellowMonkey has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Gia Long, Keith Johnson (cricket administrator) and Ton That Dinh.

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From the coordinators

• With end of year exams beckoning for many members, this has been a quiet month on the talk pages for Milhist. (If you are facing exams yourself, we all wish you the very best of luck!) During this quieter period, some of our most active reviewers are busy revising so it would be really appreciated if you can help with peer reviews or A-Class reviews. You can easily track articles needing review, by copying {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your userpage.
• This month sees our first newsletter editorial. The idea is to provide regular tips and hints to help editors get up to speed with our large (and sometimes complicated) project. This month's piece, by EyeSerene, explains the workings of the project's main template, which is at the core of the project's tagging and assessing activities.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash
2. Arthur Henry Cobby
3. Battle of Barnet
4. Fort Ticonderoga
5. Fountain of Time
6. Neil Hamilton Fairley
7. Operation Perch
8. SMS Seydlitz
9. SS Pennsylvanian

New featured lists:

1. List of United States Military Academy alumni (Medal of Honor)
2. List of United States Military Academy alumni (Superintendents)

New featured topics:

New featured pictures:

1. The Battle of Schevening
2. USS West Virginia (BB-48)

New A-Class articles:

1. Albert Kesselring
2. Frank Bladin
3. Henry Burrell (RAN officer)
4. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Kriegsmarine
5. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service
6. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service
7. Midshipman
8. SM UB-14
9. SM UB-16
10. SS American (1900)
11. Teddy Sheean
12. Tucker class destroyer
13. Yorktown-class gunboat

Project news

• The Contest department has completed its twenty-sixth month of competition, with 83 articles entered by 15 editors. This month's top scorer is Bellhalla with 123 points followed by Sturmvogel 66 with 101 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Parsecboy commendably came third with 47 points, with honorable mentions going to Ian Rose (38), Ed (28), Abraham, B.S. (15), the_ed17 (12), Amore Mio (11) and Kirk (11). Thanks also go to Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, DPdH, Lordoliver, Belissarius, Wild Wolf, Gaia Octavia Agrippa and mynameinc, who also fielded entries.
• In a welcome addition to a long under-represented area, this month saw the creation of the Pakistani military history task force, which hits the ground running with 11 participants.
• In another task force development, please help recruit members for some of our smallest and quietest task forces. If you know anyone who may be interested, or are interested yourself, please see the drive discussion. The affected task forces are (with numbers of particpants in brackets): Taiwanese military history (2); Polish military history (4); Dutch military history (6); Military historiography (6); New Zealand military history (7); Baltic states military history (8); National militaries (8); Southeast Asian military history (8); War films (8); Early Muslim military history (9); Intelligence (9); Lebanese military history (9); South American military history (9); and Spanish military history (9).

Awards and honours

• Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal with Oakleaves for SM U-10, SM UB-14 and SM UB-16.
• MisterBee1966 has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Kriegsmarine, List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service, and List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service.
• Ian Rose has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for Arthur Henry Cobby, Frank Bladin and Henry Burrell (RAN officer).

Editorial: "How to use the Milhist template"

Welcome to a new occasional feature of The Bugle, where over coming issues we'll be exploring some of the roles, tasks, and technical functions that go into creating what archivist and researcher Simon Fowler has described as the best general resource for military history on the internet.^† As a project we can rightly be proud of that accolade, and we gratefully acknowledge the debt we owe to those dedicated editors from across Wikipedia that have helped to make the Military history WikiProject what it is today.

Many editors' first inkling of milhist's existence is when they spot our project banner on an article talk page. The banner can be easily added to appropriate articles by any editor, by typing {{WPMILHIST}} at (or near) the top of the talk page on a new line, and saving the page with an appropriate edit summary. This short form of the template will add the article to our project, and also flag the article as needing assessment and assignment to a task force by automatically adding it to the unassessed articles and articles with no associated task force categories.

As with many templates in use on Wikipedia, additional parameters can be specified. Possibly the most useful to include is the class parameter, because this will help out any editors who come along later to assess the article. To add the class parameter, edit the template markup to look like {{WPMILHIST|class=}}... and if you wish, have a read through the assessment guidance on milhists's quality scale and assign a rating from Stub- to B-Class yourself. A banner template with, for example, a Stub-Class article rating will look like {{WPMILHIST|class=stub}}. Because B-Class is assessed against a checklist it has some additional parameters, so when adding the project banner to an article talk-page, even if you don't intend to assess the article yourself it can be a real help to subsequent editors to include these too. This version of the template can be entered as {{WPMILHIST|class=|B1=|B2=|B3=|B4=|B5=}}. For detailed guidance on exactly what the five B-Class criteria are, see the B-class checklist.

Finally, when adding the milhist banner it's useful to assign the article to one (or more) of our task forces. This will help to bring it to the attention of those editors most likely to be interested in, and knowledgeable about, the subject. As with assessment, task force assignment is accomplished by adding a parameter to the template—in this case, simply the name of the task force followed by =yes (or =y). For example, to assign a Start-Class article to the Second World War and Canadian task forces, the template should read {{WPMILHIST|class=start|B1=|B2=|B3=|B4=|B5=|WWII=yes|Canadian=yes}}.

For a full list of all the banner template parameters and more detailed usage instructions, see Template:WPMILHIST; if you are unsure as to whether or not an article belongs with milhist or what task force(s) might be appropriate, or if you have any other questions, you are welcome to ask at our main project talk page. Happy templating! EyeSerene^talk

^†Simon Fowler, Guide to Military History on the Internet, UK:Pen & Sword 2007, ISBN 9781844156061, p. 7

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From the coordinators

• The big news this month is the launch of the Academy content drive (see below if you want to help). But otherwise it has been a very busy month for both reviewing and contest department entries, surprisingly so considering the wind down of the academic year.
• If you'd like to do some wiki-gnoming over the holidays, please help with the huge backlog (currently 0 articles) at Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists.  Roger Davies ^talk 11:31, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of the Coral Sea
2. Battle of Vimy Ridge
3. Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes
4. Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay
5. Military history of Australia during World War II
6. Otto Becher
7. Moltke-class battlecruiser
8. Yamato-class battleship

New featured lists:

1. List of Medal of Honor recipients (Veracruz)
2. List of Philippine–American War Medal of Honor recipients
3. List of United States Military Academy alumni (athletic figures)
4. List of United States Military Academy alumni (engineers)

New featured pictures:

1. Governor Davey's [sic] Proclamation to the Aborigines
2. Test Baker, Operation Crossroads
3. Tuskegee airmen

New A-Class articles:

1. Army of the Tennessee
2. Battle of Bosworth Field
3. Battle of Corydon
4. Battle of the Coral Sea
5. Battle of Ticonderoga (1777)
6. Helgoland class battleship
7. Operation Sky Monitor
8. Rupert Downes
9. Sd.Kfz. 10
10. Werner Mölders

Project news

• The Cold War task force has been created. New members are welcome!
• Congratulations go to Patar knight and Cool3, who have both successfully passed RfA.
• Feel free to chime in on the longrunning discussion about the firearms article structure.
• The Contest department has completed its twenty-seventh month of competition, with 54 articles entered by 10 editors. Sturmvogel 66 placed first this month with 64 points, followed by Parsecboy on 49 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Ed! commendably came third with 44 points, with honorable mentions going to AustralianRupert (38), Mynameinc (11) and The ed17 (10). Thanks also go to Gaia Octavia Agrippa, Bernstein2291, Piotrus and Wild Wolf, who also fielded entries.

The Academy content drive

• Introduced in February, The Academy is an online school for new members. This month, we're launching a drive to increase the breadth and depth of its content. If you can help, by writing four to six paragraph articles, please do so! Barnstars galore to be won!

Awards and honours

• Our top Peer and A-Class reviewers over the last quarter are: Joe N (38), The ed17 (38), YellowMonkey (24), Cla68 (22), Jim Sweeney (22), AustralianRupert (21), Nick-D (19), TomStar81 (19), Abraham, B.S. (15) and Ian Rose (12) who each receive the WikiChevrons. The following editors received the Content Review Medal of Merit for their help: Patar knight (9), Piotrus (7), Patton123 (6), Sturmvogel 66 (6), Bellhalla (5), Skinny87 (5), Ed! (4), Magicpiano (4), Maralia (4), Wandalstouring (4), Cool3 (3), Hawkeye7 (3), IceUnshattered (3), Jackyd101 (3), MBK004 (3), Simon Harley (3), and Vantine84 (3). Thanks also go to: EnigmaMcmxc, Kyriakos, Saberwyn, Brad101, Dhatfield, Kirill Lokshin, Kirk, Mm40, Admiral Norton, Askari Mark, Benea, Binksternet, Brianboulton, Btphelps, Cam, Cuprum17, Geoff Plourde, Guyinblack25, Hartfelt, HLGallon, Juliancolton, La Pianista, Nosedown, Ost316, Parsecboy, Redtigerxyz, Rosiestep, Ruhrfisch, Socrates2008, Sumanch, TechOutsider and Xatsmann.

Editorial: How to prepare an A-Class Review

Perhaps the most important—and, indeed, most respected—aspect of the Military History project is our rigorous A-Class Review (ACR) system, which puts articles through the most robust review outside of WP:FAC. Although reviewing might seem daunting to newcomers, this article will give you an outline of three popular reviewing methods so you can actually start contributing yourself.

1. General nit-pick - this is one of the easiest - and one of the most common - reviewing styles seen throughout Wikipedia. It is a similar approach to that you would see in proofreading and classroom marking. Basically, it is a general overview of the article, not getting too specific on aspects of the prose. The most common statements include This article could benefit from a light copyedit before going to FAC or You might want to check the endash and emdash placement in the article. It's a style that is incredibly easy to manage, and one that requires little-to-no experience in previous reviewing.
2. Specialization - it often is the case that those who have been reviewing articles for a long time will move away from the general review towards more specific areas of articles. As an example, Tony usually stays within the realm of prose and copyediting while reviewing Featured Article Candidates, Tom used to focus almost entirely on external links and disambiguations, while others specialize their focus exclusively on copyediting, reference formatting, dashes, punctuation and flow, image licensing, and a host of other areas. This is a review method that is not nearly as time-consuming as other methods, as it allows you to quickly scan an article, spot the things that you work on, and how they need to be fixed.
3. Sectional - My preferred style of reviewing, this is one of the most informative styles. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most time-consuming and exhaustive styles. Essentially, it involves going through the entire article, section by section, and pointing out every major (and often many of the minor) flaws present within each section. Everything from prose to reference formatting to content. It is a reviewing style that is exhausting, and often takes two or three goes through the article to get everything (sometimes even more), but it gives the article's main contributors two benefits. First, everything is well organized, mostly under section headers like this one, and it often makes finding individual sentences or refs much easier, as they are within that section. Secondly, it points out a lot of the problems from a lot of the areas.

Best of luck, and happy Reviewing! Cam ^(Chat)

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From the coordinators

Don't forget that the next Military history coordinator elections take place in September. You might like to start thinking about whether you are interested in standing. More information to follow in the next edition of The Bugle. In the meantime, enjoy the remainder of the holiday season and come back refreshed and raring to go!  Roger Davies ^talk 02:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Albert Kesselring
2. Adrian Cole (RAAF officer)
3. Ba Cut
4. Battle of Bosworth Field
5. Battle of Corydon
6. Edgar Towner
7. Helgoland class battleship
8. Maiden Castle, Dorset

New featured lists:

1. Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
2. Commandant of the Marine Corps
3. List of First World War Victoria Cross recipients
4. List of Jewish Medal of Honor recipients
5. List of African American Medal of Honor recipients
6. Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps

New featured pictures:

1. Burning of the United States Capitol
2. Charge of the Light Brigade
3. Vice Admiral John Duncan Bulkeley, USN

New A-Class articles:

1. 7th Infantry Division (United States)
2. British Army during World War I
3. Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
4. Convoy GP55
5. HMS Endeavour
6. John Lerew
7. Kaiser class battleship
8. List of foreign recipients of the Knight's Cross
9. SMS Blücher

Project news

• We current have an astonishing fifty articles within our scope up for promotion to Good Article and it's a bit backlogged. Can you help with reviewing to speed up the process?
• The Military history Academy content drive is underway with nearly twenty new essays so far. More contributions are welcome. Just click on the one of the redlinks here and start writing!
• Are you missing out on an A-Class medal? These are for editors who have significantly contributed to three or more military history A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008. Alternatively, perhaps you can help with reviewing? For more information, see here.
• More eyes would be welcome on the ten articles currently being peer reviewed. It doesn't take long to peer review an article and your perspective is appreciated!

Contest department

• The Contest department has completed its twenty-eighth month of competition, with 77 articles entered by 9 editors. Sturmvogel 66 was placed first again this month with an amazing 94 points, closely followed by Ed! at 91 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Parsecboy commendably came third with 76 points, with honorable mentions going to Woody (29), Wild Wolf (25), Ian Rose (21), and AustralianRupert (16). Thanks go to Starstriker7 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries.

Awards and honours

• Congratulations go to Parsecboy, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves for bringing almost all of the WWI-era German battleships up to GA, A, or FA class. His single-minded determination in this field has helped immeasurably with the project's WWI Centennial Drive.
• The A-Class Medal goes to MisterBee1966 for List of German World War II jet aces, Werner Mölders and List of foreign recipients of the Knight's Cross; and to Parsecboy for Helgoland class battleship, Kaiser class battleship and SMS Blücher. Well done!

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From the coordinators

Greetings to all members of the Military history WikiProject, and to those outside the project who receive this news letter as well! My name is TomStar81, and it with a great sense of pride that I assume the position of lead coordinator for the project. On behalf of all the coordinators, both new and returning, we wish to thank those of you who participated in the September elections, and we look forward to working to advance the goals of the project for the next six months.

With the elections concluded, there are two changes. First, Roger Davies has been appointed a coordinator emeritus, joining our first coordinator emeritus Kirill Lokshin. Secondly, for the first time ever, the lead coordinator for the Military history WikiProject will be taking a lengthy wikibreak. For those who were unaware of this, I am an undergraduate student, and will be taking a leave of absence, effective end September, to focus on graduating in December. However, with fourteen coordinators, and two coordinators emeritus, I am confident the needs of the project will be well taken care of. For the VIII coordinator tranche, TomStar81 (Talk)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Grand Port
2. Derfflinger class battlecruiser
3. Fredonian Rebellion
4. Hermann Detzner
5. Henry Wells (general)
6. Joe Hewitt (RAAF officer)
7. Simon Bolivar Buckner
8. SMS Hindenburg
9. Werner Mölders

New featured lists:

1. List of Medal of Honor recipients for World War I

New featured topics:

1. Derfflinger class battlecruisers
2. Lists of Victoria Cross recipients by campaign

New featured pictures:

1. Beijing Castle in the Boxer Rebellion
2. Fort Baker at San Francisco Bay
3. RAN Squirrel helicopter

New A-Class articles:

1. 1982 British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident
2. Brazilian cruiser Bahia
3. I Corps (United States)
4. North Carolina class battleship
5. Siege of Kimberley
6. SMS Derfflinger
7. SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm
8. SMS Lützow‎

Project news

• Congratulations go to The_ed17 for successfully passing his Request for Adminship.

Contest Department

• This month witnessed an all new and improved scoring system and process established in the Contest Department, which has run both smoothly and successfully. A total of 54 articles were entered this month by 11 editors. Parsecboy placed first with an astonishing 143 points, followed by Sturmvogel 66 on 105 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to the_ed17 (41), Auntieruth55 (38), AustralianRupert (17), Radeksz (12) and Ian Rose (11), with our thanks going to Piotrus, Abraham, B.S., Skinny87 and David Underdown, who also fielded entries. All interested editors are encouraged to submit entries for next month's contest; it can be a rather exciting experience!

Awards and honours

• The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Roger Davies for his outstanding leadership of the Military history WikiProject, including his introduction of the logistics department, his dedication to the Tag and Assess 2008 & B-class Assessment Drive efforts, and his astute advice and never-ending support and encouragement as both a coordinator and lead coordinator.
• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Parsecboy for his work on SMS Hindenburg, Bayern class battleship, and SMS Derfflinger.

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From the coordinators

• There's a long running discussion about consolidating various task forces ("TF"). Those affected are: consolidate Taiwanese TF into Chinese TF; merge Australian TF and New Zealand TF to form either Oceania or Australasia TF; consolidate Lebanese TF into Middle Eastern TF; merge Military science with Military technology and engineering to form a Military science and technology TF; and merge Indian TF with the Pakistani TF to form a South Asian TF, which would also include Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Please comment here to help us reach consensus.
• A discussion about a possible military biography notability guideline could also use input. Views from all editors here are welcome!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1982 British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident
2. Amagi class battlecruiser
3. Battle of the Alamo
4. Brazilian cruiser Bahia
5. Ellis Wackett
6. Inner German border

New featured lists:

1. List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Waffen-SS
2. Order of battle in the Atlantic campaign of 1806

New featured portals:

1. United States Air Force

New featured pictures:

1. A synagogue in New York City remained on D-Day
2. Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
3. Journée du Poilu. 25 et 26 décembre 1915
4. Siege of Sevastopol, 1855
5. The burning of Columbia, South Carolina, February 17, 1865

New A-Class articles:

1. AH-56 Cheyenne
2. John Lloyd Waddy
3. Lewis McGee
4. M22 Locust
5. Operation Coburg
6. Operation Teardrop
7. SMS Nassau
8. Tosa class battleship
9. USS Congress (1799)
10. USS President (1800)
11. Winter War

Project news

• The Henry Allingham World War I International Contest is starting on 11 November! If you would like to participate, sign up here, read up on the rules here, and discuss the contest here!

Contest department

• The contest department has completed its thirty-first month of competition; its second month under the new and improved scoring system. A total of 53 articles were entered by nine editors. Sturmvogel 66 came in first with 96 points, followed by Auntieruth55 on 80 points. They are presented the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Ian Rose (38), Abraham, B.S. (33) and Parsecboy (10). Our thanks go to Cuprum17, Ed!, The ed17 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries. All editors are encouraged to submit any articles that are working on for next month's contest.

Awards and honours

• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Abraham, B.S. for his work on Otto Becher, Teddy Sheean and Lewis McGee.
• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has also been awarded to Parsecboy for his work on SMS Lützow, SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Tosa class battleship.
• The A-Class medal has been awarded to Brad101 for his work on USS Constitution, USS Congress (1799) and USS President (1800).
• The A-Class medal has also been awarded to Ian Rose for his work on John Lerew, Ellis Wackett and John Lloyd Waddy.
• The A-Class medal has also been awarded to Nick-D for his work on Take Ichi convoy, Convoy GP55 and Operation Teardrop.
• The A-Class medal has also been awarded to The_ed17 for his work on North Carolina class battleship, Brazilian cruiser Bahia and Tosa class battleship.

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Project news

• The Academy Content Drive concluded on 31 October. The first place Golden Wiki went to TomStar81 for 13 entries; the Silver Wiki was awarded to YellowMonkey for 11 entries, and Patar knight was presented with the Bronze Wiki for 3 entries. All other entrants were awarded the WikiChevrons or a barnstar for their contributions. Thank you to everyone who fielded an entry! All editors are encouraged to check out the newly expanded Academy.

• A discussion about the notability of military people has resulted in an update to our in-house style guide. Prompted by some recent "articles for deletion" discussions, members felt that we should provide clearer guidance on the types of person that are most likely to meet Wikipedia's biographical notability criteria. The resulting advice, which you can see here, should be very helpful in both future deletion discussions and in deciding where best to focus article-writing efforts.

• Our Task Force housekeeping discussion is now coming to a close. In October a number of proposals were made for rationalising our extensive list of Task forces. Although a few areas remain to be decided, project members have approved the changes summarised here. These will be enacted shortly, so if you haven't yet had your say, now's the time!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Cologne War
2. Nikita Khrushchev
3. Operation Teardrop
4. SMS Derfflinger
5. SMS Lützow
6. John Lloyd Waddy
7. Ton That Dinh

New featured pictures:

1. Turkish heliograph at Huj

New A-Class articles:

1. Arrow (missile)
2. Battle of Bardia
3. Canadian National Vimy Memorial
4. Collins class submarine
5. Frederick Scherger
6. Iven Giffard Mackay
7. List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords or Diamonds recipients of the Waffen-SS
8. USS Chesapeake (1799)
9. Walter Peeler

Contest Department

• The contest department has completed its thirty-second month of competition; its third month under the new scoring system. A total of 52 articles were entered by seven editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 168 points, followed by Ian Rose on 51 points. They are presented the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (31), Ed! (26), Abraham, B.S. (26), The ed17 (17) and Piotrus (7). All editors are encouraged to submit any articles that are working on for next month's contest.

Awards and honours

• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Hawkeye7 for his work on Albert Kesselring, Rupert Downes and Battle of Bardia.

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From the coordinators

We are currently working on several proposals to improve the project for 2010. These include bringing the Milhist Academy up to full operational status, as well as spicing up and streamlining the task force structure. Also, any help you can offer to clear the current backlog of Military History good article nominations would be appreciated.

For the Coordinators, TomStar81 (Talk) 11:10, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Morotai
2. Castle
3. North Carolina class battleship
4. Xa Loi Pagoda raids

New featured lists:

1. List of Brigade of Gurkhas recipients of the Victoria Cross
2. List of World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories

New featured pictures:

1. After the War a Medal and Maybe a Job
2. Lincoln assassination conspirators execution
3. National Fund for the Welsh Troops
4. USS Annapolis in the Arctic
5. Yiddish World War I poster

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Bita Paka
2. Battle of Ostrach
3. Charles Eaton (RAAF officer)
4. Design A-150 battleship
5. Dutch 1913 battleship proposal
6. Helmut Lent
7. Henry Wrigley
8. James Harold Cannan
9. James Whiteside McCay
10. Lebaudy Patrie
11. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3
12. Thomas Baker (aviator)

Project news

• The Henry Allingham World War I contest has entered its second phase with the following users qualifing: Abraham, B.S., Backslash Forwardslash,Carcharoth, Dana boomer, Durova, Eurocopter, Hawkeye7, Ian Rose, Labattblueboy, Redmarkviolinist, Sturmvogel 66 and XavierGreen.
• Coordinator Emeritus Kirill Lokshin has been re-elected to the Arbitration Committee for a two-year term in the 2009 elections. Kirill is one of four present or former coordinators of the project to be appointed to the Arbitration Committee; he was originally elected to a three-year term in 2007. The others are YellowMonkey (2007–2008), FayssalF (2008–2010), and Roger Davies (2009–2011).
• The Contest Department has completed its thirty-second month of competition; and its fourth month under the new scoring system. A total of 45 articles were entered by seven editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 82 points, followed by Auntieruth55 with 74 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Ian Rose (51), Abraham, B.S. (21) and Parsecboy (16). Ed! and Binksternet also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the January contest.

Awards and honours

• The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Auntieruth55 in recognition of her excellent work on three featured articles, detailed A-Class reviews, high levels of participation, and for always helping other contributors. She also receives the A-Class medal for her work on Hermann Detzner, Cologne War and Battle of Ostrach.
• MisterBee1966 receives the A-Class medal for his work on Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld, List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords or Diamonds recipients of the Waffen-SS and Helmut Lent.
• Hawkeye7 and Ian Rose both receive A-Class medals with Oak Leaves for their work on Iven Giffard Mackay, James Harold Cannan and James Whiteside McCay, and on Frederick Scherger, Henry Wrigley and Charles Eaton (RAAF officer) respectively.

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From the coordinators

• It's only a month into the New Year, and we've already made changes to the project's infrastructure, merging and improving several task forces (see below). Much content within the project's scope has also been improved: eleven new featured articles, two featured lists, two featured pictures, a featured sound, and seventeen A-class articles. Thanks and congratulations to all editors who contributed and/or nominated these items.
• In other news, the elections for new project coordinators are coming up in March. Think about whether you would like to run or not, and self-nominations will be coming up at the beginning of next month.
• Lastly, our project's A-class review process is desperately in need of new reviewers. Please consider looking at least one and leaving comments, no matter how small or trivial. It will be greatly appreciated by the article's nominator(s).
• For the coordinators, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of the Nile
2. Bodiam Castle
3. Charles Eaton (RAAF officer)
4. Frederick Scherger
5. Helmut Lent
6. James Whiteside McCay
7. Johann von Klenau
8. Peter Heywood
9. The Battle of Alexander at Issus
10. Thomas Baker (aviator)
11. Walter Peeler

New featured lists:

1. List of Asian American Medal of Honor recipients
2. Order of battle at the Battle of the Nile

New featured pictures:

1. Return of the Great White Fleet
2. SMS Moltke (1910)

New featured sounds:

1. It's a Long Way to Tipperary

New A-Class articles:

1. Alexander Pentland
2. Battle of Osan
3. Battle of Winterthur (1799)
4. Cedric Howell
5. CFM International CFM56
6. Florida class battleship
7. Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze
8. HMS Lion (1910)
9. List of battlecruisers of Germany‎
10. List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves recipients: 1940–1941
11. Max-Hellmuth Ostermann
12. Operation Windsor
13. Petlyakov Pe-8
14. Robert Peverell Hichens
15. Smedley Butler
16. USS Hawaii (CB-3)
17. Vernon Sturdee

Project news

• Congratulations go to Abraham, B.S., Nick-D, and Durova, who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively, in our annual Military Historian of the Year contest! Thanks to all who voted, and congratulations to our runners up: Auntieruth55, BilCat, Hawkeye7, Ian Rose, MBK004, MinisterForBadTimes, Parsecboy, Sturmvogel 66, and The ed17.

• Our thanks go to all editors who participated in our recent task force housekeeping discussion and to EyeSerene who implemented the technical side of the approved changes. The new line up is as follows:
  • The Military science and the Military technology and engineering task forces have been merged to form the Military science and technology task force.
  • The Indian and Pakistani task forces have been merged, and re-scoped, to form the South Asian military history task force.
  • The Taiwanese task force has been merged into the Chinese military history task force.
  • The Lebanese task force has been merged into the Middle Eastern military history task force.
  • The Romanian task force has been merged into the Balkan military history task force.

Contest department

• The Contest Department has completed its thirty-third month of competition; and its fifth month under the new scoring system. A total of 91 articles were entered by ten editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 152 points, followed by Kumioko with 98 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (87), Abraham, B.S. (48), Parsecboy (41), and Ian Rose (41). Binksternet, Radeksz, Ed! and D2306 also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the February contest.

Awards and honours

• The A-Class medal has been awarded to:
  • Auntieruth55 for her work on Johann von Klenau, Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze and Battle of Winterthur (1799).
  • Sturmvogel 66 for his work on Sd.Kfz. 10, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 and Petlyakov Pe-8.
  • The_ed17 for his work on Design A-150 battleship, Dutch 1913 battleship proposal and USS Hawaii (CB-3).
• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has been awarded to:
  • Abraham, B.S. for his work on Walter Peeler, Thomas Baker (aviator) and Cedric Howell.
  • Parsecboy for his work on SMS Nassau, Florida class battleship and List of battlecruisers of Germany.

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From the coordinators

March, as you know, is an election month for our project, when we pick the coordinators for the next six months. We are seeking motivated individuals willing to devote some of their time and energy to the project so it continues to grow and prosper.

Also, I am making a personal appeal to each of you, the members of this project, to come out and vote for the candidates that run. These users will be responsible for managing the assessment process, answering questions, and making sure that the project's other needs are met. We have approximately 1,000 users who identify as being a part of our project, yet on average only about one-tenth of that number participate in elections. Moreover, as we typically hold referendums on major issues affecting the project along with these election, those who do not vote miss the opportunity to give their opinion on matters affecting the project as a whole. Remember, one vote always makes a difference. For the coordinators, TomStar81 (Talk) 23:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Admiralty Islands campaign
2. Alexander Pentland
3. Anthony Roll
4. Battle of Winterthur (1799)
5. Cedric Howell
6. HMS Calliope (1884)
7. The Disasters of War

New featured lists:

1. List of battlecruisers of Germany
2. List of National Treasures of Japan (castles)

New featured pictures:

1. Australian military encampment, 1918
2. Injured Arriving by Boat at Balaklava
3. USS New Jersey, 1918

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Taejon
2. Bombardment of Papeete
3. First Battle of Maryang San
4. Henry George Chauvel
5. List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves recipients: 1942
6. Michael J. Daly
7. Nguyen Van Nhung
8. No. 1 Wing RAAF
9. Oswald Watt
10. Red Tail Project
11. Siege of Godesberg (1583)
12. SMS Goeben
13. Yermolayev Yer-2

Project news

• A discussion has begun concerning our military history manual of style's guideline recommending preemptive disambiguation on the naming of military units. As the outcome of the discussion will likely effect a number of pages within our scope we are seeking input from the community on whether the guideline should be changed.
• Late last year, several largely inactive task forces were merged. However, the mergers of the Australia and New Zealand task forces did not take place as there was no consensus for a new name. To resolve this, a discussion has begun and all editors are encouraged to participate.

Contest department

• The Contest Department has completed its thirty-fourth month of competition; and its sixth month under the new scoring system. A total of 82 articles were entered by eight editors. Kumioko came first with 110 points, followed by Sturmvogel 66 with 87 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (59) and Ian Rose (36). Binksternet, Cirt, Radeksz and YellowMonkey also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the March contest.

Awards and honours

• Brad101 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his excellent reviewing and work on a sizable number of nautical articles that fall within our scope, producing a number of high-quality articles for the Military history and Ships WikiProjects.
• The A-Class medal has been awarded to Anotherclown for his work on Operation Coburg, Battle of Bita Paka and First Battle of Maryang San.
• The A-Class medal with Oak Leaves has been awarded to MisterBee1966 for his work on Max-Hellmuth Ostermann, List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves recipients: 1940–1941 and List of Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves recipients: 1942.

Editorial: Reliable sources in military history

Across Wikipedia, guidelines have been set up so that editors can vet sources for themselves. Links to some of these and a guide for checking if a source is reliable can be found in an excellent Signpost dispatch written by Ealdgyth (talk · contribs). However, for the majority of military history-related topics, we strive for more than just a basic reliable source. Specifically, we aim for peer-reviewed articles and books over, for example, most websites.^{[N 1]} Contemporary news articles or accounts can and should be mixed in (if possible) to give a picture of the general view point of the time—were they calm, afraid, unsure of what was going on?

Another major tenet is neutrality. If an editor rewrote the article Dieppe Raid using only the official Canadian history,^{[N 2]} we would have a problem; while it does contain a thorough and in-depth overview, a point-of-view can still be read. For one, it gives an undue amount of focus to Canada's input in the planning of the landing, and it would probably give an undue focus to their troops if a majority of the landing forces hadn't been Canadian. Granted, this is a book written to document that country's role in the Second World War, so you would hope it focuses on them, but this same reason makes it unusable as the primary basis for an article.

In this case, you would like to utilize a few recent, peer-reviewed books and journals, the official British, Canadian and German histories, possibly a few books written by historians from the aforementioned countries, and newspapers from that time period.^{[N 3]} Obviously this is ideal, but you need to represent all three sides in this (the United States would be a fourth, but they played only a minor role in the planning and invading). This neutrality aspect applies especially for battles and to a lesser degree biographies, but it can be utilized in virtually every article in our scope. For example, it could be beneficial to obtain Japanese accounts of B-29 Superfortress bombing raids or non-Puerto Rican peer-reviewed sources for that insular area's role in the Second World War. —Ed (talk • majestic titan)

Notes

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From the coordinators

I am pleased to report that the March coordinator elections have concluded, and that 15 members have been selected to serve as coordinators from April to September. Special congratulations go to AustralianRupert, Dank, MisterBee1966, NativeForeigner, Patar knight, and Ranger Steve, all of whom are newly elected coordinators. As we start this new tranche we welcome all returning coordinators, and wish those who decided not to stand for reelection luck as they move on to new things.

In other election news, a motion made to extend the coordinator tranche from its current six-month term to one full year gained consensus from the election participants. This will take effect in September, during the next election cycle. For the IX Coordinator Tranche, TomStar81 (Talk) 05:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
2. Battle of Osan
3. Bayern class battleship
4. Dutch 1913 battleship proposal
5. Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg
6. Mary Rose
7. No. 1 Wing RAAF
8. USS Congress (1799)

New featured lists:

1. List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Boxer Rebellion
2. List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War
3. List of United States Military Academy alumni (Confederate States Army)

New featured topics:

1. Battlecruisers of Germany

New featured pictures:

1. Cavalry At Balaklava

New A-Class articles:

1. Allan Walters
2. Army of the Danube
3. Battle of Dürenstein
4. Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602–628
5. HMAS Sydney (R17)
6. Horses in World War I
7. Lê Văn Duyệt
8. Michael P. Murphy
9. Roderic Dallas
10. USS Triton (SSRN-586)

Project news

• Operation Normandy

  In May 2008 a small group of editors, operating from a page in Cam's userspace, began work on improving Wikipedia's articles relating to the pivotal Second World War Battle of Normandy that took place in northern France between 6 June and the end of August 1944. Milhist has now adopted this collaboration as our third special project. The aim of Operation Normandy is to bring all core topics—official operations, battles, and the invasion beaches—to featured status by the 70th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 2014. More information can be found on the project page; any interested editors are most welcome to sign up and help us meet this challenging goal!

• Henry Allingham World War I Contest

  Our Henry Allingham World War I Contest ended on 11 March with the following results: in first place was Sturmvogel 66; in second place was Ian Rose; in third place was Dana boomer; and the finalists were Abraham, B.S., Carcharoth, and XavierGreen. The contest produced an incredible 238 recognised article improvements, of which 6 were Featured articles, 13 were A-Class articles and 22 were Good articles. In addition 43 newly created or expanded articles were successfully submitted for the 'Did you know' section on Wikipedia's main page. Our warmest congratulations go to the medallists and finalists, and our grateful thanks go to all participants and particularly to Eurocopter for organizing the contest.

• Would you like to get more involved in the project? There are many open tasks that could use your help. The project's review department is always in need of input at peer reviews, A-class reviews, FACs and FARs; these can be found here. Also, the project maintains a list of deletion debates for military-related articles that have been nominated for deletion; project members are encouraged to provide their opinions in this forum so that consensus can be established. Finally, if content creation is more what you are looking for, each of the project's 48 task forces maintains a list of requested articles.
• Your comments are invited in the following ongoing project discussions:
  • Pre-emptive disambiguation. Since 2006 our in-house style guide has recommended disambiguating the titles of articles about military units whether another article of the same name exists or not. The continued need for this practice is under discussion.
  • Merging the Australian and New Zealand task forces. This is the final call for editors to have their say in choosing a name for the shortly-to-be-merged Australian and New Zealand task forces.

Contest department