Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 95

A question...do pages on the designers of military aircraft, who never served in the military themselves, qualify as part of the project? I'd think so, but I want to be sure in case I'm wrong. ;) - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 23:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if anyone here knew of any reliable source(s) on Benton Air Force Station? It was in Colley Township, Sullivan County, Pennsylvania in the US, within the northern part of Ricketts Glen State Park, which we are trying to get to FA. My guess is that there would be a few sentences on the station in the park's article (plus a few more on Red Rock Job Corps, which is on the site now, and the FAA radar installation there now). Our only sources on the station so far are the USGS GNIS entry and the USGS topographic map. I know it was a radar site established in the Second World War to watch for low flying aircraft approaching across the Atlantic Ocean. Any additional information / sources would be greatly appreciated. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:41, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Ian made a comment about so few articles needing assessment. I was wondering the same thing. Is it that there are fewer new articles? Pr that we are keeping up with the assessments? Both? Does anyone have stats on these things? I've noticed Kumioko hasn't been around, and that may be part of the drop in numbers. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:27, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I check the automatically generated list of new articles most days, and the number does seem to have declined over the last year. While the quality of new articles is much higher than it used to be, I don't think that this is an overall change for the better... Nick-D (talk) 00:58, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Quality is always good. I looked at the link, and didn't see what might be new articles in MH. Auntieruth55 (talk) 20:39, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

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A new portal Portal:Terrorism is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Terrorism/archive1. I put a bit of work into this and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

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I see a number of new articles for various tactical missile squadrons. Was there ever a decision on whether that level of organization was notable.? DGG ( talk ) 00:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that it would be. Below the squadron level would be probably not, but squadrons should be. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 02:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Earlier AfD debates have decided that non-combat ground squadrons are not notable, as are non-combat separate ground companies, but combat squadrons may be. However whether non-active squadrons that only existed for a short period of time are notable is another question. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

To achieve consensus here would be helpful. I've suggested a compromise which User:Recon.Army has rejected for now, saying he would like to hear from more editors. Benea (talk) 14:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

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A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Army of the Danube order of battle; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 12:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

A bot keeps adding a link to the German Wiki article of Wilhelm Borchert and Ernst Born. However the German articles are of different person's who just happen to have the same name. How do I stop this? I manually reverted but they keep coming back. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at Wikipedia:Interwiki linking conflicts. A manual purge of the links should do it but if that fails you'll need to message the owners of the bots. I've had this happen before and removing the interwiki link from the other wikis to this one helps. I've had a look at the two links on Ernst Born and removed the link on the German wikipedia page but on the Alsatian wikipedia I don't have sufficient editing rights to remove the link so I've left a message with the Alsatian bot.

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I have created the above, but I can't find anything on is, despite perusing all the books in my possession and all I could find on the internet. Is anyone able to expand on this supposed operation and check if it actually exists? SGGH ^ping! 12:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I found nothing in Google Books. Parsecboy (talk) 12:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I too found nothing online, on google books or JSTOR, or in the myriad of First Indochina War books that I have. SGGH ^ping! 11:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I have just nominated this article for deletion as it appears that the war isn't actually taking place based on the references provided. Comments in the AfD would be most welcome here Nick-D (talk) 02:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Anyone feel like completing the specifications on the Churchill Crocodile? I'm not sure how similar the specs. are to the regular Churchill tank. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.68.131 (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it is rather safe to say that the tank was identical to the non-flamethrower type in regards to armour, speed etc - they only removed the bow machine gun and replaced it with the flamethrower (of course with other internal changes and some to the back). Nothing in the sources i have just checks makes any mention to different specification. I would suggest you would be fine swiping the info off the main article.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 16:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

According to the Osprey Vanguard on Crocs the later Churchils were made with the precise intention of allowing conversion to crocs with the minimum of effort. That imnplies that apart from gubbins they were essential identical to the Gun tanks.Slatersteven (talk) 16:44, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Need "normalized" a Machine translation from the Russian wiki (text about Lieutenant Colonel ) --UeArtemis (talk) 18:06, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

In the Russian Armed Forces

Appeared in Russia as a rank and position (deputy commander of the regiment) in the Royal army at the end of the XV - beginning of XVI century. In musketeer regiments usually L.colonels (often "despicable" origin) performed all the administrative functions of the musketeers head, appointed from among the nobles or boyars. In the XVII century and beginning of XVIII century, rank (rank) and P was called as polupolkovnik due to the fact that Lieutenant Colonel is usually in addition to other duties, commanded the second "half" of the regiment - back rows in the construction and reserves (before the introduction of the construction battalion of regular soldiers of regiments) .

Imperial period

Since the introduction of the Table of Ranks, and until its abolition in 1917 of any rank (rank) Lt. Col. VII belonged to the class and report cards prior to 1856 gave the right of hereditary nobility. In 1884, after the abolition of the rank of major in the Russian army all the majors (except for laid-off or tarnished his nefarious transgressions) were made to lieutenant colonel.

Soviet period

In the Red Army rank of lieutenant colonel for a long time simply absent. It appeared only in 1924 as a regular category K8 - "assistant commander of the regiment and his peers, which in 1935 with the introduction of personal titles were abolished. The very title of the newly introduced September 1, 1939 decision of the CEC and the CPC of the USSR № 2690 (Article 41-I Law on Universal Military Duty), which was announced by the order of the People's Commissar of Defense (NCB) № 226 of July 26, 1940, when it was first awarded , as the insignia were awarded former "colonel" (for three "sleepers" in their buttonholes). In the hierarchy of the military-political composition of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel was consistent with the title "Senior Battalion Commissar".

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Does anybody have information on this war? I'm looking for some now. I could use a little help. B-Machine (talk) 14:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I just ce'd an article on the Ngoni people, who were displaced in this war. You might check that article to see if there are some sources. Article itself wasn't well cited, but it did have some references. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:46, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

• Also, check The Zulu Revolution: State Formation in a Pastoralist Society. David Shingirai Chanaiwa African Studies Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Dec., 1980), pp. 1-2. and "Warfare, Political Leadership, and State Formation: The Case of the Zulu Kingdom, 1808-1879". Mathieu Deflem. Ethnology. vol 38:4 Autumn 1999, pp. 371-391
• The Zulu Kings: A Major Reassessment of Zulu History. Brian Roberts (1976?)
• Zulu Kings and Their Armies. Jonathan Southerland. (2006?)

Problem is that most English sources focus on the Anglo Zulu wars in the later period, not the formation wars in the early century. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and there is also an Osprey book on the Ndwandwe–Zulu War--Angus McBride was the author. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I think there's something in The Washing of the Spears:The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation. Donald R Morris (1989) [1965]- not sure how well it compares to more modern sources.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's very Sixties. But interesting none the less. I think most of it is in googlebooks. Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It has been proposed this MOS be moved to Wikipedia:Subject style guide . Please comment at the RFC Gnevin (talk) 20:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

There's presently a discussion of the neutrality of the Japanese prisoners of war in World War II article and its content which editors active in this project may, or may not, wish to comment on. Nick-D (talk) 10:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

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Hello all. I have been involved in writing the article on Operation Crimp, a joint US-Australian operation in 1966 during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately I have been unable to locate any substantial US source material, particularly for the operations of the US 3rd Bde (not so much for the US 173rd Bde). Can someone with more knowledge and access to US material on the Vietnam War please have a look at the article and let me know if such material exists, and or add it themselves? The link to the GA review is here for information. Many thanks in advance. Anotherclown (talk) 17:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I checked JSTOR and there is one document that refers to "crimp documents"

Have you looked at the New York Times or Washington Post archives? They both had good coverage of Vietnam. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I have 6 or so documents that might help. A couple look pretty good. If you send me an email, I send them back. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, will do. Anotherclown (talk) 17:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the US Army is producing/sponsoring an official history of the Vietnam War which may have some material on this operation (if it a) actually exists and b) the relevant volume has been published). Have you checked the sources To Long Tan quotes? - it may be the most recent scholarly book on this operation. Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Cheers Nick. Actually I have got the US official history and have used it in the article. Interestingly enough it cites an Australian author for much of the detail (Breen). Re To Long Tan, good idea but I'm now divorced from my collection (overseas again)... asking a lot I know but would it be possible for someone to check this out for me? Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 17:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

The Marrua article has been nominated for deletion. It appears to be a Brazilian built military vehicle, so should fall under the remit of this WP. It needs work, (structure, refs) but should be salvageable. Mjroots (talk) 06:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm on it! - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 15:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

(Not my proposal.) You guys use it, so you must have some comment to make, good or bad. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#A-class_articles - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI, HMS Sea Robin (P267) has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 04:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Deprodded. It needs expansion, yes, but a ship that wasn't completed can be notable, indeed. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 04:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Eh, it depends on the ship. Japanese battleship Tosa was special because of all the testing done on the incomplete hull. I don't see that same quality in Sea Robin—in fact, I see nothing that couldn't be summed up in a table or list in the class article (unless I'm missing something here?) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The cancellation of 'small' vessel construction programs was a widespread event at the end of World War II, and unlike capital ships, there's rarely much of worth (a) to know, and (b) written in reliable published sources. Unless I'm missing something big, the entirity of the boat's history is "Was laid down, war ended, was cancelled as no longer required" in about as many words. This article would probably serve best as a redirect to British S class submarine (1931), as all of the relevant information appears to be covered in the British S class submarine (1931)#Third Group section. -- saberwyn 05:20, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for USS Indiana (BB-1) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 09:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi everybody. Nominations for Good Article that fall under our scope are starting to pile up again—there are over 30 articles waiting to be reviewed. If you have the time, please take a look and see if there are any articles you can review. If would also be helpful if those who make regular nominations there take the time to review as well. Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Second that! With the number of reviewers it takes on average for each completed ACR and FAC, nominators at those levels really should be reviewing four or five others, but each GAN generally only takes one person, so if you just make it a rule to review one GAN for every one of your noms, we'd never have a backlog... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Currently Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history) covers non stylistic issues such as notability and Categories can users here please have a look Gnevin (talk) 00:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Which is why I think the name "Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide" is more appropriate than Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history). For that reason I reverted your bold move and I suggest that you put in a WP:RM here on the talk page to which its talk page redirects too, if you think it ought to be moved as I do not think it should be unless there is a clear consensus on this page for the move to be made. -- PBS (talk) 12:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

How is it any more appropriate it's not a style guide? It should be fixed by removing the non stylistic content or moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/article guide Gnevin (talk) 12:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, the question of what the page should cover is distinct from that of what it should be named; certainly, if we aim to be acknowledged as part of the MoS, I do not think we can (or should) object to naming the page in a manner consistent with the new MoS naming conventions. Whether there should in fact be one guide or two is a separate issue; Gnevin, is there actually any concrete rule on which topics should and shouldn't be in a "MoS"? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

(There has, incidentally, already been some discussion on this matter among the coordinators. Given that things seem to be moving in various directions now, I've asked the others to merge the rest of that discussion with this one. In any case, I would ask that everyone avoid making any more moves or major structural changes at this point until we've had the opportunity to fully discuss these issues as a project.) Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Kirill , there aren't any hard and fast rules but if you look at Category:Wikipedia_guidelines anything that is there (style excluded of course) shouldn't be in a style guide. Gnevin (talk) 16:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, this is apparently not going to be a localized issue, so lets start at the beginning so we can bring everyone up to speed at the same time.

As most of you are probably aware, our project has had a style guide for some time. It used to be located in the project's main page, however at the encouragement of a couple of editors we opened a discussion to formally have our style guide incorporated as part of the the wikipedia wide manual of style in 2007. The measure passed in November, at which point the MILMOS became a part of the MoS for all intents and purposes. This arrangement has been observed since then, but recently a handful of discussions have cropped up, beginning with a discussion on very specific MoS's, with the leading idea at the moment being to move all of the subject-specific MoS pages into a supplemental style guide that would have the same level of authority as the MoS proper. In addition to these points, question about non-stylistic guidelines hav been raised on the page (WT:MILHIST#Issues with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history)), which has led to a suggestion that we split MILMOS into a style guide and a content guide (but potentially retaining a common talk page for both).

In light of the number of discussions concerning these issues its been decided to consolidate the information here to allow for project-wide feedback on these matters. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

What if Wikipedia:Subject style guide was changed to be Wikipedia:Subject specific guide which would allow content from any of the sub categories in Category:Wikipedia_guidelines. Then the only change required here would be to mark each parts parent of master guideline? Gnevin (talk) 18:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide covers more than just those issues which are covered by the Manual of Style. For example the naming of articles which is an area where the MOS defers to the Wikipedia policy article titles. If it is going to be moved under the MOS then the sections which are nothing to do with the style guide should be moved out into another guideline. Personally I think that is not desirable. So better that this remains independent of the MOS -- the argument for stating that it is a subsection of the MOS could equally be used to rename it "Wikipedia:Naming convention (military history))" -- -- PBS (talk) 20:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

PBS do you read other user comments or just throw out prepared comments? Gnevin (talk) 20:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh that I was organised enough to prepare comments! I am stating my position here now I could have placed the comment without an indentions but it seemed better to add it to the end of the most recent thread. I am not as concerned as some over organising policies and guidelines quite so regimentally as others are, I am more interested in the content of the policies and guidelines and moves such as this have the potential to cause problems between the demarcation over article titles -- which have their own policy -- and the MOS. -- PBS (talk) 01:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

And how have your concerns not been addressed by the recent changes to the SSG proposal? Gnevin (talk) 12:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that this topic be removed from WPMILHIST Announcements. Doug (talk) 03:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I've recently rewritten and upgraded the entire Larne gun-running article which had failed many Wiki guidelines and would like someone to independantly assess and class the article please. The article i believe meets many Wiki guidelines though does still have a issue as stated by me on its discussion page. Northern Star ^(talk) 00:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Please see the discussion in Talk:The New York Times and the Holocaust#Assessing References. I have suggested some edits which have been reverted, so I would welcome comments from others to help form a consensus.

I originally posted an article on a tragic, but non-controversial topic in Holocaust studies: the New York Times policy during the period of the Second World War to minimize reports of the Holocaust. I relied on two resources: the New York Time’s apology in 2001, and the work of Dr. Laurel Leff.

The issue is not controversial among knowledgable people because the Times itself acknowledged its guilt fully and publicly in its 150th anniversary issue on November 14, 2001, 56 years after the end of the war. Under the title, “Turning Away from the Holocaust”, retired executive editor Max Frankel wrote that the Times knew the accuracy of the reports on Hitler’s persecution of the Jews and the Final Solution, but that from the beginning to the end, chose never to make it a lead story, or the exclusive topic of an editorial. “… to this day the failure .. to fasten upon Hitler's mad atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors.”

In listing the details of the Time’s policy to ‘bury’ the Holocaust, Frankel cited one outside resource: “No article about the Jews' plight ever qualified as The Times's leading story of the day, or as a major event of a week or year. The ordinary reader of its pages could hardly be blamed for failing to comprehend the enormity of the Nazis' crime. Laurel Leff...has been the most diligent independent student of The Times's Holocaust coverage and deftly summarized her findings last year in The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.”

Three people originally tried to delete the entire article. they have never made any contributions to an article on the holocaust or world war II, and are not really interested. they came over from the new york times page, where they try to prevent criticism of the Times. when they were voted down re deleting the New York Times and the Holocaust in its entirely, they have proceeded to gut it in place. i don't have any allies on this page. The administrator helping me on my talk page suggested I come here to say i would welcome comments from others.Cimicifugia (talk) 03:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)cimicifugia

The article in question seems to be The New York Times and the Holocaust Nick-D (talk) 06:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Nimitz class aircraft carrier is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

As per WP:ICONDECORATION this image shouldn't be used in article templates. Any objects to removing it ? Gnevin (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I see its misuse in templates such as {{History of Sudan}} where I don't see any reasons for its use. I don't think there would be many complaints to removing it templates such as those. Woody (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, get rid of them. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 15:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Consensus has been reached to use the template:

• {{Good article}}

Please feel free to add it to all WP:GA rated articles within this WikiProject, in the same manner of placement used as {{featured article}}. Thanks for all of your quality improvement work within the topic of this WikiProject! :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 15:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Does this wikiproject use IRC? I visited what I thought was the MilHist IRC channel but it was totally empty. Griffinofwales (talk) 18:26, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

It's been dead since Catalan (talk · contribs) retired. I sometimes loiter in #wikipedia-en if you need something. Edit: Okay, I've added it to my autojoin. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 18:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

We've reopened it and I posted a link at the project's page to show people the way. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I was granted the founder right so we have an op, and everyone in this project (and outside!) is welcome to join! —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 02:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Could someone please cast their eyes at these two threads and resolve the issues noted? Griffinofwales (talk) 18:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

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It has come to my attention that User:ALR has been consistently reverting the inclusion of information about the play Deep Cut on the article Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut, citing it as "popcruft". "Popcruft" is defined in WP:MILPOP as a "trivial appearance" or "unsupported speculation". The play is hardly that, as evidenced by the reliable sources which have been added to the article recently. DDM1 (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me like the information and the sources provided are more than trivial. However, take note of WP:3RR, and we can see if we can establish consensus one way or the other either here or on the talk page. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 20:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and I understand that edit-warring is not the way to go, so I too hope we can build consensus on this topic. To add more context, I think the play and surrounding coverage have significantly added to public awareness of the barracks and to dismiss the information from the article would be foolish. DDM1 (talk) 20:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

An interesting approach, pre-emptive complaint about action that I may, or may not have taken.

The key point in the pop culture guidance is notable impact on popular culture and be attributed to a reliable source for the article topic, and I would not consider that a small selection of theatre reviews actually indicate an impact on popular culture. Theatre reviews are just that, they're items of record that merely support the fact that the production happened and that the production itself was good, bad or indifferent. They're not an indicator of significant impact outside the production. I would also say that a promotional announcement of the radio interpretation is not in itself notable, many plays are converted for R4 transmission and it's not an indicator of their significance that it happened.

The only indication of significance is the award by Amnesty, from 41 candidates at the Fringe for the 2008 award. It then had about a three week run in London, in a theatre that specialises in political productions. Given that the suicides are already discussed extensively in the article then it doesn't really add much to the legal assessment that's already included.

It may be appropriate to include a mention in the article about the Tricycle Theatre and if the denizens of the Theatre Wikiproject think that there is enough evidence to support an independent article on the production then it may be appropriate to include a mention of it. If there isn't, then it probably doesn't meet the notable impact criterion.

ALR (talk) 21:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I side with ALR on this one, I fail to see how this qualifies for inclusion in the article. Personally, I am tempted to simply remove it and delete it again, but in the interest of the discussion I'll leave it alone until the discussion reaches some level of consensus. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

What about this article? Firstly, it's not a review (The Guardian have already written a few) and love him or hate him, Mark Lawson is a prominent cultural commentator in the UK. A piece like that should add weight to the argument on its "impact on popular culture" - something which can't really be quantified anyhow. DDM1 (talk) 23:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a review, just because it's a CiF piece doesn't change that. He talks about how the play made him feel, and regurgitated the view of the families that the existing legal investigations really needed yet another legal investigation to complement them. He doesn't identify the impact that it's had elsewhere. In fact even for a CiF piece it's not all that well commented.

ALR (talk) 08:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be conflating the "impact on popular culture" with the impact Deep Cut could have on "yet another" inquiry. On the contrary, that the play has had this type of discussion in a pop-cultural forum should sufficiently indicate notability (I recall seeing it on Newsnight Review but haven't been able to track the episode down). Furthermore, for a brand-new theatre production, I would say 41 comments makes it a very well commented piece. Moreover, most of the comments seem to be from people (like me) who haven't even have seen the bloody thing yet know of it. Now that's "pop-culture impact". DDM1 (talk) 14:09, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any justification for the play having had any impact on popular culture, essentially has the play had any real impact? The calls for a public enquiry come from a fairly small group of people, most of them closely associated with the families of the four trainees who killed themselves. The play itself does not appear to have had any effect whatsoever, other than to give theatre reviewers something to talk about.

The suicides and associated investigations have had a major impact, the Blake reforms of Army training have made a huge difference to the experience of training, they've also affected the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Farce training. There are also a number of unintended consequences of implementing these reforms. The failures of the military investigation, and evidence handling have also led to a number of reforms in the service police, again across all three services, increasing professionalism and independence. In contrast this play has had a fairly short run, and managed to get some theatrical reviews. Lawson talks about the need for a review ignoring the fact that there have been several, and lessons have been identified from these have already been implemented.

Essentially can you identify anything independent of the theatrical industry that can be attributed to the play, rather than the suicides and various investigations?

ALR (talk) 14:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, information on impact of the Blake report etc appears to be quite notable and should be added to article, if you have a source. As for the main argument, I have very little to add, except a definition of how I perceive popular culture to be defined in this situation; it is through instruments such as newspapers (such as The Guardian) and awards given by internationally recognised organisations (such as Amnesty International) that impact is achieved and its non-trivial notability is indicated and an attempt to define "pop culture impact" beyond these terms is entirely out of order.

It's been fantastic thrashing this out but my view is that this should be open-and-shut and I advance that this argument is becoming something akin to an abuse of process.

DDM1 (talk) 16:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, you haven't demonstrated significance, so in view of the guidance I've removed the mention. I also consider it pretty much open and shut, given the lack of evidence for the assertions of significance.

ALR (talk) 17:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Right. Given ALR's decision to declare that a consensus has been reached, does anyone else want to comment on all this? I believe I have given multiple significant examples of notability for the inclusion of information about this well-known and culturally significant production, which I will reiterate now below.

• Significant media coverage in terms of multiple reviews from reliable publications.
  
• A discussion piece in The Guardian (linked above).
  
• Multiple awards, including the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression award.
  

DDM1 (talk) 18:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Lets just be clear here. Theatre reviews are no more than a record of the existence of the production. I would prefer to see something independent that talks about what the effect of the production may have been. That's all I'm asking for, evidence to support your assertion of significant impact.

One evidenced award, by Amnesty, does not appear to be sufficient.

I would observe that an inability to provide evidence to support your assertions does not justify the implications of abuse of process above which I had chosen to ignore.

ALR (talk) 18:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, let's be clear. Proof of "effect", whatever that entails, is not required. Pop-cultural impact should measured by significant coverage, which has been ample. DDM1 (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

So we go back to the guidance: What is meant by notable impact on popular culture, the key word for me is impact or effect.

In the absence of any independent coverage of the play other than theatre reviews probably constitutes Unsupported speculation about cultural significance.

So evidence is required. What you've presented is merely evidence of existence, not evidence of impact or significance.

ALR (talk) 18:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I have nothing to add, my position on the matter remains and I await input from other users. However I am interested, let's imagine this play DID have an impact on popular culture, in your terms. How would that look? What kind of sources would I draw on to establish notability? DDM1 (talk) 18:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

In terms of moving this forward, the evidence that I'd be looking for is something that's not concurrent and doesn't focus on the performance itself. I'd be looking for something that talks about what the production has brought to the debate.

Essentially has it stimulated any further debate, or has the whole thing died down after the publication of the Blake Review?

I'd also be expecting some independence from the theatrical industry, so not reviews or professional publications. Something from the training industry, professional military, perhaps legal.

I'd also return to the suggestion that I made above that you didn't respond to, work with the Theatre Wikiproject, if the play is considered notable enough to have a standalone article then it may be able to justify mention and a crosslink. That would allow you to flesh out that article with as much as you'd want without needing more than a sentence in the article about the barracks.

ALR (talk) 19:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've created Deep Cut and a single sentence back to the article. DDM1 (talk) 20:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that you consult with the Theatre wikiproject to establish how to demonstrate notability of the play. I don't believe that it is particularly notable, one run at the fringe and one short run at the Tricycle doesn't seem particularly notable to me.

ALR (talk) 20:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention that there's a new ACR: Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive. Comments would be much appreciated, thank you. JonCatalán^(Talk) 22:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Action of 9 February 1799 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for List of battleships of Austria-Hungary; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 07:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SMS Posen is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Operation Winter Storm is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 03:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

In 2005 or so the name of this article was changed to First Coalition. While there might need to be an article entitled First Coalition, the other articles on the sequence of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars have similar titles: War of the Second Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, etc. The infobox is title War of the First Coalition, the battle box is also. Could someone figure out what to do? It's already been changed once, and someone has added a template I'm not familiar with to it, but I cannot figure out how to deal with this, and it should be done. will take an administrator. Does this need to be discussed, or can we just do it to make this article in line (at least in terms of its title, but not its quality) with the others? Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems like a candidate to move since it is part of a sequence and it is the oddball out here. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved it. The lede may need tweaking to comply with MOS:BOLDTITLE but the infoboxes etc were already using "War of the First Coalition". EyeSerene^talk 08:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

thanks. I've fixed the first paragraph of the lead and will work on the whole article over the next few months. Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have requested that the title Action of 17 February 1864 be changed to something more familiar, such as Sinking of USS Housatonic by CSS H. L. Hunley. Discussion is on the article talk page. PKKloeppel (talk) 00:48, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I was looking at Xenobot Mk V, and thought that it would be good to have in the scope of our project, considering how many articles fall within our scope. I can start making a page of categories, and help would be good, but I want to make sure consensus exists. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 16:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I like that idea, but I am curious if the bot would able to tag articles for the respective task forces should we invest in it; if not, then perhaps we would be better off forgoing use of the bot since not tagging TFs would make it somewhat harder for us as we would have to go through and tag for this manually. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the documentation, and it appears to be able to tag certain categories with certain tasks forces, although I'll have to look into it further. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The two things I would be interested in hearing would be the ability of the bot to handle TF tags for the roughly 50 TFs we run, and whether it has the capacity to apply knowledge of the TF parameters we have to the pages it tags. If the bot is unable to recognize which pages belong to which task force then it may create problems for us in the long run since we suffer a perpetual backlog of military history articles needing attention. If the bot is able to correctly tag articles for task force coverage then I would grant the bot the rank of Major and welcome its assistance with open arms, otherwise I'd be incline to pass on the bot or use it in conjunction with a tag and assess drive as the hammer end of a hammer and anvil attack. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Although it could take a while, it seems that I could define different categories for it to tag the files to. I'm busy this week and next, but I'll drop a message on xeno's talk page asking about it. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 01:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed, there is full support. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 03:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems like it should be able to handle it, so I'd be inclined to support its use. Unless there is some ghost in the machine I haven't spotted of course. Ranger Steve (talk) 19:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the main problem will be the same one that plagued the first Tag & Assess drive: if we descend from high-level war categories (e.g. Category:World War II), we quickly run into categories whose main topic is related to the war, but whose sub-topics aren't (e.g. Category:Radar). This makes it very difficult to descend down the category tree in an automated fashion. It would be possible, I suppose, to manually generate an exhaustive list of "pure" MILHIST categories, but I'm not sure that the effort required to do so would justify the relatively minor benefit of catching a small number of untagged articles. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You can exclude certain subcategories, but that is a valid point which would raise the amount of manpower needed considerably. On the positive side once set up it would require a relatively small amount of maintenance. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

(od)Do we have any idea how many articles this is likely to catch? EyeSerene^talk 07:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Not really. I'm not sure how we could do an approximation. I know there were a substantially huge number of articles caught for WP:BIRDS, but I'm not sure if they were worse tagged or something. I might be inclined to run it for certain large but obviously milhist subcategories initially, and then see how many we caught. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:46, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

That might make sense, just to see if it would then be worth extending to other categories. EyeSerene^talk 15:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Alright. It would be nice if we could establish if we want it to auto-tag. I have no position one way or the other, although I know we have an agreement with WP:AIR that assessments are the same, and so therefore we could probably have the bot assess it if it's assessed by WP:AIR. I'm going to start making a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Auto-tag categories within the scope of Korean military history, and assault rifles, just so we see what we get history/armament wise. Of course I won't run the tests until we have consensus whether we want it to autotag. Regards, NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 02:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, just seen this on the BBC Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online, will be worth keeping an eye on. May provide that missing link to some articles. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 07:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Great find :) Thanks for the heads up. EyeSerene^talk 08:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Can some of the experts here take a look at Salvador Flores to determine notability, appropriateness of the prod, and clean up if it's notable? I'm not watching this page (MILHIST), so drop a line/tb on my talk page if necessary. tedder (talk) 01:04, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I was looking through all of the task forces and I noticed that there was no force for plainly recruiting new members for the project. I noticed that on one of the discussion pages that it was something for members to do. Does anyone know if there is a task force for this? Or is there a simple way to just invite new members? If not I would like to suggest making a task force specifically for this purpose.Tetobigbro (talk) 21:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Running a task force solely for recruitment seems a little silly to me since our project already lists over 1,000 active users (although I should note that our membership logs are a little...dusty at the moment). I'm not sure I like the idea of whole task force being devoted to recruitment, but I would be open to the idea of having a working group for such matters. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. And how would would you suggest this gets done?Tetobigbro (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Well first lets here what you have in mind; I do not want to send you off on a wild goose chase. I'm sure have some some ideas about what you want this group to do, and if you would elaborate a little I can help you firm up where to go. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, its purpose would mainly be to look for some Wikipedians who seem like they could make great contributions to the project. A small group would search throughout Wikipedia for active users who show some promise of contributing to the project. The idea may be pointless, but it seemed like a good suggestion, and it is, of course, only a suggestion.Tetobigbro (talk) 22:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The subject of an outreach department has come up from time to time, but it's never been something we've adopted (though if you were to ask why not, I don't have a good answer). I agree with Tom that if you're keen to take it on - probably not as a full TF but as a working group or indeed as an "Outreach department" - then more power to you :) the_ed17 has some invitation-type templates he uses and I've borrowed before now, so developing those and perhaps moving them into project space might be a good place to start. EyeSerene^talk 21:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok and if you wouldn't mind telling me, how do you form a working group? I know how to make a task force, but are they the same thing or just an informal group of people?Tetobigbro talk 22:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say that an outreach department would be a fine idea, but make sure that you have a clear idea of how you are going to go about establishing the Outreach Department. Will you focus exclusively on outreach to individuals or will you focus on groups? Will you have an aspect of your Department that focuses on liaising with other WikiProjects? Perhaps the project might try to act as a working group incubator, aiding in the formation of new working groups? I would suggest that you figure out how your outreach group will operate before you establish working group as I think that would give your group a greater chance of success. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks. And to answer questions, it would focus on individuals, I planned on having the group be a main task force, so that it could cover all other working groups and task forces within this specific WikiProject.Tetobigbro talk 23:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I have reservations about forming a new department for the project, all the more so because the last department formed to help the project - our logistics department - has seen little activity since its creation. Project Apathy plays a large role in this concern since I would prefer not to invest in overhead to start a fifth department if that department is going to be crewed by fewer that ten people. I'm not against having an outreach program, but given some past indicators I think it may do better as working group than a department. Working groups, run as they are be a few people and focused as they are on such a narrow and specific area of interest, would seem to be to be the best approach to get some sort of outreach effort up and running. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I would have to agree with you that it would likely be unwise to if this outreach group is established to jump straight into the quagmire of attempting to establish a Departmental-level group at this moment. I would have to agree that it seems as if a working group would be the best place for something like this to start. I would suggest that perhaps a condition for promotion from Working Group to Task Force be the establishment of a dedicated group of participants in addition to the creation of a group page that clearly lays out the group's goals, strategy for completing those goals, internal policies, and so forth. Or does WPMILHIST already have a policy like that?

Well those are my two cents, what do others thinkLeonidasSpartan (talk) 01:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok so wuts the descision? Do I do nothing or something, and if so what?Tetobigbro talk 00:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

@ Leonidas: In general we ask that a task force be large enough to encompass a broad area of military history, which means that at a minimum we need ten users and 100 articles to classify something as a task force. A working group is free of those requirements since it typically encompasses less than 10 members and fewer than 20 articles. A department, for the record, is a part of the project expected bear a sizable percentage of milhist traffic, and is created to make life easier for our members. We run four departments at the moment: assessment, contest, logistics, and review; adding a fifth to this cluster at the moment would be unwise. Its to this effect that I want to hear what Tetobigbro has in mind, if he is thinking big then I may entertain the possibility of moving a few things around to formally invest in something larger than a working group.

Its just the terminology being used. The hierarchy for organization within our project from highest to lowest in department, task force, special project, working group, with an unofficial fifth being independent user run initiatives that happen to help us. Initial you suggested task force, but I put forth a working group since I think that's probably more realistic for what you have in mind, then all of a sudden we got a department involved in the discussion. All I want is for us to pick one of the three proposed groups and stick with it. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It sounds great to me, I'm just lost and want to know what this suggestion has become. Tetobigbro talk 01:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, then: its a proposal being made by you to form an outreach group for milhist. Question now is whether we have consensus for the creation something to cover this aspect of milhist operations. Therefore, I would propose that you make a proposal on exactly what this outreach group would do, and then we will put the matter to a straw poll to see if there are others who would support the opening a working group for the purpose of conducting outreach work for milhist. For now, put together a proposal on what you see this group doing specifically, and we will see if anyone else likes the idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok and where should I place the proposal? Back on this same section, a new section, or somewhere else completely?Tetobigbro talk 02:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Tetobigbro: Just outline your plans at the bottom of the section, including what you want out of group, what its main goals would be, and how it would support us. From there I should be able to run with the proposal, whatever it may be. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

My proposal is to create a group of people that will invite wikipedians to join this wikiproject and the task forces of this wikiproject. The group would talk to people about joining this wikiproject and look for wikipedians who seem like they show some amount of promise. It would also look for new members to add so that they can be guided through our project. This would make more well-trained wikipedians and greatly increase the amount of members of this wikiproject.Tetobigbro talk 05:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable idea; even if it turns out to be unsuccessful, it shouldn't consume a significant amount of effort from anyone not interested in participating. As far as logistics go, I would suggest creating it as a working group under the coordinators (e.g. here), rather than under a specific task force; this would fit in more closely with its administrative function, and avoid our having to find an alternative anchor point for it.

As far as an outreach department is concerned, some people might not remember the fact that we actually did have one for a number of years, before it was eventually disbanded for lack of activity. I'm not convinced that anything significant has changed since then; unless the project as a whole is interested in devoting a considerable amount of resources to active outreach activities, I don't think an entire standalone department will be sustainable. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree entirely with both of the points brought up by Kirill above. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I've got no quarrel with Kirill's sage advice :) EyeSerene^talk 07:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

So what was the decision of the outreach group?Tetobigbro talk 16:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I've followed Kirill's suggestion and set up a working group for you at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Recruitment. The general framework is in place but feel free to alter the details as you wish. To help you get started I've also linked to an example of an invitation template that Ed uses; obviously you can develop that or propose your own. I'd like other coord input as to whether the working group should be linked in the navbox, but now it's pretty much over to you :) EyeSerene^talk 07:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I've created the SS Almeria Lykes (1940) article. As she took part in Operation Pedestal it is likely she is mentioned in some of the many books on the subject. Assistance in further expanding the article is welcome. Mjroots (talk) 08:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Ylee and I disagree on whether to use RADM, LTJG, etc. in Operation Petticoat. I can't persuade Ylee that this is reader-unfriendly. Could somebody else please weigh in? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

MoS says use the full title and give abbreviation, then you can use the abbreviation thereafter. I've edited a couple of the links in the article to that effect. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:51, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI, there is a proposal to create a WikiProject on Medieval Weaponry, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Medieval Weaponry. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 01:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for HMS Princess Royal (1911); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Guys, the FAC for Victoria Cross recipient William Ellis Newton has had very little attention some two weeks after nominating; be great to get any sourcing/referencing issues shortly as I'll be travelling overseas in three days and internet access will be limited -- access to references even more so! The article has passed its ACR very recently so I'm hoping there won't be much if anything but it will need the reviews to get up for FA. If a few could stop by soon that'd be excellent... ;-) Thanks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:24, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Editors on the page Trojan War are working on a proposal to reintroduce an infobox to the article, anyone interested in contributing to the discussions is welcome to comment on the article's talk page. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for 3rd Bombay European Regiment is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 07:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Naval battles of the American Civil War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 07:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

http://www.medalofhonor.com has been sourced in a number of articles. It was a listing of Medal of Honor awardees, but as of September 2009 the site is now occupied by the game.links ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning that. I noticed that a few weeks ago myself and have been changing them to the Army Center for Military History site . Youll ave to determine which conflict they are in but this is a better link than the Medal of Honor one was anyway cause its a better source. --Kumioko (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

That is a better source. Thanks. I'm fixing some Eagle Scout sources and there are a few overlaps. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I wonder how hard it would be to create a bot to do this sort of work. Obviously this is a small time case, but with link rot a constant problem here it seems to me that a bot for replacing bad links with good links provided by the internet archive would go a long way to maintaining article stability. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, the Internet Archive does not preserve everything; some users, and some link-owners, send purge orders to the Archives and pages are then removed (and some were never saved to begin with.) Is there some mechanism that could be used to keep a copy of the referenced page(s) somewhere in Wikipedia-land that could be cited in such cases? I suppose we'd have to grab those copies when the reference was first made, rather than running about looking for them later. htom (talk) 18:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

WebCite? -- saberwyn 21:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Internet Archive does have archives of medalofhonor.com, but the CMH is a better source. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for SMS Blücher is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship/archive1 needs some attention.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

With recent improvements to the logic of the Portals this template is deprecated and I would like to recomnmend it for deletion. Before I do though I thought I would post it here and see if anyone had any opinion on it first. --Kumioko (talk) 17:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Since knowone appears to have a problem with this suggestion I am going to go ahead with my recommendation that this be deleted. Once I submit the recommendation for deletion I will post the link here. --Kumioko (talk) 13:11, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

In accordance with Wikipedia:Official names, should No. 1 Demolition Squadron be moved to Popski's Private Army? Buckshot06 (talk) 11:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The Helmut Lent article was featured article of day on 6 June 2010. Since this was also the anniversary of D-Day the article attracted many readers. On the talk page a discussion was initiated on whether Lent was a Nazi and Wackywace (talk · contribs) took a firm position and stated he was a Nazi. My question here is what constitutes a Nazi in the English speaking community? My definition was always a member of the National Socialist Party. But maybe my definition is askew here. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Basically, party membership is a good indicator, I would say. Apart from that there are followers of Nazi ideology who are less easily identified. In the case of Lent, Goering claimed he was an "enthusiastic follower of our national socialist movement" in his obituary (Völkischer Beobachter 12 October, 1944). That would satisfy me. Then there are others who ended up in the NSDAP, like Walter Jens, who apparently never personally applied for membership. It really depends on the circumstances. --Dodo19 (talk) 15:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, though obviously in the case of a WP article it would depend on how an individual is characterised in the sources. EyeSerene^talk 16:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

If the sources describe their membership of the party as more than nontrivial, that'd be a good sign. If, on the other hand, it merely seems to have been something they did because it was seen as the done thing at the time... perhaps not. In this case, I'm not entirely sure the obituary is a good source - it strikes me as potentially more propaganda than anything else. Given that it was the obituary of a serving war hero in a one-party state, it's unlikely that the publicity apparatus of that state would portray him as anything but an ardent member regardless of what his personal opinions or practices were. (In short: it depends, and this one is still pretty fuzzy to me.) Shimgray | talk | 20:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Membership of the NSDAP should only be used carefully as some were enrolled because of their occupation. Members of the orpo and even the Waffen-SS which accepted conscripts later in the war should not automatically be labelled Nazis. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 06:25, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for List of battlecruisers of Russia is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi the Special Air Service article is going through a Good Article review here Talk:Special Air Service/GA1. As you can see it has been pointed out it is in need of a copy edit. A request has been made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests but they seem to have a back log at the moment. So any WP:MILHIST editor who could assist your help would be appreciated. Thanks --Jim Sweeney (talk) 16:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I will have a look tonight. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:26, 12 June 2010 (UTC)  Done

I'm currently working through a number of old exhibits at Eastbourne Redoubt, which have been stored in storerooms for a while, and I'm trying to figure out where all of them go in the museum. I do this by using our MODES item database...but to use that I need to know what an object is to search for it! I have here next to me two shells, hollowed out after I assume having been fired. They're obviously fired from some sort of artillery piece, but that's about all I can figure out. There are a number of shells in the database, and so I need help in narrowing down what they are. Their dimensions are as follows: Height/length approx. 28.5cm/11.5 in, width at bottom 10.5cm/4in, width at height 9cm/3.5in. Can anyone help identify them? Skinny87 (talk) 12:55, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Any other identifiying features, painted marks or anything? Any codes or datestamps on them anywhere? David Underdown (talk) 13:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Are these actual shells or spent cartridges? If its the latter, it should be pretty easy to work out. Ranger Steve (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, everyone. Just found a moldy piece of paper inside one of the shells that identifies them as 25-pounder shells. Thanks for the help though. Skinny87 (talk) 13:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of armed forces flags may be of interest. Ty 18:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The Guild of Copy Editors is holding their second Backlog Elimination Drive starting on July 1. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:23, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

There was a question posted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/World_War_II_task_force#WWII-based_games asking whether games such as Call of Duty fall under the scope of milhist. It's a valid question, and I don't have a good answer for it. On one hand, the theme is the same, but on the other hand these games aren't really military simulators. This question applies to all of the task-forces, and to this WikiProject as a whole. Should most military video games be included? NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, its a tricky question. had some discussion on this before, and there was another instance (though I can not find it) where I supported the idea on grounds that our project is best suited to handle the historical parts of such articles. I'd be incline to add the call of duty games to the roster since they cover actual campaigns and battles that occurred in WWII, although understandably with some artistic license taken. I recall watching my brother play one of these games and it did seem to me that there was enough going for us there that we could tag them for the project, but I think that in the case of video games of this nature our project should right shotgun for, and provide support to, articles with their scope that cover events important to us. I'd wait to see what kind of feedback we get here though before going forward since this is going to be a issue on which we will need consensus. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see in principle why not. If we admit other forms of popular culture that reflect on warfare, such as novels or films, it is not much of an extension. There are even some interesting questions raised about how computer games as part of popular culture influence soldiers, in a similar way to how films or books have influenced them in the past, which almost certainly do come under the project remit already. My query would be practical. If we don't expect to engage with the development of the articles, there would be little point in bringing them within the scope of the project.

These articles are often written to quite a high standard based on their own criteria. How would we expect them to change by being MILHIST tagged? More emphasis on the historical elements of the game? Will this bring conflict with other projects who currently "own" these articles? Monstrelet (talk) 09:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Last time the point I made is that while such articles are within the scope of the video games project principally the historical content they represent is within our scope, which makes our project the best one on wikipedia for checking the plot for things like historical accuracy but also for fact that we can check and add links to articles that are relevant to the time period (for example, noting that air support in a WWII pacific nature game comes principle from the fast carrier task forces, noting the campaign time period in relation to other events in the war, linking to the articles on the primary and secondary weaponry used, linking to articles about other division that were present to support/oppose players forces, etc). As for conflict with the other projects: that should not be a problem; the video games project actually works hand in hand with milhist in a partner peer review system which allows their editors to seek input from our editors on how an article within there scope could be improved. I'd think that they would be willing to listen to reason for tagging articles concerning historical war-related video games as being within both project's scopes. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm alone in this, but personally I'd rather not see video games included in our scope. They're already well-served by an active project and are a very different type of article from our usual fare. I accept that there's already some overlap if we consider military training simulations and we do have a small precedent with certain narrowly-defined types of historical fiction, but I see no need to expand this further into increasingly tenuously-linked territory. I think our joint peer review system is probably sufficient for any areas of collaboration. EyeSerene^talk 16:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with EyeSerene here, and with over 100,000 articles tagged by MILHIST this project is already suffering from mission creep. We should focus on historical articles and leave the rest to other projects. Anotherclown (talk) 03:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree that works of fiction (or heck, even most non-fictional media) should fall under our scope. For one, there are numerous wikiprojects that are devoted to these fields (video games, TV, films, books, etc.), and their goals aren't necessarily synonymous with ours. Secondly, are we in a position to actually provide much for these articles? I can talk all day about the Pacific War battles featured on COD, but can I actually improve and article about the game itself? Wouldn't noting the historical innacuracies, anachronisms, and other artistic error be pure OR anyway? If some background is necessary to help further the understanding of a reader, then can't they merely link to the article that is under MILHIST's scope? For example, America: The Story of Us was a great miniseries, but I can't add anything there that wouldn't completely bloat the plot description. Thirdly, where do we draw the line when fiction, and especially science fiction, rears its head? Starship Troopers? The Wolfenstein series? The Lord of the Rings?

Lastly, I think this opens up a slippery slope of pop culture influence. We all have pet favorites in media, and not all of them are notable enough for an article; but if an editor could float it with a big coatrack description of the real world event, it might sneak past the filters against junk articles. And of course, we work hard to keep trivial references out of articles in our scope, would we want to be guilty of doing the reverse?

Right now, we coordinate well with other projects when our scopes intersect (WPShips and WPVG come to mind), I say that fine tradition is sufficient for our needs and thiers. If an ACR pops up that could be handled jointly, then we damn well should! Perhaps we can have the coordinators ambassador a bit to the other projects and set up some more firm agreements as to coordinating efforts. bahamut0013^words_deeds 20:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

You've set out, rather better than I did, a number of concerns that I originally included in my post but then deleted before saving the edit (mainly for tl;dr reasons). However, I very much share your concerns about OR, synthesis, trivia and pop culture. EyeSerene^talk 17:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't disagree on the "what can we add" question - see comments above - or actually on narrowing the range of articles but it should be done consistently with other popular culture material. I'm not even suggesting "all in or all out" (though that would be simplest) but being clear what criteria are being used and then applying across a range of genres (novels,plays,films, songs - examples of all of which are tagged to the project) as well as video games.Monstrelet (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for No. 6 Commando is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 23:48, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The Feature Article Candidacy of Battle of Valcour Island could use one or two more reviewers. Thanks for your participation! Magic♪piano 01:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Operation Aquatint is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Bombing of Yawata (June 1944) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 07:55, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I've just AfD'd another one of these, this one... is this really notable? It needs quite the clean up regardless. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 19:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Have you added the AFD tag to the article? I can't see it. (Maybe its a cache issue from my end). — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:29, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for confusion, I meant that I have AfD'd another one of these band articles, and then came across this one and brought it here. The AfD for the other one is proceeding at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/156th army band and there is also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/215th Army Band (United States). S.G.^(GH) _ping! 09:09, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, cheers for clearing that up. — AustralianRupert (talk) 09:45, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello, the question of whether the PRC possesses today a nuclear triad has been raised; please see the article's Talk page if you are qualified in helping to answer the question. YLee (talk) 18:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

A user has requested comments about the placement of images in the Infobox for Medal of Honor recipients here Template talk:Infobox military person. I have already made mine. --Kumioko (talk) 00:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I generated this graph using data generated from Wikipedia article traffic statistics. It some that interestingly enough the number of view to the main page of MILHIST project has been on the decline over approximately the past two and a half years. To what degree this reflects actual participation in the project is hard to say as there could be a multitude of different reasons for this decline such as user familiarity with the project for example. However I though I might throw this information out there so that other users might view it as well and give their take on it. I thought this might spark a discussion.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 19:49, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

My initial guess would be that the decline is due more to the gradual movement of editor-oriented materials from the main project page to department and task force subpages; the main page is, at the moment, really just an introduction area for visitors, with most of the actual activity taking place deeper within the project. If we're trying to get a good picture of overall project activity, I think a more accurate measure would be a total of page views for (a) all the subpages in the project and (b) their associated talk pages. Unfortunately, I suspect that the grok.se tool can't easily generate that. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Not really my place to comment but I would agree with Kirill and although I have no data to prove it my gut tells me that actual user particpiation in the project overall has actually risen based on the number of articles that are being submitted to the various different article review mechanisms such as peer review, B, GA, A, FL and FA. The milhist project tends to have a very high number. Although I also admit that this is partially due to the same pool of active editors. --Kumioko (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting take on the situation, Kirill. And you are probably right that the grok.se tool can't easily compile that data, but I am a generally stubborn person, so I'll see what I can piece together in the near future. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 01:09, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm nt sure that would be statistically useful, considering that we've been increasing the number of sub pages exponentially over the years. Heck, I just buzzed out about a dozen for OMT last week. In addition, I think there are still a couple of unused pages still out there and a few templates under WP space. That said, it would be interesting to compare it to project membership... Any way to troll the histor of the list of members with a tool? bahamut0013^words_deeds 01:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Charles Miller (US Army) seems to fail general notability criteria for military personnel - he doesn't seem to have done anything to warrant a WP article. The writings noted at the end are not published. Opinions?
Secondly, is William Richardson (Continental Army officer) likely to be notable? The article is currently an unreferenced stub. Gwinva (talk) 02:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• In the first case, the article should get the axe; in the second, their is insufficient information to determine notability. If Richardson held the rank of full colonel during the revolutionary war, given the notably low number of US generals at the time, her may be important enough to stay, but like I said more info is needed. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:15, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I've listed Charles Miller at AFD. Gwinva (talk) 11:22, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Richardson (per this entry) seems to have had a relatively undistinguished career. Beyond genealogical records, searches involving "William" and "Richardson" for the time period 1776-1779 are more likely to turn up William Richardson Davie. Considering the article has been tagged for 2+ years for notability, it's probably time for AFD. Magic♪piano 13:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The Fort ships have very little coverage on Wikipedia. There were only 198 of them but none has an article on Wikipedia. The nearest we have is the article on the explosion of SS Fort Stikine. SS Fort Stikine is a redirect, which could be turned into an article. All the other ships need articles creating. Basic info on ships Fort A fo Fort J, Fort K to Fort S and Fort T to Fort Y is available from the Mariners website. Mjroots (talk) 10:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I would advise you approach WP:SHIPS to get help on creating a class article, which could include a full list. Do not start creating large numbers of stubs; they would very quickly be merged into an improvised class article which would be done by someone with no knowledge of the subject. Better to get a good class article going first. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Buckshot, I agree about stubs. There should be enough sources available to produce at least Start/C class article on almost all ships. I'm currently working through the Empire ships at the moment. WT:SHIPS also issued with the challenge.

Update - there were something over 200 ships, some being renamed as Parks between launch and completion. Two ships have articles - Fort Rosalie and Fort Cataraqui. Mjroots (talk) 08:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Many editors are no doubt aware that the Wikipedia community has spent literally years agonising over the conflict between our open editing policy and the need to protect the content of Wikipedia from inappropriate editing - especially in the area of biographical articles.

A system designed to address this conflict—"Pending changes"—is scheduled to begin trial on 15 June 2010 (although this date could yet change). The Pending changes system is basically an additional level of page protection that permits most editing as normal, but queues certain edits until they are approved by a "Reviewer", at which point they become visible on the article.

A limited number of pages are being selected for the trial based on "ongoing vandalism on busy articles, breaking news, high profile BLPs/companies, low profile but vandalized or edit warred biographies (BLPs), persistent targets, long term protected pages, talk/user talk/project page disputes, non-article namespaces". It is likely that a number of our articles will be affected.

Under the current proposals, autoconfirmed users should be able to edit as normal but there may be edits on some articles that are awaiting approval from users with the new "Reviewer" user right. This has already been granted to a number of trusted editors and more will follow, but any editor in good standing with a decent edit history and sound grasp of Wikipedia's core editing policies who wishes to receive Reviewer rights can make a request at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer, or contact an administrator. The standards for granting the Reviewer right are similar to those required for rollback; for more information, see Wikipedia:Reviewing#Becoming_a_reviewer. EyeSerene^talk 11:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I reposted this on the AWB talk page as well because this change may affect some AWB users. --Kumioko (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

This whole shambles has confused the hell out of me. Am I a trusted editor? Does this affect me as a long-time/term user at all? Where was this voted to be implemented? Skinny87 (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know but it seems WP has some dark corners left to hide. From what I can gather this only means that you have to get a "Reviewer" permission added to your profile. This additional permission basically asserts you can be trusted to not intentionally screw something up. But I may be incorrect, thats just the impression I got. --Kumioko (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to float this out there: if there are any project members that would like to have reviewer status, I (and I'm sure the other admin coords as well) can enable that tool for you. Parsecboy (talk) 16:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. I realise it's only a trial and probably won't affect many editors, but as far as I can tell it hasn't been very well advertised. I only found out by accident (via someone's talkpage on my watchlist). Admins automatically have the Reviewer flag set, and as far as I'm concerned any established editor who wants it should have it too. As Parsecboy said, please ask :) EyeSerene^talk 19:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

PS Further update: pages to be included in the trial are here. As expected, it looks like some high-profile milhist articles will be affected. EyeSerene^talk 19:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Just FYI, if you don't know if you have the Reveiewer role aready here is how you can check. Go to my preferences, then look at the User profile. Then look under Basic information for Member of Groups: If you see Reviewers as an option after that, then you already have it and you should be good to go. --Kumioko (talk) 19:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

NOTE: In addition to the above, any user who has admin rights is automatically considered a part of the reviewer group, regardless of whether the check appears or not. Therefore, if you are an admin, you need not check to see if you are also a reviewer. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• Kenneth Dickson

Relevant AFD discussion, on a California lawyer and politician. Served in United States Air Force, in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Air Force. Rank of Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenneth Dickson (2nd nomination). Thank you for your time. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 12:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

A member of the project, NativeForeigner, is currently a candidate to receive access to administrative tools. Project members who have worked with the candidate and have an opinion of NativeForeigner's fitness to receive these tools are cordially invited to comment. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I would like to propose than a working group be established for the purpose of creating a forum where discussion concerning how WikiProject Military History might be improved. This working group would focus on five core issues.

• 1)Facilitating Constructive Discussion: The MILHIST talk page is not exactly the best place for brainstorming new ideas by kicking them around with other contributors. I would back up this assertion by pointing to the fact that the talk page is a relatively short term forum, especially as notifications of new articles reviews and general discussion also take place on this talk page. A dedicated forum exclusively for the discussion of ideas concerning the state the WikiProject, I feel would help the WikiProject as whole.
• 2)Distribution and Retention of Essays: A dedicated place where project members can post essays on their perceptions of the Project, essays comprising extensive suggestions for how to improve the WikiProject as whole, or their beliefs about the future needs of the project. This aspect of the project would allow for a more readily accessible repository of suggestions, potential policies, and guidelines than attempting to pour back through talk page archives.
• 3)Contribution of News Articles and Academy Articles: This group could also function as a dedicated bureau for coordinating editorial contributions to the Bugle. These contributions could be made either under the editorial section of Bugle or under the group's own exclusive section of the Bugle depending on the amount of participation. Early on it would be likely that contribution would be part of the Editorial Section and perhaps later there would be sufficient content to have a whole separate section in each monthly newsletter.
• 4)Observation and Compilation of MILHIST Statistics: This would also serve as a base for developing and compiling statistics concerning the state of the WikiProject such as page view counts, edit counts, and other statistics which are relevant or which are needed by the WikiProject. These statistics are difficult to compile on one's own, but allowing them to be researched, compiled, and analyzed in a group effort.

Well this is my proposal at the moment. What do others think of it? LeonidasSpartan (talk) 04:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely - this would be very useful and an alternative to this very busy talk page would be of great value. Nick-D (talk) 10:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this seems like a good idea. Anything that promotes a broad sense of milhist community ownership of the project is very welcome. EyeSerene^talk 11:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Should we host this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy to be consistent with the new recruitment WG? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 12:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

That would make sense to host the the working group along the sort of lines as the Recruitment working Group. But I would prefer the group not be named Strategy, as I feel that name might be misleading considering that it would be dropped into a category alongside a number of working groups which are strictly about military history topics as opposed to the scope of this working group. While I think that the name Studies and Observation Group better suits the proposed scope of the group, perhaps something along the lines of MILHIST Thinktank or War Room might be more to others' tastes. I think that if the name of the group is slightly ambiguous at to the group's nature, it might pique the interest of users browsing the project, perhaps leading to greater traffic for the group. (Though I must also confess that I also like the name Studies and Observation Group because I think it sounds cool). Anyway those are my two cents. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC) 14:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I had suggested "Strategy" to echo the WMF strategic planning initiative, but I suppose something like .../Coordinators/Thinktank would also work. SOG would, admittedly, be a clever name, but one that I suspect would confuse too many people to be worth it. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm open to the idea; it kind of takes me back to that time I suggested we name the logistics department the strategic development initiative :) Running the working group should be easy, and we can put something in the bugle to announce this to everyone. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:53, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Strategic Development Initiative? I like that. I could write an essay concerning what MILHIST project would look like if the project was developed with a greater sense of whimsy (at some point after much serious work is completed on the workgroup). You could call the assessment department the Hall of Broken Dreams or the Guild of Nay Sayers and Articles for Deletion could be called something like The Schadenfreude League. I think it'd be fun to write, but likely accessible what would be one of the smallest audiences possible. But that's entirely besides the point.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 19:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Tangential discussions of aside, I have gone ahead and created the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy think tank and have begun filling out the necessary group internal infrastructure and page content. Feel free to help out. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 22:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe the page for Operation Michael may have been vandalized. The paragraph on March 9-29 (section 3.5) simply says "the front was quiet on that day." I can't seem to find the correct entry to undo it. Anyone want to help? Thanks.--AtTheAbyss (talk) 05:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find any vandalism. but the entry was slightly more informative in an earlier version so I've restored that. Hope this helps, EyeSerene^talk 11:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how you guys at MILHIST call attention to worthy subjects for article improvement, but John A. Logan seems to be a pretty important person that you guys might want to get up to your own A-class standards.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for 22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 03:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Treaty of Ciudad Juárez is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 03:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi all

I have just done an extensive expansion to the BEF article and marked it as Start class.

Can someone have a quick look at it to make sure it is ok and meets standard as I am going word blind from editing for so long on it.

Thanks...Chaosdruid (talk) 07:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I assume it's the British Expeditionary Force (World War II) article? Start seems a fair assessment to me; thank you for your excellent work :) EyeSerene^talk 09:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

AH B****X ! I forgot about the disambiguation page - yup it was the (World War II) one

Thanks for the scan and the kind words :¬)

Chaosdruid (talk) 10:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I was looking at Xenobot Mk V, and thought that it would be good to have in the scope of our project, considering how many articles fall within our scope. I can start making a page of categories, and help would be good, but I want to make sure consensus exists. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 16:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I like that idea, but I am curious if the bot would able to tag articles for the respective task forces should we invest in it; if not, then perhaps we would be better off forgoing use of the bot since not tagging TFs would make it somewhat harder for us as we would have to go through and tag for this manually. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the documentation, and it appears to be able to tag certain categories with certain tasks forces, although I'll have to look into it further. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The two things I would be interested in hearing would be the ability of the bot to handle TF tags for the roughly 50 TFs we run, and whether it has the capacity to apply knowledge of the TF parameters we have to the pages it tags. If the bot is unable to recognize which pages belong to which task force then it may create problems for us in the long run since we suffer a perpetual backlog of military history articles needing attention. If the bot is able to correctly tag articles for task force coverage then I would grant the bot the rank of Major and welcome its assistance with open arms, otherwise I'd be incline to pass on the bot or use it in conjunction with a tag and assess drive as the hammer end of a hammer and anvil attack. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Although it could take a while, it seems that I could define different categories for it to tag the files to. I'm busy this week and next, but I'll drop a message on xeno's talk page asking about it. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 01:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed, there is full support. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 03:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems like it should be able to handle it, so I'd be inclined to support its use. Unless there is some ghost in the machine I haven't spotted of course. Ranger Steve (talk) 19:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the main problem will be the same one that plagued the first Tag & Assess drive: if we descend from high-level war categories (e.g. Category:World War II), we quickly run into categories whose main topic is related to the war, but whose sub-topics aren't (e.g. Category:Radar). This makes it very difficult to descend down the category tree in an automated fashion. It would be possible, I suppose, to manually generate an exhaustive list of "pure" MILHIST categories, but I'm not sure that the effort required to do so would justify the relatively minor benefit of catching a small number of untagged articles. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You can exclude certain subcategories, but that is a valid point which would raise the amount of manpower needed considerably. On the positive side once set up it would require a relatively small amount of maintenance. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

(od)Do we have any idea how many articles this is likely to catch? EyeSerene^talk 07:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Not really. I'm not sure how we could do an approximation. I know there were a substantially huge number of articles caught for WP:BIRDS, but I'm not sure if they were worse tagged or something. I might be inclined to run it for certain large but obviously milhist subcategories initially, and then see how many we caught. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:46, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

That might make sense, just to see if it would then be worth extending to other categories. EyeSerene^talk 15:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Alright. It would be nice if we could establish if we want it to auto-tag. I have no position one way or the other, although I know we have an agreement with WP:AIR that assessments are the same, and so therefore we could probably have the bot assess it if it's assessed by WP:AIR. I'm going to start making a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Auto-tag categories within the scope of Korean military history, and assault rifles, just so we see what we get history/armament wise. Of course I won't run the tests until we have consensus whether we want it to autotag. Regards, NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 02:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite busy right now, but I'll have the list up fairly soon. I'm fairly impressed with the amount of articles it caught for wikiproject olympics... NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 05:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SMS Baden (1915) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 11:14, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Army of the Danube order of battle is up for review as a potential Featured List. It passed ACR here a couple weeks ago. Please feel free to visit and voice your opinion. auntieruth (talk) 23:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

• Portal:Terrorism

This portal is currently being considered for Featured Portal status. Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Terrorism. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody please find data on Ndwandwe-Zulu War, Dominican Restoration War, and Anglo-Spanish War (1654)?

Here are their Wikipedia articles: Ndwandwe-Zulu War, Dominican Restoration War, and Anglo-Spanish War (1654). --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 20:12, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

See also the past discussion here. I'm curious, though. What are the odds, do you suppose, of two people asking for info on the Ndwandwe-Zulu War in the same month? BTW, please sign your posts. auntieruth (talk) 23:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm the one who made this post. Come on, we have to find information on these articles including French intervention in Mexico. This place is supposed to make war articles better. Let's make them better. B-Machine (talk) 15:55, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

well, make them better! The old link on the Ndwande-Zulu war has several articles and books. Go for it! auntieruth (talk) 22:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I have opened the Featured List candidacy for the Order of battle of the Battle of Trenton. There are currently no featured orders of battle for land battles; the only current featured orders of battle are for naval engagements. Your comments and participation are appreciated. Thanks! Magic♪piano 13:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

There's been a lot of controversy on Wikipedia over terms such as "terrorist" for various armed groups, prefering terms such as "militant". I've put together a category, Category:Religious paramilitary organizations to see if it's a workable solution to non-judgementally tie together armed non-state actors with a religious commonality/purpose. This could include some of the less-disputed "terrorist" groups, as well as "self-defense forces", "militias", etc. under an objective terminology. I'd appreciate any input, and if the cat name is solid some help populating it would also be great. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it can be argued that such a category could in many or most cases be called Category:Paramilitary organizations perverting religion for their cause. Perhaps Category:Paramilitary organizations claiming divine right. IMHO "religious" as an adjective is too open to interpretation: organized religion? self-professed? etc. I would have the same problem with the subcategories that would emanate: Islamic paramilitary organizations, Catholic paramilitary organizations, Protestant paramilitary organizations, and so forth. The only one to strictly fit such a category, I believe, would be the Crusaders as a paramilitary organization officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

In a spirit of practical compromise, how about wording it Category:Paramilitary organisations claiming religious affiliation? I also think it should be restricted to more modern times - the concept of a paramilitary organisation is pretty meaningless in the Middle Ages when standing military forces of nation states were the exception rather than the rule.Monstrelet (talk) 09:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for No. 6 Commando; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 08:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

As part of a general tidy up and recategorisation on the Commons for the UK honours system, I have just finished sorting through all the VC recipients at Comm:Category:Victoria Cross recipients. I have separated out Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa into their own national sub-categories using the naming form 'Category:Victoria Cross recipients from XXX'. As far as I can tell I have got everyone, but if others would like to cast an eye to make sure, that would be appreciated.

I welcome any thoughts people may have as to whether they need to be further categorised by conflict.

I have also added categories for most of the UK decorations (any I have missed I will get to shortly), these take the form of 'Category:Recipients of the XXX' which better reflects the standard approach to category naming decorations and medals on the Commons (I didn't attempt to modify the VC naming format because it seemed well established). Whilst I have added the appropriate additional decoration categories to VC winners where I was able to spot them from the images, I didn't do a thorough cross-check against the Wikipedia main articles. If you are starting or maintaining military bios, please consider adding the appropriate additional categories to related imagery on the Commons. Cheers, AusTerrapin (talk) 23:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI, Action of 17 February 1864 has been nominated to be renamed. 70.29.212.131 (talk) 03:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for HMS Indefatigable (1909) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for HMS Princess Royal (1911) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi all

I have further expanded the British_Expeditionary_Force_(World_War_II) article. Eyeserene has already given it a going over prior to this latest expansion but I would appreciate if someone could check it now I have added some more detail to it.

The article has grown from 2,700 to 20,155 bytes so I am getting a bit blurry eyed and rather than chance missing simple things would appreciate somone giving it the once over before I start on the "Action" section

In particular the background section and the refs :¬)

thanks...Chaosdruid (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest getting a hold of books on the British Army during the Second World War, preferably academic sources, to explain the BEFs faults and strengths. I can recommend David French's Raising Churchill's Army as a basic text, along with John Keegan's edited 'Churchill's Generals' for articles on Gort and other senior BEF personnel, as well as the various books on The Battle of France in 1940. It's a good stub at the moment, but it needs analysis of the BEF's performance, especially what it was like before and during the campaign. Skinny87 (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The following may help too: HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, UNITED KINGDOM MILITARY SERIES; THE WAR IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS 1939-1940 The official history of the campaignEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 20:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

In addition, the British Army during the Second World War#Organisation article provides more fuller details in regards to the strength of the British Army (regulars, TA, and conscripts) on the outbreak of the war and how it evolved during the years; it will be able to reinforce the point made at the end of the BEF background section. RegardsEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 20:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all that info guys - I will continue tomorrow with renewed vigour !

Chaosdruid (talk) 22:55, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the official history of the campaign is now in the public domain, so its maps and images can be reused on Wikipedia. Nick-D (talk) 00:41, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Is that the History of the Second World War? It was been published in stages between 1949 and the 1990s so some parts would still be less than 50 years old. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, only the older volumes are PD so far. Nick-D (talk) 00:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Which should cover the volume in mention, it was first published in 1954. Somewhat off topic, would that also cover reprinted volumes from 2004?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 10:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, though I think that the date the work was first published is the key factor for UK Crown Copyright. Nick-D (talk) 11:01, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to get back into the swing of editing, but after a few failed attempts at writing a new article or finishing a few of my unfinished ones, I've contracted writers block; too fast too soon probably. But I think that something smaller might be easier - copy-editing, hunting down references from my library, spell-checking and reading through and so forth. Therefore, I'm opening this up to see if anyone needs a hand in those areas - I'm quite good at hunting down images from the IWM as well! Skinny87 (talk) 15:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The Tower of London article underwent an overhaul recently and could probably use some copy editing if you're interested. Nev1 (talk) 16:06, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

You are also more than welcome to edit or expand any the existing Medal of Honor recipient articles. Or create one of the missing ones as there are still quite a few that need articles created. If you prefer working on some that are at a higher level of quality there are several that are Good class or better such as Smedley Butler, Douglas MacArthur, or others that can be found on my user page. Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or questions. --Kumioko (talk) 17:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking at your page, you look like mainly a WWII man, which is a pity as far as my evil schemes go. However, if you fancy doing any work to provide something in Spear, it would be gratefully received. A few more folks have dropped by to broaden the content (thanks everyone) but I'm still in search of someone to put in some African stuff (Masai, Zulu, Sudan, Egypt anything)in particular. Even if you don't take up my suggestion, thanks for the offer. Monstrelet (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Skinny87. I'm trying to find more images for Maori Battalion, (particularly of its time in the UK, Greece, North Africa and Italy). If you were keen, I wouldn't mind seeing if anything came up in the IWM's archives on this New Zealand infantry battalion. AustralianRupert (talk) 04:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm (slowly!) working on developing the Battle of Arawe and John Treloar (museum administrator) articles to A class and both could really use a fresh pair of eyes. Nick-D (talk) 08:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Haha, wow, I knew you lot wouldn't let me down! Plenty of projectas for me to get started on, cheers! Skinny87 (talk) 09:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

If you're offering to proofread, Hill 262 could do with a look over too. I think it's approaching an A-Class candidacy but needs an uninvolved pair of eyes. EyeSerene^talk 10:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Would you like to take a look at User:Buckshot06/4th Command of VVS and PVO and make any changes or suggestions that you can think of? Buckshot06 (talk) 00:14, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

As it appears that the current result which is listed is edited to something else periodically I tried to start discussion on changing it from single word result into " see 'aftermath' and 'analysis' " so that wider or conflicting views of the issue could be properly handled and discussed as suggested in the guidelines of template infobox military conflict as it appears that current result is not such.

There was a discussion ongoing about the change but it appears that the person why was arguing against the change (seemingly part of milhist group) first decided to drop out from the discussion and then after couple of weeks silence when i made the discussed edit he immediately reverted it, demanded in the edit summary that a talk page consensus must be reached (though he himself had left the discussion - and there were apparently no others), made no talk page changes though demanding a discussion and left again (apparently).

I was suggested to 'draw wider attention to this article' in hopes of gaining consensus/resolution on the matter and as it is military history article this might be the place to ask for it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 02:45, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The article right now discusses only the British, Canadian, and American company organization. It doesn't at all discuss the history of the military unit, which I think is rather lacking. I'm not sure if this is the place to request someone with expertise in military history to address this, but this supposed military history article is rather lacking in history. ;) RobertM525 (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

This is one place to bring such concerns, although whether or not someone with expertise, interest and free time will pick up your suggestion is another question! Your note on the article talk page might get better results in the long run. Thank you for bringing it to our attention though :) EyeSerene^talk 11:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Just saw this edit. Think there would ever be a need to use the age templates to list in infoboxes the length of conflicts? Could use a "partial date" parameter for the ones where there are no exact months or days. Anyone? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 10:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

You may want to update the FA counter at the main page, it is over 500 easily, check out http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Military history&quality=FA-Class . Sadads (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

That category includes Featured Lists, via our assessment template, the counter is just the Featured Articles listed in our showcase. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, project members. I recently became involved with the fairly recently created article Major John Pott (just from seeing it pop up on the Recent Changes page). Military matters are a bit out of my area of expertise, so I'd like some help. I'm concerned that the subject of the article doesn't meet the criteria listed for notability at WP:MILPEOPLE. Normally I would have left the article for someone with more knowledge, but several things about this article struck me. The first, and perhaps most telling, is that the user who created the page is the self-identified flimographer of a documentary about the subject of the article, or, more accurately, the subject's grandson who wrote a song about Major Pott. Which leads to the second problem--I feel that the article is more focused on the song/video/documentary than the subject himself. That is, I believe that the band itself, as well as the lead singer and likely even the song meet the notability criteria associated with musical acts/works, but that doesn't make the subject of the song itself notable. Thus, if the Major is determined to be notable, the article will need to be trimmed to keep those references minimal; however, I hesitate to do too much editing on that regard if the page doesn't meet notability guidelines in the first place. So, what I'd like is for someone from here to take a look at the page and see if what Major Pott is said to have done qualifies by itself under the WP:MILPEOPLE notability guidelines (in particular, see my final notes on the Talk page). Thank you very much in advance for your assistance. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

My initial impression is that the article doesn't meet WP:MILPEOPLE. It doesn't really do itself any favours - as you say, it comes across as a WP:COATRACK for the video and not a biographical article, but even with an expanded bio and trimming of irrelevant information I'm not sure the article would make the grade. Major Pott was clearly a courageous and dedicated individual, but his best claim to notability in WP terms is probably that he "commanded a notable body of troops in combat". Personally I don't believe this is strong enough, and more importantly all the items listed at MILPEOPLE are subject to our normal notability rules. One obituary and two short articles aren't, in my view, enough to cross the "significant coverage" threshold. (BTW, I've trimmed out some inappropriate external links) EyeSerene^talk 11:47, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

As an aside from the usual notability guidelines, I can add that his name does crop up fairly frequently in Arnhem books, so he does meet the requirements for coverage in sources. However, his role in the battle wasn't hugely significant next to other officers who don't (yet) have articles. I could easily flesh out his Arnhem bit with some RS, but then I could do that for quite a few people who really wouldn't warrent articles. Ranger Steve (talk) 11:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Although... I'm starting to think that combined with the Athlete connection... I would probably vote keep at an AFD. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit I am not 100% sure if this individual meets the notibilty criteria either. Does the fact he got an MBE or other military award qualify him. I am not sure how that would affect his notibility for a member of the United Kingdom. Since I am in the US he isn't particularly notible but that doesn't mean he isnt' either. --Kumioko (talk) 12:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Kumioko: an MBE isn't particularly significant and not enough to establish notability on its own.

Steve: is that coverage significant or in passing? I've read a few Arnhem books (though nothing like the research you've done) so his name was vaguely familiar, but is there enough for a WP:BIO article? I wonder if it's worth rewriting the article and seeing how it develops... EyeSerene^talk 12:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The the MC and MBE (if it was awarded for bravery) do not rate highly enough to make a recipiant notable. It seems that this is best mergerd with the page about his son.Slatersteven (talk) 12:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't have those books with me at work I'm afraid (it's all forts and guns here), but I'll check when I get home. Off the top of my head, at least some of it is significant, and I might have some stuff about his escape (John Waddy's role wasn't exactly significant either, but it gets a lot of coverage in sources). Like Waddy though, it will almost exclusively be about Arnhem though. The Black Swan theme is snagging on something in the recesses of my memory, I'm sure I've seen it as the title of something else Arnhem related, but can't think what now. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think he meets MILPEOPLE, but I think that's probably moot given the fact he got an obit in The Daily Telegraph, and The Daily Mail article about the song/video contains a fair amount of biographical information on him, I would be inclined to vote keep on the terms of WP:GNG. It's borderline, I'd be happier if a couple more of the nationals had also given him obits, but a delete would be harsh, and the song probably has brought him to wider attention. The Telegraph only prints 3/4 obits each day (fewer if someone particularly high-profile dies), so it's pretty selective (though The Telegraph is more likely to give an obit to military figures than most of the other British national papers). Combined with sources like the London Gazette, and the citations for his decorations, which aren't independent of the subject and/or are primary sources, there is plenty to write a decent length article. David Underdown (talk) 13:04, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Quite, MILPEOPLE cuts both ways in that significant etc coverage per WP:N can trump our guideline. I still think it's probably borderline, but it's looking a lot more hopeful than when I first commented a couple of hours ago (as I said, unfortunately the article doesn't do itself any favours). I've come around to the view that an AfD would be premature at this point :) EyeSerene^talk 13:21, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The citation for his MBE reveals he was also in command of C Squadron Trucial Oman Scouts, and seems to have been involved in some interesting actions supporting the SAS during that period, in particular the assault on Jebel Akhdar (Oman) under the command of Anthony Deane-Drummond, commanding larger forces as a result. If anyone has any sources covering this, they would probably be helpful for assessing his notability fully. David Underdown (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Pott gets a cursory mention about his MC in Italy in Saunders' The Red Beret. He gets quoted at length in Waddy's book (fellow company commanders), but as Waddy doesn't use an index I can't be certain how much more he is referred to. Middlebrook's bible, Arnhem 1944, describes his company's action over 4 pages with quotes and specific details (including the brother in law connection and the attempt to write a letter). Certainly enough there to flesh out a section but, being totally unbiased, not necessarily enough to establish notability. However, my personal feeling is that there is enough notability elsewhere (being the subject of a music video that's reported in quite a few diverse reliable sources for example) to justify this, and the Arnhem sources just add to the large picture. On the other hand, this shambolic article, written by the director himself no less, describes a film that has very little notability by itself and should be probably be deleted. In fact if no-one else has by tomorrow, I'll try and find time to nominate it myself. That said, I'm off to watch it now... Ranger Steve (talk)

(od) Not at home right now, but in a day or so I can look at my SAS post-war sources and see if he crops up significantly. Skinny87 (talk) 20:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I want to sincerely thank everyone here. The information and comments added have really transformed this article. Eventually, I still think it needs to get less coatrack-ish, especially now that it seems like there is at least a reasonable likelihood that the subject is notable. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Also noting the superb job you chaps have done on the article. I think AfD is fast receding over the horizon :) EyeSerene^talk 13:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

For anyone interested, you might like to know that I've nominated the related article Black swan story for deletion. Any input is always welcome. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I present to you all this gallery of images of a mysterious rifle that was just donated to the museum this week. It's rusted to hell and back and only the metal remains, but the donor found it at the side of a field in France aftera farmer had dug it up and tossed it away. It was found in the Somme/Arromanche area of Northern France, but that is all we know. Any ideas in identifying even who used it, let alone what model/type it is, would be much appreciated. A barnstar will be awarded to anyone who can help. More photos can be taken and uploaded if required. Skinny87 (talk) 11:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the sigting, I'd say a Lee-Enfield MkIII*. If you can provide some measurements I can hopefully confirm it for you. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I have a tape-measure right at hand, Steve. What exactly do you want measured? The whole thing, or certain parts? Skinny87 (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... Looking at the barrel length, I'm not so sure now.... The distance between the locking ring connecting the chamber and the barrel and the sights looks to be about right... but then the barrel is huge! This is a MkIII (not a star) and it bears many similarities... it's just that length! Can you measure the barrel from the ring to the muzzle, and from the trigger to the muzzle? I'll check some books at home tonight. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't say it bears any resemblance to a breakdown of an S.M.L.E. in Skennerton's Small Arms Identification Series. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 12:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but the sight looked very similar at first glance! Anyway... Aha? Ranger Steve (talk) 12:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, not quite sure which bit the ring was, but here goes: Muzzle to front edge of trigger guard (roughly) is 34 inches/85.5 cm, and muzzle to ring is (I think) 26 inches/66.5 cm. Again, more photos can be taken if required. Skinny87 (talk) 12:41, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Close enough to quite possibly be the Gewehr 98 perhaps. Those pics above look awfully convincing. The full site is here. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

(od) I had a look close-up at the rifle, and I don't think it's a '98 - the trigger guard of that '98 example is square/rectangular, and ours is definitely rounded. There are also no signs of those extra bits on the '98 example, not even marks where they might have rotted off. Skinny87 (talk) 12:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How about the French Berthier? The sights look about right and it had a long barrel and a rounded trigger guard. EyeSerene^talk 13:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit): Link to gallery EyeSerene^talk 13:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Is it perhaps the Lebel_Model_1886_rifle ? Nah - I take that back if this is accurate - the trigger is not in the right place.

Seems to be a cpl here that match but in Russian No6, 7, 8 and No13

One seems to have the same stock attachment, forward sight and almost oval trigger guard

Also maybe try here

Chaosdruid (talk) 14:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, I dunno Skinny, the breech end looks pretty similar to the '98. Admittedly the muzzle end is missing the attachments, but I'm struggling to see any difference between your rifle and the '98 down at the trigger end (aside from the bent trigger guard). Of course I'm probably just clutching at straws after the embarrassment of getting the Lee-Enfield wrong, and being desperate to get the barnstar! Ranger Steve (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The more I look at it, the more I think that you're right; it is just a slightly bent trigger guard. I'll get it labelled at the weekend. Cheers for that - I'll distribute barnstars to all and sundry shortly. Skinny87 (talk) 19:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In the past few months, I've noticed (and I'm sure you all have as well) that a number of milhist articles have been nominated for deletion in an AfD, only for the poor bewildered writer to come to the AfD and try and defend their work without knowing why it's been nominated. Often they only get the standard generic 'Your article is being deleted' notice on their talkpage, which is vague and very unhelpful to new users. Several times I've gone to their talkpages and given a more detailed explanation, and they've been most grateful, and I know several other users have done similar. As such, I've developed (with EyeSerene's help) a MilHist AfD template which we can copy into a users talkpage. The template is here, and I'd like to see what people think of it, and what improvements can be made before we use it. Skinny87 (talk) 12:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Has any directed said writers to the academy? We have Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Deleting an article, which was penned with this exact scenario in mind, so I am somewhat surprised to see that this is an issue. As far as the template itself is concerned, given the information present in the second paragraph of the template it seems intended only for biographical deletions. If this is not the case a little more info on the rest of the guidelines related to the deletion subject in question would be useful to whomever the template is heading out for.

Well, it definitely seems to be an issue, but I'm more than happy for the template to be altered to include more info on non-biographical guidelines - I only included them as the MILMOS didn't say anything specific for non-biographical articles, just to follow GNG as usual. I had no idea the Academy link existed, and although useful it seems quite long and daunting. I want this template to be something that can be added to a users talkpage as a simple introduction - though adding the Academy subpage as a link at the end for further reading/ideas seems a great idea. Skinny87 (talk) 13:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I understood it not to be a replacement for the Academy article but a handy boilerplate text that, as Skinny suggests, might save typing out the same explanation ad nauseam :) I agree a link to the Academy article would be useful too. Tom's right about the bio comment giving a possibly misleading focus to the notice, but my hope is that this is only temporary. I think we're probably overdue to start work on expanding our notability guideline (I think we put it on hold while other reorganisation was taking place elsewhere on WP?) I believe we were going to put something together for Battles and Military Units... maybe something for the thinktank to get its teeth into. In fact, I might go over there and write up a to-do list :) EyeSerene^talk 13:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How about we create a generic {{subst:milhistafd|X}} template, and replace the X with bio, vehicle, battle, etc? In this manner we can create a series of more specific afd explanation templates and alter the one user based on the need of the afd at the time. We can add a link to the academy page at the same time, as well as links to the arguements to avoid at afd. How would that work? TomStar81 (Talk) 13:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That sounds very workable to me. It would avoid overload of information too - at present I think the notice is wordy (largely my fault!) and that would only get worse as we develop and include other notability information. EyeSerene^talk 13:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea, that way we can tailor the explanation to the type of article. I seem to have created the biography one already inadvertently, so we just need the others - Vehicles/Aircraft, Battles and units...any others? I don't think a lot of work is needed, just copying the draft in my sandbox, appending the Academy page and altering the guidelines - maybe just examples of notable/non-notable battles and vehicles and units instead of people. Skinny87 (talk) 14:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for USS Indiana (BB-1) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I am the author of the 295th Ordnance Heavy Maintenance Company (FA) and the web site 295th.com . This page is currently up for deletion, which seems absolutely unwarranted. Yes, the page itself could use some re-work, but the story of this company is also important, regardless of them not being front-line soldiers. Why? These men supported the front line, they helped liberate the prisoners at Dachau, and the fact that they were a non-airborne company training at Camp Toccoa and also running Currahee Mountain should be enough to warrant it staying put! Please, visit the Wikipedia page, the 295th web site, and give your support. Thank you in advance. 295th (talk) 21:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

With very few exceptions, companies are not deemed notable.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

For those who read the news often may have recently seen the secretive UKUSA Agreement declassified yesterday/today. The Wikipedia article is at UK–USA Security Agreement. I have made some updates, added links to the declassified documents, and also requested that the page be moved to a new name as used by government sources. I would appreciate help in digesting this news as I have little knowledge about this topic. Thanks! Arsonal (talk) 03:03, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I never thought I'd see that document declassified! (though it's good that its now available) Nick-D (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for ARA Moreno is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 08:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A discussion thread has been started at Talk:1961_Indian_Annexation_of_Goa#Title regarding the title of the article (i.e., whether to use "Invasion of Goa" or "Annexation of Goa" in the title). If you are interested in the topic, please discuss the issue there.XavierGreen (talk) 23:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Operation Postmaster is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 07:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Siege of Godesberg (1583) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 08:14, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Military History team! Can you help me? I was doing some tidy/update work on the Thomas Neely VC article, and noticed that he was buried at Masnieres British Cementry, Marcoing. I can't find an article with that title, do we have one? A small cemetery, it was also the place where the ashes of Henry Tandey were scattered. More details here on the CWGC website Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we have one for that yet. I've looked over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military memorials and cemeteries task force and can't seem to find it. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:13, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

We do now: Masnieres British Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. Just a stub though - needs work :) EyeSerene^talk 11:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Suitably expanded. Hehe. Ranger Steve (talk) 11:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank You All! Best Regards, - Trident13 (talk) 11:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Very impressive stuff; all done without an hour of the call!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 12:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Doh! I just created one myself. Masnieres British Cemetery, Marcoing. I was having cache issues and didn't see the above threads. I have removed the content from mine and redirect to the other one. Well, that's half an hour of my life I'll never get back (not to mention the grief I got from my wife for being on the computer). Oh well. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:03, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that :( I've merged elements of your content into mine, so your time wasn't wasted. EyeSerene^talk 12:21, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Totally my fault. Anyway, thanks. Take care. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I just came across the Category:Recipients of the Cross of Honor. Now I am wondering if there is any use for such a category. Essentially the Cross of Honor is the equivalent to the British War Medal, having been issued to anyone who fought on the German side in WWI. Frankly, I do not see a point in categorizing all German (and Austrian) WWI veterans who were considered worthy of wearing this medal (i.e. not Jewish nor Socialists/Communists). --Dodo19 (talk) 12:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi all, The FAC for Bombing of Yawata (June 1944) (which I nominated) is languishing with relatively few votes and comments. Any comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bombing of Yawata (June 1944)/archive1 would be much appreciated. Nick-D (talk) 09:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

• Portal:Terrorism

This portal is currently being considered for Featured Portal status. Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Terrorism. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

• Just retrieved this from the archives. The review still has no comments so if anyone could spare the time to take a look that would be massively appreciated. Thanks! EyeSerene^talk 21:46, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Ironholds (talk) 19:21, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Bombardment of Papeete is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi all

Is it just me or is it getting ridiculous that blaa is posting inbetween older posts requiring others to reply there and making it impossible to follow the thread of any "discussion" also I just noticed that he put words in the middle of a previous post !

Can someone clarify what the hell the position is on this - should we not simply put:

@persons name + Date + Quote at the bottom of the whole section?

I understand that there is a need for simple little posts to go inbetween - such as Trekphiler at 18:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC) when he was simply posting a small note rather than part of the discussion

Chaosdruid (talk) 19:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

whats your obective? i added something to my post 5 minutes after i printed it before somebody responded , thats normal i added something to my point behind this particular point. wheres your problem? I also want to remind u that trek added something between older posts an i responded to him!!!! with this post u hurt your reputation more than mine i guess. please dont try to make problems where no are Blablaaa (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I had to smile after i checked your last 2 posts. I saw that u did exactly the same and added something in the middle of your old post :-) Blablaaa (talk) 19:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Here the edit of another editor in the middel of a finished discussion: [] . So i hope u are satisfied now, it wasnt me. Kindergarden... Blablaaa (talk) 19:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Kindergarden ? and so the insults start again

I object because I had an edit conflict which I could not sort out as I couldn't see where your post was that caused it (as there is no method to your posts and their dates) you read something that gets you stirred up and you stick an answer to it right there even if the post is a week old.

Normally people put their posts at the end, not in the middle, at the top, then the bottom, the middle, the bottom and lastly the top

I was trying to reply to your message when I got another ec which yet again I could not find your post so just gave up.

I am not hurting my reputation - I have asked you to be more normal on placing posts in the correct timeline before and yet you persist in this shambolic manner.

As for your comment "I had to smile" that was put in because after searching for a few minutes and havng to look at your contributions I finally realise what the ec had been caused by.

I no longer wish to be part of any discussions you raise as the way in which you conduct your discussions is not acceptable to me. I gave you leeway before when you used those ridiculous comments about noobish and swore but that "Kindergarden" is the final straw, especially as your bottom post was a paragraph of a thousand words.

Chaosdruid (talk) 22:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

you: Is it just me or is it getting ridiculous that blaa is posting inbetween older posts requiring others to reply there and making it impossible to follow the thread of any "discussion" also I just noticed that he put words in the middle of a previous post ..... Can someone clarify what the hell the position is on this.. for me it sounds like unnessecary at all. Not to mention that another user started this posting in the middle and i only posted a response.... . Kindergarden inst insulting , at least not in german... I hope u admit that making an extra section to talk about blas posting in th middle is kinde kindergarden, isnt it? Blablaaa (talk) 22:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

and this Kindergarden ? and so the insults start again is also a bit "kindergarden" :-) . Dont overreact . That u got edit conflict because of my posts is not good. So i apologize for posting in the middle where u cant find it. I was also a bit confused when trek responded, but thought i will post below with enough ":::" ... Blablaaa (talk) 22:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Such comments are clearly in violation of WP:NPA and you have been warned repeatedly. I have flagged this now at WP:ANI#Repeated violations of WP:NPA by Blablaaa. Anotherclown (talk) 02:58, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Midshipman is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to bottom out his military experiences? The lead states that he was in combat in 'Nam as a US infantryman, the prose says he was a teacher there and a wiper on a Merchant Marine ship. The article on Platoon states he was basing it on his infantry experiences. There has been a cock up somewhere.... S.G.^(GH) _ping! 11:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Indian Air Force is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Siege of Godesberg FAC could use more reviewers. auntieruth (talk) 17:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

This FAC needs more reviewers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion about moving Gunpowder, which presently covers historical potassium nitrate gunpowder, to Black powder and making Gunpowder a disambiguation page for black powder and modern gunpowder. Any comments are welcome, and should be made at Talk:Gunpowder#Requested move. Thanks for reading. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Could one of you people from across the pond possibly look over this article? I have no idea where the Mississippi flows in relation to Columbus, Tennessee, Cairo and so on. I think some of the disambiguation links may be a bit off and the river geography a little nonsensical. It's on the main page for a DYK today so someone is gonna notice that I know not my American geography! _{Long live the Queen!} :D S.G.^(GH) _ping! 11:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Just popped by the assessments section and saw the huge backlog. Someone has raised hundreds (literally) of USAF related articles. I wouldn't even know if these were notable, let alone assess them, but I'm sure someone here has the skills and knowledge to help the regulars Monstrelet (talk) 16:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Courageous class battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:19, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Ernest Augustus I of Hanover is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

A member of the project, White Shadows, is currently a candidate to receive access to administrative tools. Project members who have worked with the candidate and have an opinion of White Shadows's fitness to receive these tools are cordially invited to comment. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Two questions which sort of follow on from earlier discussions on computer games. 

• I assume that wargames as a research or training aid come under the remit of MILHIST but not wargames as a hobby. Is that correct?
• I think the consensus of the previous discussion was not to allow computer games because we were already suffering mission creep. I suggested we have a wider look at the popular culture field, being clearer on what we included and what we declassified as MILHIST as a contribution to the problem. I'm not sure there was an answer to that, so I'd like to raise it again. If there is no interest, then we can file it under NFA.Monstrelet (talk) 09:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Your first would seem to make sense to me, although what type of wargames are we talking about? Computer, tabletop, or both (not that it really matters I suppose).

Your second... that might be a good topic for the thinktank, as it could have implications for the project's existing scope. No objection to discussing it here though :) EyeSerene^talk 13:16, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

On the firsrt point I have strong objections to wargames being here (excepting such things as Kreigspiel and other training aids). I do not see a doifferanced in this respect from Board wargames, computer games or playing with toy solders.

I see no reaso ot to0 discuse the inclusion of computer games, I just dojn't think we should include them.Slatersteven (talk) 13:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a case could be made that tabletop wargames are closer to military simulations than they are to computer games - many training aids in use now started out as hobbyist wargames. I don't think the same case can be made quite so readily for computer games, although even there the boundaries blur when looking at computer-based training simulations. Obviously we have to have a cut-off somewhere though. EyeSerene^talk 13:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Depends, for example whilst say Anzio might be an excelent simulation of the italian campiegn of WW2. But what about (lets say) WWIII, both a bad game and a terrible simulation (even at the time). I agree that were something starts out as a training aid (or in the case of Phoenix Command a forensic simulation) there is justification for its inclusion is good. But if its just a commercial wargame then no I don't think there is a case.I have dbouts that if we allow the idea that a game is a form of millitary history then every one who has played they third Reich will feel that their version of reality is a valid as Liddle-harts. I just so not se any benifit but a lot of potential trouble. The 'Hey I played battlefield Vietnam, I'm a vet man' mentality.Slatersteven (talk) 13:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree; we're perhaps best treating [hobbyist]^{added clarification} wargames as out-of-scope with the occasional exception decided on its own merits. EyeSerene^talk 16:14, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Wargaming and simulation is a standard element of both training and operational planning and should be covered, ISTR that red teaming already is. The individual games used in training aren't really all that significant, and the models used in strategic planning are sensitive so any discussion probably can't be sourced.

ALR (talk) 18:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree. Wargaming is a military method as well as a recreation - insofar as it's a military method, we should cover it. Individual games shouldn't be covered, regardless of their sales/authenticity/whatever (though there might be exceptions). The Land (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

To summarise, then, the initial query is correct - Wargaming is only within the scope of the project in as far as it has a professional military, rather than hobby, context. Hobby games can only come in where there is cross-over e.g. Kriegspiel, originally a staff training aid which crossed over into hobby circles in the later 19th. century.

I think thats fair.Slatersteven (talk)

I would be happy to take the other part of question to the think tank but can't find the link on this page or the main project page - could someone enlighten me? Thanks Monstrelet (talk) 07:28, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The link is WP:MHTHINKTANK. The pages are still in the process of being set up, so if you wanted to continue here that might be best for now. I don't know what others think? EyeSerene^talk 13:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Moved to "Polular culture in milhist articles" section below. EyeSerene^talk 15:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Please check the article de:Schlacht bei Warburg which has been reworked recently and which was qualified excellent.--Warboerde (talk) 08:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out this resource: http://gallica.bnf.fr - it contains an extensive gallery of French PD images, including quite a lot of military ones! Regards, The Land (talk) 12:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there any task force dealing with war crimes and atrociites during World War 2? --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The WWII task force would be the main one here, as we don't have one on war crimes or laws of war specifically. If you're looking for something with a more concentrated focus, you might consider starting a working group within the WWII task force to cover WWII war crimes. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm working up some stubs, translating the ledes and infoboxes (many of which have pix) from the es.wiki articles from Category:Batallas de la Guerra del Chaco, covering battles of the Chaco War, a war fought between Paraguay and Bolivia in the early 1930s. If there are any Spanish-speaking editors who want to help expand the articles with the remainder of text from es.wiki, that would be great. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There's currently an effort underway to set up a long-term collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution; since we cover some of the topics that would be involved, I'm wondering whether there is any interest in the project for taking part in the collaboration efforts?

A couple of topics we should consider:

1. What topics within our scope would be suitable for this collaboration? U.S. military history and military aviation seem like obvious fits—each has, effectively, an entire Smithsonian museum associated with it—but are there other good topic areas that we should pull in?
2. What would be the best way of setting up collaboration efforts from our end? Do we want to create one or more working groups that would cover individual groups of topics related to the Smithsonian, or set up some more centralized structure for the entire effort?
3. Aside from working on articles directly, what other forms of collaboration are of interest? For example, do we want access to images, exhibits, etc.?

Any comments on these or any other related issues would be appreciated! Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:01, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

We definitely want acess to images, exhibits, etc. That information helps us improve on the material here, and I know that some of the things in the Smithsonian are valuable for reasons beyond simple display (The RQ-2 Pioneer that they have, for example, is the one that was aboard Wisconsin and captured the Iraq forces on Faylaka Island surrendering). On point 1, it may also be a good idea to include their science museum, if they have one, since R&D work both directly and indirectly related to the military has produced lots of civilian advances (like nylon, for example). Some of that material would fall indirectly within our scope. As for the best way to set up collaboration; I think that a special project would be the best way to go about it - unless we can obtain a rough figure for the articles that we have on there displays and such; if its over 100 and we have enough interest in the collaboration attempt I would be open to considering a full fledged task force for the project. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:14, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

There's probably several hundred articles if we consider everything on display—and even more if we include the items not currently publicly displayed, which there has been some talk about as well—but there's probably not enough of a common theme to really create a full task force from this. A special project would probably be a good middle ground; the set of articles is (notionally) limited, and probably lends itself to a phased approach similar to what OMT is currently doing. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I have worked for the last couple weeks categorizing the articles for the SI and there are quite a few articles and images that relate directly to both projects (such as aircraft at the air and space museum). There are also a lot of indirect scope articles such as the misc unnamed aircraft, weapons, equipment and vehicles related to the military, as well as military related art and images. Also of potential tie ins are first and signifant events for applicable minorities such as Medal of Honor recipients, famous firsts, etc relating to the African American museum in anacostia and the American Indian museum. As Kirill mentioned there are a lot of items not currently on display that may also be valid. The SI has about 150 million items in their collection, and they only display about 1%. --Kumioko (talk) 18:28, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

How deep will they let Wikipedians into their archives? I agree that photographs will be one of the first and most obvious benefits of the program. Binksternet (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the Smithsonian Institution is also a significant, and high-quality, publisher of books on military matters (particularly aircraft). Is there any prospect of them releasing the text of their books and magazines (presumably older/out of print editions in both cases) into the public domain? In addition to the requests for photos above, maps from SI publications would also be wonderful. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I took part in the British Museum collaboration and had some thoughts about how to make this model of collaboration work for military history topics... here they are...

• There is a basic difference between the way museums present information - object-by-object - and the way an encyclopedia does. The British Museum was keen to help Wikipedia have better articles about objects in its collection, because that's what their curators care about, and also helps drive traffic to their website. For unique objects like a Cyrus cylinder, Royal Gold Cup, or a find like the Hoxne Hoard that works fine because there is a 1-1 correspondence between objects and Wikipedia articles - and also because the curators are genuine experts in the subject matter. This is much more difficult with military history because no museum is able to exhibit the Battle of Passchendaele; if a museum has a Spitfire it will be one of many, and their exhibit is not independently notable; and while they might have an exhibit about General John J. Pershing they won't necessarily feel that they are leaders in the field of knowledge about him. So I think there is an extra challenge for military history collaborations with museums. Not an insurmountable one hopefully.
• Wikipedians need to make a conscious effort to help fill the Museum's priorities - this kind of initiative will only take off if we can show to the museum staff that they are getting something out of it. It might be worth getting the Smithsonian Wikipedian-in-Residence to talk to the people in charge of their aviation and military history and get them to suggest subjects which are a high priority for the museum which will also benefit Wikipedia, rather than trying to do it the other way around.
• It's much easier to get access to experts from a museum, and to their libraries, than it is to convince museums to put a lot of photos which currently generate revenue for them into the public domain. So it works better if you think of the collaboration as an opportunity to learn about subjects, get articles peer-reviewed by experts who normally wouldn't bother with Wikipedia, and improve the factual content of the articles, than as a smash-and-grab raid on a lot of photo resources.

If there is a Milhist collaboration with the Smithsonian I will happily take party (though, obviously, only remotely!) The Land (talk) 09:34, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Those are all really good points. The Smithsonian has a number of remarkable objects relevant to military history which could be a suitable initial focus - the Enola Gay for instance. Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

They also have whats left of the USS Philadelphia (1776), several other named aircraft in addition to the Enola Gay such as Flak Bait, along with the hundreds of unnamed aircraft, several of which are the only remaining of their kind such as the Aichi M6A and the Dornier Do 335. Even some animals related to the military could potential fall within scope such as Sergeant Stubby and Cher Ami. Additionally, there have been discussions regarding articles regarding the museum that are "indirect scope" articles which the museum may want to collaborate on that relate to their museum (such as the SR71 blackbird, other generic type aircraft on display, possibly even biographies about artists with works on display, the Wright brothers or various indian tribes). Its hard to say at this point exactly what they are going to deem as important to them and in fact my guess is that will vary greatly depending on the individual museum within the SI group. --Kumioko (talk) 12:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, wonders never cease! I was just planning a trip to DC for this autumn... If I can use my position as an editor to maybe get some "behind the scenes" access for research and photography, I would be a very happy man. I think I will brainstorm up a "wishlist" of things I would want to take a deeper look into. And, it would be amazingly pleasant to get some outside peer review by experts, though I imagine there may be some growing pains when it comes to referencing some of the discrepancies. bahamut0013^words_deeds 22:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Good to see another institution follow in the footsteps of the British Museum; sounds like a lot of good could come from this. Nev1 (talk) 23:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

We could also see if we could get involved with the Museum of the American Indian to try to improve our coverage of the American Indian Wars and related topics. – Joe N 23:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If anyone knows anybody at the Imperial War Museum please let me know ;-) The Land (talk) 09:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Joe, the Museum of the American Indian is the one we met with and the one that currently seems the most interested in collaborating at the moment. --Kumioko (talk) 10:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Broken out from "War and popular culture queries" above. EyeSerene^talk 15:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

At present, AFAIK, the project's guidance on popular culture articles is restricted to a paragraph under category 8 of what the project covers. The main thrust of this is about historical content of the cultural product (book, film etc.) There isn't an article guide or a specific notability guide. So two questions

• Should there be some content element we would expect to see in a MILHIST tagged popular culture article, such as a section commenting on historical accuracy, or an expectation of reference to historical sources, not just ones connected to the arts or popular reactions to the cultural product?
• Should we specify something on notability. Some fictional or artistic pieces are probably notable as they are produced by veterans and describe or reflect on the experience of war. But what of popular art - are all the current crop of historical novels about the Ancient Roman Military all sufficiently notable, or some, or none. What criteria do we use? Sales/box office, literary or other awards, public reaction to the pieceMonstrelet (talk) 18:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I've been mulling these questions over and still don't have very good answers :) However, I think the first is basically addressing the same issues as we discussed with war-related games; what are the chances that such articles will contain sourced commentary and analysis that isn't WP:OR? Item 8 of the scope on our main page states "the project generally covers only those depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable". This doesn't actually specify that such discussion is present in the article, only that it would be relevant if it was present, so maybe we should look at tightening the requirement?

Re notability, our gold standard must obviously be WP:N, which states "a topic is deemed appropriate for inclusion if it complies with WP:NOT and has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources." We can expand this with our own guidelines and advice (eg WP:MILPEOPLE) but we can't weaken the site policy. With that in mind I think we could usefully set out more detailed guidelines - in fact, we're overdue a project-wide discussion on developing notability guidelines for battles, units etc so this could be bundled up as part of the wider proposals. EyeSerene^talk 09:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone could advise? This article self contradicts in terms of casualties. I suppose that isn't too surprising as neither side wants to exagerate own losses. I can't find any non commercial online sources let alone an authoritive one but note that the German, French and English versions also differ. See Talk:Battle of Smolensk (1812). Any suggestions on this -and getting consistency across different versions. Thanks in advance JRPG (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

David Chandler (The Campaigns of Napoleon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. 1990. Pg 786) states French casualties to have been 10,000 and that of the Russians being between 12,000 and 14,000 men in the two days fighting. Farawayman (talk) 21:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for this prompt reply. JRPG (talk) 10:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SMS Westfalen is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

User User:Stor stark7 started a thread re:Rudiger Overmans on my talk page, I moved his comments and my replies to Talk:World War II casualties Other editors need to get involved.--Woogie10w (talk) 22:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I ran across this whilst cleaning out WP:UNCAT, and the concept is somewhat interesting. Worth keeping and expanding, listify, or just delete? I do have a Speedy Rename request in at WP:CFD to fix the capitalisation issue. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

If we view "conflicts" as referring to military conflicts specifically, then is there likely to be any significant number of articles in the category? Off the top of my head, I can't think of many battles or wars with no fatalities (and even fewer with no casualties); this might be more suited to a list, since that won't have the size issue, and can be annotated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The Cod Wars?Monstrelet (talk) 19:46, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That's what I thought. I think it would be a worthy category for milhist purposes, if there was anything to put in it. Like Krill I struggle to think of many military conflicts without any form of casualty. That said, I imagine there might be some in the wider world (the great cod conflict aside) so it might have some value with a refined name. Bloodless confrontations perhaps? Ranger Steve (talk) 20:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling there is something that can be done with this cat, and it's an interesting idea in that it covers conflicts of a military-type nature (where one would expect bloodshed) that turned out peacefully. There's also the Pig War, where no British or US troops died (though technically not bloodless since the pig died). MatthewVanitas (talk) 11:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

And the classic Emu War. That article's come on a bit in the last year I'm happy to see. Not necessarily bloodless either though! Ranger Steve (talk) 12:15, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Yarmouk is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 01:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

A discussion is currently underway at Talk:Canadian Forces#Maritime Command, or Canadian Forces Maritime Command regarding the use of "Canadian Forces" in the article titles of the Canadian Forces Air Command, Canadian Forces Land Force Command, and Canadian Forces Maritime Command articles. Any input from the projerct would be welcome, whatever your views on the issue. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 10:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Russian battleship Slava is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 03:04, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I have just reblocked User:Rivenburg, who was blocked back in 2007 for strongly biased editing of Michel Thomas. Ultimately, his block was reviewed, and was reduced to a ban on editing that specific article (talk page editing permitted). He has recently returned and edited the article using the Rivenburg account; however, a review of the article's history compared with available checkuser data strongly indicates that he has continued editing while logged out for much of the time of his topic ban.

This article needs review by people with some knowledge of the historical period involved, and I will cross-post this to the Polish and Military History wikiprojects; however, in the interim, it would be very helpful if a few folks would add this page to their watchlist and keep an eye out for further biased logged-out edits. Thanks. Risker (talk) 06:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Battle of Plassey is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 02:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Organization of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for FN P90 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for ARA Moreno; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:Forts in the United States contains many different fort articles in its subcategories. But there is an unanswered question. What should actually be included in this category? Just forts that were actually used for combat defense? Army facilities having schools or training areas but not used in combat? Anything named a 'fort'? Also things named camps used by ground forces? Only Army facilities, but not U.S. Marines and so on? Hmains (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It is my understanding that there are the two main diversions on the subject.

In english the word fort comes from "fortify" - old english it was forte and before that the laitn was fortis (strong)

Fortification - works that are erected to defend something (fence, pallisade, rampart, embankment, big thick stone walls etc)

Fortress - That which has been fortified (like fortified wine which means "made stronger")

Whhich gives us:-

1. Fort - something which has been fortified (with fortifications) and is only used for troops

So basically if it has a fence or a fence and a ditch or a fence and barbed wire or a wall and its used for troops its a fort.

2. Interestingly the British in North America (prior to the 4th July lol) used the term Fort for a trading station that was fortified. The Americans then took over the style (cavalry indians etc) and I suppose it became normal even without a trading post there - places like Fort Lauderdale, the city, and Fort Bragg, the army camp.

Bragg was first Camp Bragg as there were no army personnel there. It started out as a artillery training ground and artillery range and the first thing established were cantonments followed by an airfield. It wasn't until it was 4 years old that it was renamed Fort as a permanent army post.

Chaosdruid (talk) 06:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I have seen it said, in a novel rather than anything that would be counted as a reliable source, that so far as the US Army is concerned, the difference between Camp Bragg and Fort Bragg is taht while it was called the former it was considered a temporary installation, and once it was accepted as a permanent base, it takes the title Fort instead. David Underdown (talk) 08:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I think thats about right sort of lol - the camp accomodations were cantonments - big tents and things - with some permanent structures. The airfield had buildings and hangars, although I cannot finda pic unfortunately, and there was an office buulding. The bit about the camp v fort is probably better assigned to (in the case of Bragg) the official history which stated that once the barracks were in place and the army units went in the camp was renamed to fort.

Perhaps the permanent part that was inferred in the novel was a permanent billet. THe reason I mention this is that it also says Bragg had "the artillery personnel and materiel from Camp McClellan, Alabama", yet was still called a camp, and "Camp Bragg became Fort Bragg, a permanent Army post" although that part is not very clear on what a permanent army post is, whether it is they were put there permanently, the fact that naming it "Fort" made it a permanent post, or that it was only temporary (due to the war) or the threatened closure etc. Chaosdruid (talk) 01:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Just noticed {{US Cavalry}} being added to articles, and {{US Infantry}} has been around for a while. These templates go under the main infobox to link to numerically previous or next divisions or regiments. The problem is that this creates an artificial sense of order— there is no particular precedence based on numeric designation. For example, 3rd Cavalry Division (United States) links next to 15th Cavalry Division (United States), which then links next to 21st Cavalry Division (United States). This also illustrates that articles are missing for those historical divisions.

If we really need some navigation aid for these articles, then it should be a standard navbox at the bottom of the page. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

This is less of a problem than you think since there were no 4th through 14th Cavalry Divisions, nor 17th through 19th Armored Divisions, etc.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I had created {{US Cavalry}} based on {{US Infantry}}, because the header text is hardcoded. Have also found {{US Regiments}} as well. But after further investigation we should probably use some kind of a more generic box where the nationality, "US", "German", etc, and type "Infantry", "Cavalry", etc. are parameters along with the unit size "Division", "Regiment", "Army". — MrDolomite • Talk 19:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, it would be quite easy to create a single template that would allow people to substitute in the relevant terms in the text. However, I'm not entirely convinced that this is the best solution. If the intent is simply to provide navigation among all related units, then using a normal navigation template, as Gadget850 suggests above, seems more useful than only providing links to the "neighboring" units and forcing readers to follow the entire chain. On the other hand, if the intent is to showcase an order of precedence or similar relationship among units, then it would probably be more useful to just add those items to the unit infobox and eliminate the need for a separate template below it. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:07, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Rivadavia class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of battlecruisers of Russia/archive1 needs more reviewers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for Acra (fortress) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:07, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Further to discussions here and elsewhere, the coordinators would like to put a proposal to our members:

• Background: Wikipedia's site-wide style guide, the Manual of Style (MoS), has recently been reorganised to provide a more logical structure and better integration with the many subject-specific style guides developed by individual WikiProjects (such as music, biographies, mathematics etc). The new MoS page structure can be seen at Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style. As is obvious from the category link, we are the only project that now lies outside this structure. However, at present our in-house guide—WP:MILMOS—addresses three areas: content, notability and style. Only the style sections would technically come under the MoS.

• Proposal: to split WP:MILMOS into three separate pages, one each for content, notability and style, and to move the style page into the new MoS structure.

The A-Class review for Battle of P'ohang-dong is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This discussion appears to be hitting a stalemate Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_July_15#Category:Civil_affairs_units_and_formations_of_the_United_States_Marine_Corps, please comment Sadads (talk) 15:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for SMS König is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:52, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for Citadel of Arbil is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The peer review for List of Commando raids on the Atlantic wall is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I have initiated a conversation about a suggested change to the way we display the BLP banner on article talk pages at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Suggestion regarding the Biography of Living persons statement on article talk pages. Please take some time and leave a comment about this suggestion. --Kumioko (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)