Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military/Archive 1

message: OK, we need to thrash the things out so that we can sort out naming conventions for those formations which are not obvious yet.
As I have said in the editing that I have done to the main page, the British and American army formations that need disambigulating seem to have a settled pattern, with British and US being used as disbigulation prefixes. However, 6th Division (Finland) presents a counterexample to this sort of thing. I think that using prefixes is better, since it avoids the needs for brackets, and it just seems to flow better when read.
Naval and airforce prefixes have hardly been sorted out at all. I have put in links to articles about RAF Squadrons that use RAF as an identifying prefix. To me, that sounds better, and I think that it is sufficiently well known to use. People often say RAF when talking about the Royal Air Force, whereas it is rare to hear people talk about the RN for the Royal Navy outside of military and related circles (and we are all aware of the military's like for acronyms; SNOG [Senior Naval Officer, Gulf], and CINCUS [Commander in Chief, United States Fleet; sink us] come to mind!). I think that using British as prefix for RN formations other than ships would be a good idea. It is less likely to cause confusion. The one fly in the ointment is the Fleet Air Arm. That has squadrons, like the RAF, numbered in a very similar series. However, most people would not know what FAA stands for, and there are other nations with a Fleet Air Arm (Australia for example). The British Squadrons are called NAS or Naval Air Squadron, so perhaps an appropriate disambigulation form for them would be British No. 800 NAS. Possibly NAS should be expanded from acronym form, but I am concerned that would make the article title too long.
I am in two minds about the USN and USAF. People often talk about the USN and USAF in abbreviation form, although as with the RAF, they use the air force abbreviation more. US is a possible prefix, but then so are USN and USAF. I guess that it comes down to which sounds better. That also doesn't cover the USMC, and we still have the Royal Marines to sort out as well! David Newton 17:27 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:Hi. Just got back from my vacation so I haven't had time to read through all your suggestions yet. I only want to point out that using "6th Division (Finland)" lets us use the so called pipe trick,  renders as 6th Division which looks better when the name is repeated a lot of times in an article. If we use Finnish 6th Division, we are forced to write 6th Division to get the same result. -- Jniemenmaa 08:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
That pipe trick is a nice one. Given the amount of time that it would save with typing in the names formations (since there would be no need to type anything after the pipe in most cases), I think that I would in favour of adopting the brackets convention. I am in favour of the most quick way of doing disambigulation, and that beats out my suggestion. I will see what I can about changing the pages that I have created to your format. David Newton 19:52 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:I don't think the pipe trick argument is very strong; it only works when first typing in, afterwards you have two copies anyway.  (I never type the name twice when piping btw, always cut-n-paste from the first one.)  Having now seen a bunch of articles in the "<country> <unit>" form, I'm inclined to prefer that; they read better as English article titles, which is the main place that normal readers will have to see the fully written-out name. Stan 21:34 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)
::I agree with that the form "country unit" looks better as an article title. And yes, the pipe trick argument is an weak one. (but see below) -- Jniemenmaa 09:39, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I would base it on the amount of material, keeping in mind that most historical narrative should go with the wars' articles, and a divisional article should be more about the unit itself - patch, commanders, combat locations, etc.  So if there is just a paragraph or so for each division, I would put both in a single article; the reader can easily choose which is of immediate interest.  If you have enough material for two articles, then either war's name or year is reasonable for disambiguation. I would tend to go with year of formation a la ships, because it's more factual - sometimes people can get worked up over titling, but a documented date is hard to argue with. (You can always move the page later if you don't like how it looks - several times I've looked at my article title for several months, then decided I hated it and moved the page.) Stan 12:51, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

text: It doesn't appear that your articles deviate from the general thrust of things in any really fundamental way. I'm glad that somebody's tackling them. I've recently been concentrating on filling in the gaps in the US forces, like sticking all of the armored division WWII combat chronicles online. I've also written articles for several of the US armies. David Newton 19:16, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the response, David.  I'll continue as I am going.  I'll be able to expand the WWI sections of some of the British armies. Geoff 07:21, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming conventions

message: I've found a nice potential unit taxobox at Marine Corps Force Recon. I'd appreciate if others could let me know what they think. David Newton 17:27, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nice unit taxobox (although perhaps a bit long) 

message: Would :Category:Military formations and units be an acceptable title for a single, combined category, replacing the current top-level :Category:Military formations? All the national categories would move from, say, :Category:British military units to :Category:British military formations and units.  It's long-winded but should be unambiguous.  Geoff/Gsl 23:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming - Military formations and units

message: Is there any consensus on the naming of articles for Canadian and British regiments? Basically, does one use the definite article "The" in the title of the article? Example: "Royal Canadian Regiment" redirects to "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" (emphasis mine); following that example (and others, such as the R Nfld R), I decided to at least start the stub for the other "named" infantry and armoured regiments. I noticed today that "The Sherbrooke Hussars" had been moved to "Sherbrooke Hussars". Comments? 
BTW, I intend to continue to create the articles under the regiments' formal names, which usually include "The". SigPig 03:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, answered my own question here. Some regts use the definite article (The GGHG), while others do not (GGFG). Some appear to even have lost the definite article over time (cutbacks can be ridiculous). SigPig 15:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of "The" in Regimental names

message: I've created a new Wikipedia project for a Miliary Collaboration of the week.  Any one who wants to help out is more then welcome. Oberiko 14:59, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Military Collaboration of the week

message: Hello.  I was wondering if anyone here would mind arbitrating at Template:WWIIGermanAFVs.  We're at a roadblock in the debate to include foreign (captured) vehicles in the template or not. Oberiko 06:10, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitration

message: Just a small note to editors who might be interested in this topic, I've expanded civilian control of the military a fair bit lately and am looking to send it to peer review soon; if anyone has any insights to its improvement before I take that next step, your comments are invited on the talk page. Thanks. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 00:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Civilian control of the military]] 

message: A suggestion was recently made in the Military history WikiProject that this project be merged into it (since we have already begun to deal with military units, which seem to be the main point of interest here).  A project merger would have the benefit of centralizing all discussion on these topics in a single place.
I'm interested in any general comments from the members of this project: would you be willing to accept such a merger?  Is it a good or a bad idea?  Any feedback would be very helpful in determining whether this is a course of action that should be explored further.  —Kirill Lokshin 04:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible project merger 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable military articles?  By all means mention any FAs as well. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 06:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 

message: I recently created RSTA it needs to be improved. ⇒ SWATJester  Ready  Aim  Fire! 21:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RSTA improve

message: Hello WP: military members. I just want to stress that we maintain OPSEC in any entries here. ⇒ SWATJester  Ready  Aim  Fire! 21:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: OPSEC