Talk:Active service unit

message: Moved from WP:RM:
*Comment: This is currently being discussed on the talk page. It is a Proper noun, examples would include , ,  and . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Domer48 (talk • contribs)  22:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: New discussion

message: The first Active Service Units were created during the War For Independence as the photo of the plaque clearly shows. This history should be included.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.38.5 (talk) 10:19, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The majority of what you added was incorrect. There was one unit in Dublin, named the Active Service Unit. This article is not about that unit. O Fenian (talk) 21:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Yes it is inaccurate. You are confusing the "Active Service Unit" (note, it is a proper noun) with an "active service unit" (generic term). The information you added claims that the flying columns were active service units, when they were not they were flying columns. "Active Service Unit" referred to one specific unit, not any others. This is an academic enyclopedia, please stop adding nonsense. O Fenian (talk) 20:49, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

text: On the contrary, of the dozens of books I have on the period they all say without exception that the "Active Service Unit" was one unit in Dublin and there was no other unit called that during the War of Independence. That belongs in an article about that particular unit called "Active Service Unit", not confusing this article about an identically named but totally different type of unit. O Fenian (talk) 21:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

text: I see you are still struggling to understand the difference between a proper noun and a generic term. O Fenian (talk) 21:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: New discussion

message: Can someone provide a source to verify that the men in the photo are re-enacting a PIRA ASU? It appears that they are actually dressed in German Bundeswehr uniforms and one is carrying a Bundeswehr service rifle, so the PIRA connection isn't exactly clear.--FergusM1970 (talk) 23:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo 

message: (( See also.  HTH. — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:47, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  See also Military_organization#Armies and in particular Flying_column.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:07, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  2013 discussion, ASU's during the [[Irish Volunteers]] period 

message: O Fenian wrote in 2009:  ...the "Active Service Unit" was one unit in Dublin and there was no other unit called that during the War of Independence. That belongs in an article about that particular unit called "Active Service Unit", not confusing this article about an identically named but totally different type of unit. 
: Information below copied mostly-verbatim from AfC submission written by  71.224.36.50 ( talk)‎.  I fiddled with formatting a little.  HTH.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:43, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  proposed draft for [[Active Service Unit (Irish Volunteers)]], if creation of new article is the consensus 

message: This article is currently in lowercase, and concentrates almost exclusively on 1969-20xx use of the ASU by the  PIRA, with a troop-strength of 5 to 8 members per PIRA ASU.  
#  Does info about PIRA ASU's belong here, in this lowercase-titled-article?  If not, should it be merged with the 'parent' PIRA article, as it once was back-in-the-day™?  
#  Do the sources refer to Active Service Units of the PIRA, or instead as active services units of the PIRA, or perhaps both?  
#  Additional question, if an PIRA ASU is uppercase, does that also mean it is a specific proper-noun instance of the generic lowercase?  
Historically, circa 1910-1930 roughly speaking, there was also use of the ASU by the  IV, which later became the  IRA, which later became the PIRA.  
#  Does info about IV ASU(s) belong here, in this lowercase-titled-article?  If not, does it belong in a new non-redirect article Active Service Unit?  
#  Do the sources refer to Active Service Unit(s) of the IV, or instead as active services unit(s) of the IV, or perhaps both?  
#  Additional question, if an IV ASU is uppercase, does that also mean it is a specific proper-noun instance of the generic lowercase?  
#  Bonus-round question, what was the troop-strength of the IV ASU(s)?  
#  Double-bonus-round question, there were also "Flying Columns" used by the IV, were these FC's a synonym for active service units, or maybe even for Active Service Units?  
Finally, are there any *other* military or paramilitary organizations, current or historical, which have used the phrase (or have been described in Reliable Sources with the phrase), active service unit, possibly capitalized?  If so, do those belong in this article, and if not, why not?  Hope this helps; thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:29, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If there are other groups/organsations that make use of the term Active Service Unit then this article as titled should deal with all of them not just the PIRA. This article however could be renamed "Active service unit (IRA)" for example to make it specific. It could also due to it's short length be merged with the PIRA article from whence it came back in 2007, yet if something is deemed worthy of an article of it's own then there is no problem with having an article for this topic, though I agree that it may be too ambiguously titled. Mabuska (talk) 12:00, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are other militaries that use 5-to-8-troop-strength unit-sizes, see Fireteam and Squad, but so far as I know only the IV circa WWI and the PIRA in the 1970s/1980s/1990s/2000s specifically used this term.  There are rumors that the use of lowercase was intended to distinguish between the two eras, but 71 is claiming that lowercasing is real-world-politically motivated... wikipedia should just describe what the sources say, methinks, which is my sentence above.  If the sources say that the 1919+ ASU'(s) are related to the 1969+ ASU's/asu's then this article should be about both groups, or if the article is generic, about both groups plus any *other* groups that may exist now (or may arise someday in the future).  On the other hand, if the WP:RS quotes indicate that the 1919 and 1969 phenomena are separate, then we can stick with existing article-separations, where Flying Columns covers the 1919-era phenomena, and this article covers the 1969-era phenomena, with see-also-links in both directions.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  where do we put various sorts of ASU-related content?  

message: The article had none, so I put one in, linking to Fireteam and Squad which are terms for similar-sized units structure, plus also to Flying Columns of the 1920s.  Let me know if this is Not Okay, please.  :-)    — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  added See Also section 

message: The current version of the article makes it sound like ASUs were invented in 1977 "in place of battalion structures" (second paragraph). But the photo at the bottom of the page mentions them being used 60 years earlier. There is no explanation in the article of the relationship (or lack of) between the plaque and the ASUs of the 1970s onwards. I would love to fix this myself of course, but I don't know anything about the subject. There is a lot of material posted on this talk page. Can any of it be added? AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 11:51, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  ASU pre-1970s