Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 23

message: Apparently, as we discovered when trying to tag some of the relevant articles, the various military people categories are a complete mess, with inconsistent naming, structure, etc.  I'd like for us to come up with a better scheme for this particular categorization tree.  Hence, my initial idea:
At the top, we split :Category:Military people into two category trees: :Category:Military people by country and :Category:Military people by type.
:Category:Military people by country would be similar to all of our other "by country" categories, and contain things like :Category:Military people of France and :Category:Military people of the Holy Roman Empire.  I suspect we'll have to stick with "Something of Foo" rather than "Fooish something" for the naming here, for the same reason we did it for the battles: some of the historical states we need to work with don't have good adjective forms, and we'd like a consistent naming pattern.  
:Category:Military people by type would contain both ranks (e.g. :Category:Admirals) and other types (e.g. :Category:Military engineers or :Category:Military pilots).  Maybe there's a better name for this?
The bulk of the scheme would then consist of sub-categories formed by the intersection of one of the type categories with one of the country ones: :Category:Admirals of France, :Category:Military engineers of Spain, and so forth.  This should help keep each category to a manageable size.
Optionally, we may also want a third way of categorizing people: by conflict or period.  My suggestion here would be to avoid creating too many categories and just to create a handful for the biggest conflicts: :Category:Military people of World War II and :Category:Military people of the Crusades and so forth.  Individual articles could be included in both a country+type category and a conflict/period category, as needed.  (There might be an issue here in terms of wanting to create categories like "French admirals of World War II"; I can't think of any good way to name them without resorting to adjective forms, which would then be inconsistent with the rest of the scheme.  Anyone have any ideas?)
Any comments or suggestions would be extremely appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 17:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about
*Military people (I don't like "people" but can't think of a better word")
**Soldiers
***famous generals, admirals of France, Canadian Chiefs of Defence Staff etc. eg George Washington, Field Marshal Rommel, Alexander the Great, etc.
**Sailors
**Airmen
**Elite Forces Personnel
***Commandants of the US marines, Special Forces, Andy mcNab, Generals of the Waffen SS etc.
*Military Ranks and Appointments
**Actual articles on the offices held - Admiral (the rank), Chief of the Defence Staff (Canada), General of the Armies, etc.
*Conflict or period is an option but unnecessary in my opinion - General MacArthur commanded a division or better in three wars, and was instrumental in peacetime policy also.
Get rid of all the other categories, keep it simple.  General MacArthur goes under one cat only - Soldiers, a sub cat of Military People.  You can then put him in a period category - ie World War I, World War II, Korean War, etc.  Don't need a "Military people by time period" category really, do we?Michael Dorosh 17:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, if we don't break it down by country, those categories will be huge.  And I'm not sure how useful—or maintainable—a full set of rank categories would be, given the historical and international differences in ranks. Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just mean categorizing all the existent articles, like Gefreiter, Corporal, etc.
How about putting them into national categories, ie 
*German military
**German military people
**German military ranks
That might be a better way to go.  But is a Prussian a German? :) Then if you want to categorize by conflict, do it within the nationality 
*German military people
**German military people World War II
**German military people 20th Century
**German military people Wehrmacht era
or whatever.Michael Dorosh 18:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: The problem with the "Something of Foo" type name is that it's then inconsistent with related categories, e.g. :Category:French World War II people. I'd prefer to use "Fooish something" type names given the choice and accept that for some odd cases it will appear odd. Leithp 18:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough.  I'd just like to get a more logical structure in place; the exact naming is a minor issue. Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So, in a case like :Category:British Army generals, we would have a sub-category :Category:British World War II generals or :Category:British Army World War II generals? I'd prefer the latter, but I'm not fussed. Also, how do we get :Category:Royal Navy admirals into :Category:Admirals by country? Leithp 18:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I like the general logic.  Could you include a miscellaneous category for groups that don't fit within the basic structure, mercenaries and such? Durova 23:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably we would put something like that directly under "Military people" (similar to "Women in war").  Or were you thinking of something else entirely? Kirill Lokshin 01:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking of a kind of catchall for categories that don't fit the scheme.  As they collect and patterns emerge they might branch out into the main structure.  Maybe having them directly under "Military people" would work.  Durova 08:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I haven't categorized many people because of questions like this.  I think it only becomes an issue with a large and undifferentiated set of names.  I created :Category:Women in Medieval warfare because there were hundreds of unsorted articles in :Category:Women in war. Durova 13:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's the whole point of coming up with a consistent naming convention ;-)  My general belief is that category names should be predictable; in other words, if I want the category for French people who fought in World War II, I should be able to guess the correct category name just by plugging "French" and "World War II" into a known naming convention. Kirill Lokshin 16:42, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I think we should do away with "military leaders" altogether, certainly for the modern era. I initially thought it referred to military dictators, it's not a particularly great title for a category. Leithp 07:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be easy enough to eliminate it, since there's only a few "military leaders" categories and most of them are just collections of the corresponding "officers", "generals", "admirals", etc. categories for the country.  I don't think it'll produce any substantial problems with the resulting categorization, either. Kirill Lokshin 15:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military people categories 

message: For a first step, how about cleaning up the very top level of categorization?  We have:
* :Category:Military people by nation (with about half the sub-categories using "people" and the other half using "personnel")
* :Category:Military leaders by nationality
* :Category:Soldiers by nationality (of which many sub-categories use "soldiers" to mean "military people", apparently)
My suggestion, then:
# Standardize the names of the sub-categories of :Category:Military people by nation as "Fooish military people".  (Do we want to leave it at "...by nation" or move it to "...by country"?  Is there some distinction between the two I'm missing here?)
# Do the same thing for :Category:Military leaders by nationality.
# Rename or merge any non-soldier-specific sub-categories of :Category:Soldiers by nationality into the appropriate "Fooish military people" categories.  (Do we want to retain "soldiers" for all land forces, or just enlisted land forces, or something else?  Or abandon the term entirely?)
Comments on this would be much appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 04:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should do away with "military leaders" altogether, certainly for the modern era. I initially thought it referred to military dictators, it's not a particularly great title for a category. Leithp 07:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be easy enough to eliminate it, since there's only a few "military leaders" categories and most of them are just collections of the corresponding "officers", "generals", "admirals", etc. categories for the country.  I don't think it'll produce any substantial problems with the resulting categorization, either. Kirill Lokshin 15:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First step 

message: Please comment, and hope it was OK to use template on talk page. Joaquin Murietta 07:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, if a bit short (the Victorian regulations from the British army should beef this up a bit; I'll see if I can add some at some point).  But shouldn't the article be at mess night? Kirill Lokshin 12:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put a rediriect at "Mess night'. The US Navy, US Army and USAF call it a "Dining in" and the USMC and Coast Guard call it a  "mess night".  Will look up Victorian history.Thanks Joaquin Murietta 14:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough; I wasn't sure how common each term was.  If you can find a copy, Farwell's Mr. Kipling's Army discusses the Victorian mess in rather exhaustive detail. Kirill Lokshin 14:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: If it's primarily a British tradition and the US version is directly based on British military practice then it should probably be under the British name. I don't really know anything about the subject though. Leithp 14:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Dining in]] 

message: Has wikipedia standardized which of these two terms will be used consistently?  In the Commonwealth, Second World War in the preferred usage and is a standard convention among "serious" historians. How is it translated from other languages? I believe the Germans refer to it as "zweite Weltkrieg"? World War Two seems to be an American term but I wonder if they are not in the minority? Michael Dorosh 17:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I for one don't really know.  Though I will say that the literal translation from Spanish is "Second World War", though, being a Yank, I know it as "World War II" in English.Andrew 17:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I tend to call it the Second World War and pipe link to World War II in British articles, though I'm not consistent in this. Interestingly the article itself uses Commonwealth English in the text but has the preferred American title. I find it jars more with World War I though, which is a term you rarely hear or read from British sources. I always refer to that as the First World War. Leithp 17:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if it jives with more languages, perhaps it is something we might want to move to change consistently throughout Wikipedia? Not to denigrate the Americans, but the term "World War II" always seemed somehow less "serious". Not a huge deal, but may lessen confusion among the seriously slow-witted who don't know they are the same thing. Or more importantly, offer perhaps a tiny shred more of legitimacy to our work, if references are consistent across Wikipedia. On the other hand, it is not a POV issue the way "Second Manassas" vs "Second Bull Run" is. :) Michael Dorosh 18:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect that a global change wouldn't be worth the massive effort and confusion (the naming of that war is a giant can of worms waiting to be opened; e.g. Great Patriotic War).  Interestingly enough, "WWII" seems to be the more common abbreviation, even in places that otherwise use "Second World War" ;-) Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All around, "Second World War" does sound less amateurish to me. "World War II" tends to reek of American hip-talk, and I think one could make the case that it's less common in serious academic writing. But, like Kirill said, any attempt to change the naming would probably trigger a third World War, so the best solution may be to tolerate both. Albrecht 19:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer "Second World War", but tend to just go with whatever an article has already used if it has, so as not to break the flow. --Loopy e 19:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Point taken. Albrecht 03:38, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I also, personally, prefer WWII. If it is "Amaturish" then "Second World War" is cold, distant and frankly a bit stuffy. But it is useful for lessening the monotony of overusing WWII. Judicious authors, with a good "ear" for text and flow, will know when and where to use either or both.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 04:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WWII is an abbreviation for "World War 2" ("Second World War" doesn't lend itself to abbreviation so effectively we use the same). To be good English (strictly) the sentence should make sense when the abbreviation (WWII) is replaced with the spelt out phrase. However I am certain I can find sentences starting "During WWII..." GraemeLeggett 12:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In french its generaly refered as "Seconde Guerre mondiale"(Second World War) or rarely "Deuxième Grande Guerre"(wrough equivilant of World War Two, but its true translation would be Second Great War or Great War Two to be exact). I'm of mind to side with Second World War. The ending with "War" seems to be a stapple of the terminology (i.e. Second Punic War, Hundred Years War...) Yet, World War Two just rolls of the tongue....Dryzen 18:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: World War Two or Second World War

message: Somewhat of a trivial thing, but I'd appreciate any feedback on my new signature trick, shamelessly stolen from the similar Esperanza one (it's the silver h and the page it links to, if it's not obvious ;-).  Anyone have a better idea than silver for the color, incidentally?  Our normal lightsteelblue looks close enough to the regular link color to be useless here. Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, how about red. Crimson. Blood. War. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 01:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean like this? Kirill Lokshin 01:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A bit jarring sitting right next to Esperanza green, how about this: Kirill Lokshin :D -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 03:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh.  How about something darker, like this? Kirill Lokshin 03:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like pink better. :p -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 04:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Just kidding BTW, I think crimson or pure red work just fine. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 04:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Signature trick 

message: Thanks for the newsletter on my talk page.  This has gone a long way since the earliest days when I was involved in it.  The idea of a project newsletter is good too; that kind of service could reawaken old interests. :-) Eclecticology 00:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks