Talk:Ranks and insignia of NATO armies officers/Archive 1

message: In wake of concerns of User:Davenbelle of me "abusing templates " (although I was never informed of this), I present my cases on why I want a template. --Cool Cat My Talk 05:34, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Template or no template?

message: (this text merged from User talk:Xiong 15:27, 2005 May 7 (UTC))
You seem to be having a little trouble with this page. Templates may not be the best route by which to build a table. Some users may be irate. I don't have a strong opinion, but I have technical skills and I can preserve the content before the use of templates falls under attack. Would you like me to help? — Xiong熊talk* 01:32, 2005 May 5 (UTC)
:I considered Substing those. I am not sure how to deal with this many table items, its a large page, I really do not want to break it apart into more articles. Templaes are usefull to DUMP same information to other pages. like British Army. I also plan to use the templates on inter wiki projects in near future. I appriciate all the help but there is a reason for the template structure. Page is having issues with the number of table entries more than templates currently. I am interested in suggestions dont get me wrong. --Cool Cat My Talk 01:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: XX-Army-##.png where XX is the countries abriviation and ## is the rank level (1, 2, 3 , 4a, 4b, etc..)
*The reason I broke it into Army/Air Force/Navy is that to eliminate complexity.
*History of insignias may be interesting. Insignias should be on any "military" page like British Army. A military isnt much aside from the equipment and the people (who carry the ranks) so i think its important to provide 1/5th of a page worth of ranks.
Thanks. --Cool Cat My Talk 05:06, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Check article talk btw. --Cool Cat My Talk 05:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged Discussion 

message: *I started with NATO. I see NATO as a reputible and an important organisation. I intend to do 198 nations (all recognised by the UN), starting with nato gives me ideas on how to do it, such as general design. 
*It's very hard to manage a non template version I think. The most important thing in a rank sceme is of course how all the ranks look like, names of the ranks, nato clasifications (as necesary to compare and is the standard comparasion method), and if applicable abriviation. The template design alows me to create various lists, I could have a template made out of 198 tmplates to compare world ranks, or could compare asian ranks. If I screw up on something major atm I have to only wory about 26 entries. I have no intention on limiting this project to NATO. This is one of the largest wikiprojects as each rank is printed in the correct language it will be very easy to "translate" it to other wiki languages. However thats a long term project. Once we are done with All3+ branches of Nato we can start doing other nations. If we can get Devs to allow us to use templates interwiki, that would save us a lot of time.
*I have the images for most world nations, I do process these images so they are right size/quality/and named properly. I probably can aquire other images. 
* Of-10 rank of italy is like gold, If you can find it I'll be very happy. This one of the few ranks I couldnt find, I dont know italian so that doesnt help :)
*Most officer ranks are in En. only, I wish to move them to commons. If you can help me with that Ill be very happy. Some images may need to be renamed to meet the nameing sceeme I came up with. 
:XX-Army-##.png where XX is the countries abriviation and ## is the rank level (1, 2, 3 , 4a, 4b, etc..)
*The reason I broke it into Army/Air Force/Navy is that to eliminate complexity.
*History of insignias may be interesting. Insignias should be on any "military" page like British Army. A military isnt much aside from the equipment and the people (who carry the ranks) so i think its important to provide 1/5th of a page worth of ranks.
Thanks. --Cool Cat My Talk 05:06, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Check article talk btw. --Cool Cat My Talk 05:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Input

message: While I am not trying to destroy your thinking process, I beleieve you dont mind any input :)
*A though is suff such as, ranks and insignia fo the world A-C etc...
*Images are scaled down. We can scale more but would not make tables any smaller. Bear in mind that countries like germany needs relatively large images. The colors around ranks are not random ;)
*Insignia is more about the image than text. Text is whats its called (rank) while insignia is the image.
*You are right relevant info only, insignias history is seperate articles if at all. I know only US and UK has insignia histories. Norway also has an insignia page.
--Cool Cat My Talk 16:17, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Input

message: This problem breaks down into two distinct parts. The first is to determine goals. Only when this is done can the technical issues be addressed. Obviously there are many techniques for handling content, but until goals are clearly defined, there is no point in applying any of them. 
:I do not immediately see that any goal of mine or of this Project is addressed by this page or by the templates which compose it. That is not to say that it does not -- merely that I do not yet see it. 
:Possible goals: 
:(1) Create a complete collection of every possible military rank insignia. 
:(2) Offer to the reader an image of any insignia he is able to name. 
:(3) Offer to the reader an identification of any insignia he may posess or see elsewhere. 
:(4) Illustrate individual articles on military units ("color"). 
:Goal (1) is unencyclopedic -- that is, such a collection is not within the bounds of a general reference work. I tried in the discussion above to indicate this. Collectors -- such as you and I -- tend to overestimate the level of general interest in our collections. It is of particular interest to collectors to form complete sets. This is of almost no interest whatsoever to the non-collector. Such collections tend to be very large and burdensome. Dedicated collectors construct additions to their homes for the sole purpose of housing their collections. We do not find this exceptional. Others find it incomprehensible. 
:To the collector, collecting is an end in itself. Acquiring new items, organizing subsets, viewing the collection entire, and documenting each piece are all valuable activities. If a piece belongs to a set, it becomes valuable for that reason, even if -- were it to exist alone -- it would have no value at all. None of these motives are shared by non-collectors, and this Project cannot serve this goal. 
:There is a small encyclopedic value in being able to (2) present the reader with an image on demand of a given named insignia. The appropriate format for this is a page containing properly-organized hierarchial index text, with links to individual images. For this purpose, there is no value in presenting multiple images at one time. 
:I believe only other collectors are likely to desire (3) to determine what they have by examination of a series of images. In any case, this job is formidable. Even if it were technically feasible to present every rank from every branch of service from every nation, for every period of time, all on one page, we could not expect even the avid collector to scan it to find a match. The only way to serve this goal would be to categorize insignia not by nation, branch, or era; but by color and form. The querent would have to be able to understand the categorization system and answer numerous questions in order to arrive at a subcollection of similar insignia small enough to scan by eye. Our technique does not permit us, say, to accept a scan from a user and internally match it to an image database. Perhaps in 20 years. 
:The remaining goal (4) is easily achievable, and with the same tool as (2) -- a hierarchial index of insignia names. For convenience, each entry should be presented both as a working link to the image itself and as markup that may be copied into article pages. Please note that, for reasons of balance, I suggest no more than 1 or 2 representative or unusual insignia be presented on any given article page. 
I shall build a template or two to permit the rapid construction of a hierarchial index page. Existing templates serve no encyclopedic goal and should be orphaned -- removed from use -- then deleted. I am willing to provide you with a start toward building the index page, but from then on, you are on your own. — Xiong熊talk* 16:10, 2005 May 7 (UTC)
::I really have no idea what you are trying to do, an example may help. --Cool Cat My Talk 17:37, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goals?