Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 49

message: An old discussion at this WikiProject has been linked at a centralised discussion on flag icons at the Manual of Style. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry? if you wish to comment in the current centralised discussion. Thanks. Carcharoth 14:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Centralised discussion at MoS on flag icons 

message: Folks, I created a new template which might be of use in other conflicts, in Africa and elsewhere:
Template:Infobox_Somali_faction
You can see examples of its use here:
* Islamic Courts Union
* Juba Valley Alliance
Purpose: To show a faction, especially a combatant or other territorial claimant as less than a "nation" but to distinguish its organization as more than just a "political party" (Template:Infobox_Political_party).
Different conflicts might need their own versions. Clan/tribe was definitely something used regarding indigenous ethnic conflict. Others might use "ethnicity" or "sect."
Please let me know what you think. --Petercorless 08:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not bad.  It may be worthwhile to develop it into some sort of generalized template for factions, though; I doubt that there would be any benefit to having a separate one for each war. Kirill Lokshin 04:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. If someone else is more of a wizard at template whacking than I am, feel free to snarf this. Just leave a link here as to where your more genericized work is located. --Petercorless 05:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, my first attempt at  is done.  At this point, it's mostly a reworking of  generalized to an arbitrary war (and using standard MILHIST infobox style); comments and suggestions would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Peter, Kirill, nice work. I can't be positive how or when I'll make use of this, but it's excellent for helping to describe non-state actors, and I'm surprised we never thought of it before. Might work well for samurai clans and such, though as families they're not quite the same as factions formed to fight a particular ideological/political/military conflict... might work, might not. But for the modern stuff, like the Somalia conflict, very useful I'm sure. LordAmeth 21:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Nice work Kirill Lokshin! To make it more generalized, it may need the following options for some long-term or large-scale conflicts: Wars/battles, Part of. As per the military unit boxes such as Combat Logistics Battalion 2. --Petercorless 21:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've added "partof" and "battles" parameters. Kirill Lokshin 01:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New "Faction" template

message: Good news everyone, we have 500 members. As was said in a discussion when the project got 400 members we should have a mini how do you describe it cyber party. Lets hope to continue the great work and continue to have new members join. Kyriakos 05:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 500 active members; if we include the inactive list, we've had 500 for quite some time.  (But I haven't gone through the lists for some time now, so the numbers are probably a bit off anyways. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 05:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many people sign up for WikiProjects and never work with them. I was like that when I first joined Wikipedia. Then I left a bunch of Wikiprojects and began focusing on two. --Ineffable3000 18:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 500

message: Just to keep everyone in the loop...
As there haven't really been any complaints with how the previous election (in August) took place, the current plan it to basically repeat the same process for this upcoming one:
* Two-week signup period (January 29 to February 11)
* Two-week voting period (February 12 to February 25)
* Simple approval voting
* Seven open positions (One Lead and six Assistant)
In light of some feedback during the last elections, we'll also have two minor improvements to the procedure:
* An explicit statement of which current coordinators are standing for re-election
* An explicit pointer to where general commentary can be placed
If anyone has any last-minute suggestions, please feel free to make them; otherwise, we'll presumably start the signup period as planned on the 29th. Kirill Lokshin 14:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For more information about coordinators, what they are and what they contribute to the project, visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators. Wandalstouring 19:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll run for the position so that I can help the project. --Ineffable3000 18:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Upcoming coordinator elections 

message: Please vote for Uruguayan Civil War on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Collaboration. I am not forcing you to vote so but I think it is a good idea because:
*It is an esoteric topic that needs more information and referencing.
*It is a notable war in South American history.
*South American conflicts are under-represented on Wikipedia.
Thanks guys. --Ineffable3000 19:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colloboration of the week 

message: http://library.thinkquest.org/04apr/00281/romans/rome11.jpg
shows a Roman soldier. The question is whether it is a member of the light infantry, called velites, or of the heavy infantry, that would be principes or hastati. I have a conflict with a member of this project who thinks it is a velites and keeps adding this information in the Roman-Spartan War. Naturally I can tell him what I want, he doesn't believe me, so we let more people add their opinions to solve it. A clear point to disambiguate both units would be whether or not he wears heavy chainmail (velites don't). Wandalstouring 19:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Classical warfare task force#Take a look and post your opinion. Kirill Lokshin 19:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Take a look and post your opinion 

message: There have recently been controversial edits to the article of Battle of Bornholm (1676). Can someone please take a look at it? I am concerned about the commander article changes. --Ineffable3000 21:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The most constructive course of action might be to ask the anonymous editor who made the edits for the source of their information. Carom 22:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not think his IP is static. --Ineffable3000 22:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That may be the case. You could, however, raise the question on the article talk page. It may not lead to a constructive conversation, but it would seem like a reasonable course of action to me. Carom 22:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Ineffable3000 22:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the problems with "drive-by" edits from anonyomous editors is that they don't often understand the Wikipedia culture way of doing things (discussion pages, talk pages, etc.).  If he/she doesn't respond to a request for discussion on the IP's talk page, revert away.  If he/she is serious about the edit, they'll investigate and learn the system. Cla68 08:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battle of Bornholm (1676) 

message: The above stuff about Antarctica and the Arctic got me thinking about the role of the military in the exploration of these, and other remote areas of the globe. From my knowledge of the history of exploration, and the Arctic in particular, there is a long history of military expeditions, or military personnel, engaging in exploration. Captain Cook's expeditions were undertaken as part of the British Navy's history of exploration. I can also recall several military expeditions to places like Mount Everest, and there was that military expedition that got lost in a deep valley in (I think) Borneo. Is there any chance of a Wikipedia article, or overview, of the role of the military in the history of exploration? And what would be a suitable name? Carcharoth 00:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops. Cook's expeditions were sponsored by the Royal Society. Though the British Admiralty also seems to have been involved. But sadly, there doesn't seem to be a full history of exploration article. Exploration is not good enough, and Age of Discovery is the closest thing to what I was looking for. What I really want though is a history of exploration in the four centuries after that period is said to have ended (early 17th century). Am I missing an article somewhere? Carcharoth 01:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Exploration might be the closest thing to an overview of exploration articles on Wikipedia. Some military history hooks in there, such as United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, and British Arctic Expedition. Carcharoth 01:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the most obvious military-related thing in there is :Category:Conquistadores; the early Spanish and Portuguese exploratory efforts tended to be much more warlike than the later British ones. Kirill Lokshin 01:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. Maybe a starting point would be to categorise some of those articles into military history categories? Conquistador, Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, List of conquistadors, and many of the most famous conquerors in :Category:Spanish explorers and conquistadores should be accessible from the military history categories, but don't appear to be at the moment. What would be a suitable military history category to put these sort of article in? Carcharoth 02:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The bulk of the Spanish conquistadors would fit quite neatly under :Category:Warfare of the Early Modern era.  (The Portuguese ones, having started earlier, have a slightly messier split.)  I'd be tempted to have some sort of :Category:European conquest of the Americas as a starting place for this set of topics. Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh, yes. That could include the colonisation of North America as well. What about European conquest of other places, such as Africa and the Indian subcontinent and the Malay Archipelago (the Dutch empire) and stuff like that. Is that well-covered? I guess a lot of that comes under :Category:Empires and :Category:Colonialism. Carcharoth 02:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We need to disambiguate here. Was it an expedition with military objectives or was it an expeditions where some chaps in uniforms were taking part(Gagarin, Armstrong). If we include the later into military history expeditions we can make a very short list of non-military expeditions until the 20th century. Furthermore every time a space shuttle or Soyuz spacecraft lifts there is likely to be someone with a military background on board.Wandalstouring 08:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right. Disambiguation between military objectives and military personnel taking part in non-military expeditions is needed. Robert Peary was a navy officer when he reached the North Pole, and was promoted to Rear Admiral following that achievement. I'd be interested to learn how much the military funded and supported his efforts. His team was taken to the Arctic on a US Navy ship. Several strands of exploration history can probably be discerned here - first you have adventurers exploring to find new lands, often to claim them or discover wealth, or simply to explore the unknown. Then there are organised military expeditions to survey new lands. Then, with the rise of science organisations like the Royal Society and the USGS, you have those organisations commissioning or organising expeditions. I would be very interested in picking out military and non-military contributions to all this, plus of course the more straightforward expeditions of conquest to far-flung lands. Carcharoth 12:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military exploration 

message: How do you cite JSTOR sources? --Ineffable3000 09:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a text on a website with a specific title. You give the best link to the website or the text and the title of the article + when you retrieved it. Just like pubmed, etc. Wandalstouring 09:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Best to cite them as though they were a printed journal article, and then add (accessed via JSTOR) or something similar at the end. They're not a website per se - citing the electronic source is conceptually a bit like citing a print article via the library I found it in... Shimgray | talk | 00:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  JSTOR 

message: The US Flag changes a lot but many US-related battle articles use the 2007 US flag. Should we fix it? --Ineffable3000 09:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Wandalstouring 09:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: No. It is not a big deal. Hossen27 12:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why flag icons are discouraged: the flags tend not to be the correct ones for the period in question.  (Which isn't that big of a deal with US flags, but tends to be rather more noticeable in cases where the flags have undergone total redesigns.) ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I like the flag icons - at least in the "Operators" section of aircraft articles - and I've had to be careful of that from time to time. I've 'borrowed' the code from Template:World War II quite a bit. - Aerobird Target locked - Fox One! 23:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See also Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry? for ongoing discussions on the subject. Wandalstouring 00:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Flag