Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 67

message: So, given the lack of objections from the project and the RFC lists, I suppose the next step would be dropping a link to this discussion at the Village Pump?  Does anyone have further comments before we do so? Kirill 11:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting—I found out about this from the newsletter this morning.  I just announced that the first draft of the WikiProject Scouting style guide is available for review.  I wonder how many other projects are working this?  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to proceed? 

message: After seeing Kirill's note on the village pump inviting comments I read through Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide. It looks good. I have no improvement suggestions but I thought I'd start the discussion. Does anyone else like it?--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 14:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be better to un-redirect the style guide talk page so that discussions are focused instead of getting spread across this page.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would actually cause discussions to be split rather than focused, since we'd now have two pages (this one and the style guide one) where things would be discussed.  (It wouldn't help things that this page is by far the higher-traffic one, either.) Kirill 21:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with Kirill  here, the council discussion is something that may bear fruit, but it is still a long way off.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide 

message: Are there any substantive concerns remaining with the proposed material here?  (I don't think there are, as best as I can tell; but perhaps I've missed something.)  If there aren't, I think we can proceed; the matter has certainly been advertised as widely as it could be. Kirill 23:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as there haven't been any objections, I've gone ahead and marked the style guide as a component of the Manual of Style.  Any further comments are, of course, entirely welcome. Kirill 23:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any remaining concerns? 

message: The peer review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 17:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Pre-dreadnought]] now open 

message: The A-Class review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 18:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Pre-dreadnought]] now open 

message: This is a great subject for a new article but it's in pretty bad grammatical shape etc right now. Appreciate anybody who's willing to help clean it up, and African interested people who can help expand it. Cheers Buckshot06 19:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Military history of Uganda]] 

message: Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).
*List of basic military science and technology topics
This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notice of List articles 

message: The peer review for Military Revolution is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 17:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Military Revolution]] now open 

message: The A-Class review for Soviet occupation of Romania is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 22:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Soviet occupation of Romania]] now open 

message: I'm still tuning, but is it now out of stub class? Also look at counterintelligence in parallel Howard C. Berkowitz 22:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: HUMINT

message: I've been working on a mostly top-down approach to intelligence, starting with intelligence cycle management. Now that I have a reasonable pass at the technical disciplines, although IMINT could use more work, as well as the general processes of collection guidance, analysis management, dissemination, counterintelligence, I've been working on HUMINT. The HUMINT article has largely dealt with the non-espionage aspects, such as interviewing and reporting. Counterintelligence is both a subset of intelligence cycle security, and also couples closely, especially in the areas of offensive counterintelligence/counterespionage, to espionage.
There's a certain scatteredness going on, which I think can be turned around. The counterintelligence article now deal with most of the cases of mole, defector in place, double, and triple that are mentioned here in espionage, as well as some other variants such as false flag recruitments and provocations. In counterintelligence, I have discussed some of the psychological characteristics of doubles and variants, but not, for example, dealt with the motivational things such as covered by MICE.
It would be my suggestion that "espionage" focus on how someone is recruited at least to the mole and defector in place roles, with perhaps some espionage tradecraft, especially communications. The idea would be that espionage and counterintelligence become mirrors, with espionage dealing with recruitment and counterintelligence with defense, but doubling and such becomes offensive counterespionage.
Individual articles such as moles, doubles, etc., may not have enough meat to be more than stub articles, unless they are places for historical and even fictional references. Otherwise, I'd suggest folding them into espionage and counterintelligence, with appropriate linkages from HUMINT. 
The counterterror theme is all mixed in with some of these topics, but also has some Rambo-ish qualities. I've built out a somewhat skeletal structure of counterintelligence and counterterror organizations, which consciously do not include tactical antiterror. I should flag that some antiterror also gets into special ops, and there to special reconnaissance, a HUMINT mission.
Anyway, I'm not necessarily trying to create a project, but I'd certainly like to see a way things can get more focused with less duplication, as well as the occasional drive-by sentence "a spy is this". 
Thoughts? Howard C. Berkowitz 02:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General intelligence article overhaul (cloned from espionage)

message: Is the series of intelligence articles within the scope of this Project, for review, rating, etc.? I have posted to what seem to be other relevant projects and gotten no response.
I mention this, as I now several tasks. One is continuing refine existing articles that have gone through major rewrite. A second is to edit some articles (e.g., espionage) that are logical subsets, but also lack some consistency with taxonomies developed in the more extensive articles. I note that some articles, such as espionage and counterterrorism, often are lists of historic and fictional examples.
Where I can use them to illustrate a particular point, I include historical examples, but I haven't, as a routine matter, tried to compile lists. Third, there are a number of things, often example of intelligence tradecraft, that are mostly stubs as now, and do fit into the taxonomy, as in "how to create a spy" and "how to catch a spy" in counterintelligece.
Again, any guidance?  Should articles be rated, or are they still too much in development? Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say that they're probably in scope insofar as they touch on military matters.  We don't, unfortunately, have any particularly sophisticated setup for dealing with them at the moment; if we had enough interest, a "military intelligence task force" would be perfect for this sort of thing, but I'm not sure that there are enough editors working in the area to make it viable.  You might have better knowledge of that than I do, though. Kirill 15:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't there an espionage Wikiproject? I would've thought they'd be all over this. JKBrooks85 21:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No Espionage that I can find. There was on Intelligence Agencies, which I joined, but have heard nothing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz (talk • contribs) 21:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Procedural Question

message: I've added a few additional articles, some of which have a clearer military focus. The most recent is "special reconnaissance", subordinate to "HUMINT".  While I haven't brave enough to take on a rewrite of the "espionage" article, I have created "clandestine HUMINT sources", which rather neatly picks up some tradecraft and counter-tradecraft from both "espionage" and "counterintelligence".  
Another editor is making major changes to "intelligence analysis" -- some make sense but I question others. 
Again not having found an ideal active project, but that I do have a design of a hierarchy and flow of articles, is that worth preserving in an "official" place other than my userpage (which I'm now going to update)? Howard C. Berkowitz 19:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A few updates

message: Does anyone know what the acronym "BP" stands for when used on maps or battle planning? For example, at this link it states that "Regt ordered to move 2 Kms North and from there to BP 42, C Sqn to rejoin bringing JAXO (Mobile column).". I also have it shown on maps as what looks like a point-of-interest. Oberiko 15:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't find the acronym after a quick search in that long page - what's the date? However I have a sneaking feeling that it may be 'Battle Position' - a pre-designated or ad hoc notation for a defensive position, probably as part of a mobile defence rather than a static defence. British/Commonwealth terminology rather than US. Buckshot06 15:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The date on the page is "15/6/41".  I think you're right though, that gives quite a few results in Google Books (including the book "Department of Defense dictionary of military and associated terms") and the phrase pops up in the book that I'm working from.  Thanks! Oberiko 16:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

text: It means 'Battle Position' as per Buckshot. Refer to this. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up®  16:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Acronym question (BP)

message: I grew up in, went to school, lived, worked and taught in different countries. I did well as a consultant, able to cherry-pick, as we all know the term now, debatable material including historical, as work. But almost always, we anglo-americans could argue the morale high ground or pull the foreign propaganda card.
The main reason I left consulting to return to my teaching career was obviously not the money;), in fact, I got a better offer from the Chinese even. But that was part of the problem right there. As much as I had tweaked information, we could always point out we were more trustworthy, believable, but in recent years no. When I could no longer prove our history was any less propaganda than theirs, I didn't even want to work for them instead. Just return to teaching.
I remember the humiliation of having to stand up and explain myself and my country on the gym stage while an exchange student in a country run by a regime we put in place who had us read out in English too, the differences in our historical record and accounts and theirs.
When teaching in other countries, I noticed everyone had their 'propaganda', but it took decades for me to realize and accept that our history books to this day continue to promote our own self-serving propaganda as well. Oh, I wasn't naive about that, so much as I at least always believed we were still more truthful to at least ourselves than anyone else on the planet.
It's like we've given up on even pretending that we care if we are telling the truth in our history classes or news or not. Who was it on Larry King who said the reason when asked today who was responsible for 9/11 70% of Americans will say 'Saddam Hussein and Iraq' instead of 'Bin Ladin'?
There was always the hope that in the same way we eventually, however quietly, admitted that the Spanish didn't actually start the Spanish-American war by torpedoing the Maine, that we'd come clean on other things eventually too. Like Japan never considered herself part of any Axis military alliance with the Nazis. Nor that ww2 was a unified war for that matter. Nor do many nations in fact, you'd be surprised.
Now back in teaching, I'm encouraging our international student exchange programs and I notice that while many othre nations are re-writing/correcting their histories to be more accurate, however it may make our part look less heroic, ie) no longer refering to Japan as part of the 'Axis', or even Bulgaria for that matter. But pointing out our hypocrisies as well.
We're turning into the propaganda-susceptible cultures we always warned against ourselves.
I had hoped wikipedia would, how did one of my genius girl students put it?
oh right,
if wikipedia could lead the world historians in introducing corrections to our propaganda, however embarassing, it would be like slowly raising the curtain so that our own historians could brave the onslaught of rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at them by a society slowly exposed to the truth rather than blissfully standing on a fake foundation of historical righteousness the world is calling us on now.
You know she'll never be President, but she's right.
But I am shocked. I told my students that instead of just complaining about it, that they actually join wikipedia and especially if they can use our own best historical sources ie)
The Oxford Companion to WWII
Liddel Hart's History of the Second World War
Wint's 'Total War' and so on
even without using foreign historians, but use our own to prove the propaganda's we've conveniently chosen not to notice, that wikipedia would support the edits.
But they haven't.
This is the first year I've actually seen schoolboards, not just individual schools or staffs or faculties, put Wikipedia on the computer room and class research ban list.
Even my own students I kept going on it this year just complain it will be nothing more than our own propaganda and their proven edits don't hold.
So, on my sick day here, I write this little whine.
Maybe we just aren't up to the task of admitting our own propaganda and choosing to admit even embarassing truths, even with proof.
You know even when it comes to political or economic matters and our best consultants now work for 'them' instead, and we can't even win the arguement that at least our propaganda is less than theirs', that we're in a bad place internationally. 
But now even my best kids say Mr Jones, give it up, like you adults and your 'do as we say, not as we do', Wikipedia and our history don't have that integrity.
Call it guilt, call it faith or confidence, I and a couple left are still here trying for a little while longer.
And no, I'm no self-hating, unpatriotic, turncoat. I live in my home country again eventhough I would've been paid alot more to work for someone else. I no longer get paid for the lies I can convince but supposedly the impirical objective educational truths instead. And I'm trying to get all my kids to visit the veterans here at the Legion Hall more often and not only on Veterans'/Remembrance Day.
But if we want to earn the trust and respect of our own observant youth let alone the rest of the world who haven't already settled on us being no less propagandic and untrustworthy, then we should start correcting our history accounts even if unpopular at home.
I'm disappointed even my English-sourced corrections were all edited out with the discussions justified as, hey, if what we said is what we wanted to hear, then leave it alone. I'm tired. It was worth the shot I hope to have at least tried.
Befuddler 00:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate to pester you on a sick day becuase I know from experience that staring at a moniter doesn;t help headaches or eyestrain, but could you provide some examples of your englished source corrections being removed; if they were edittied out on the basis of 'thats not what we want to here' then that qualifies as pov pushing and by extension vandalism. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, yes, this matter.  Befuddler is of the view that Japan was not part of the Axis powers during World War II—a view which doesn't enjoy much support among our editors on the topic, for fairly obvious reasons.  I doubt we'll be able to help here. Kirill 01:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time to clean some Propaganda? 

message: Any thoughts about renaming or expanding the scope of the South American task force? Something like "Latin-American task force" would include countries of Central America which have no task force. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up®  10:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If I recall correctly, that was proposed when the task force was first created, and rejected because "Latin America" omits a number of countries (that were, e.g. British or Dutch colonies).  As a practical matter, I suspect that we could simply create a separate Central American task force should we desire. Kirill 12:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it really needed outside of the existing African task force? Oberiko 18:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, incredibly dumb post on my account.  For some reason I was reading that as South Africa. Oberiko 22:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

text: If all else fails, we could call it the "Not-North-America" taskforce. ;) --Mukk 18:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I believe the term Meso-America covers everything south of the US border with Mexico, doesn't it?Cromdog 20:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but Mesoamerica is still restrictive. I think it is better to just take 'Central America' which can include Mesoamerica. We can even have Mexico included eventhough it is not really part of Central America. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up®  17:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Task force scope/renaming

message: * All comments appreciated. --Ling.Nut 12:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Battle of Red Cliffs]] at [[WP:FAC]] 

message: The A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! --Eurocopter tigre 12:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Gheorghe Tătărescu]] now open 

message: The peer review for Battle of Changban is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Woodym555 18:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Battle of Changban]] now open 

message: A request has been made to rename article "Battle_of_Hulluch" to "Gas attack at Hulluch". (Discuss) — RJH (talk) 14:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Battle_of_Hulluch]] move requested 

message: A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu; please stop by and help review the article!  Thanks! Kirill 07:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Gheorghe Tătărescu]] needs attention 

message: Shouldn't there be a task force for the American Revolutionary War?  I wouldn't mind starting one if need be.--Bedford 06:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This has come up before, but we never seem to come up with more than two interested people at a time. If there's interest out there, let's hear it! —Kevin Myers 10:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: TO ARMS! TO ARMS! :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 18:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Not sure how much I could contribute, but I would sure like to see 'stuff' about the 2nd Virginia Militia. I had a couple relatives serve in that unit, but I haven't found anything yet on whether they actually fought or not. wbfergus  Talk 19:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like 3 so far, so progress has been made. ;-) --Bedford 19:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here you go: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/American Revolutionary War task force. Kirill 02:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He shoots, we score. (Gawd I love this project soooo much... :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 07:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Revolution Task Force