Talk:William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

message: According to the Oxford Companion of Military History (OUP, Oxford), 
# Slim won the Military Cross in Mesopotamia
# Slim became Allied Land Forces commander SE Asia after the fall of Rangoon, but before the end of the war.  (This is also what Slim says in Defeat into Victory)
:: What Slim doesn't mention, but the Oxford CoMH does, is that Leese, (his predecessor, posted in from the Med) whilst planning the re-taking of Malaya decided that Slim was not sufficiently of his way of thinking, and relieved him as commander of XIV Army. Slim then asked to be allowed to retire, and his subordinates made their feelings known; Alanbrooke relieved Leese instead, and gave his job to Slim.
:::INDEED, methinks this "episode" definately deserves mentioning in the article as a. it's an important event and b. defines Slim and his "worth" -- user:fdewaele, 16 November 2006, 22:33.
Whilst the Australians were doubtless right to warm to Slim as a decent bloke rather than a stuffed shirt, he had not "risen from the ranks" in the normal sense of the phrase.  He had been in the OTC at University, joined up on the outbreak of war and was commissioned within a month. 
(and surely Field Marshal is a rank/honour you never retire from ?)Rjccumbria 22:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What Rjcumbria said rings a bell - I think he is right - Field Marshals cannot retire. I think perhaps they stay on the active list although obviously they can leave a post (eg command of an army or a governor-generalship etc). I'm not sure where that comes from (or why) and it's not in the article on field marshals. Not really relevant, but interesting :) Wiki-Ed 12:51, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Hi - John W. Dower is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. I accept he may be wrong but you will need to produce a reliable source demonstrating that he is wrong. Otherwise it is just your opinion. Dormskirk (talk) 09:18, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

text: Hi - Unfortunately wikipedia cannot be used as a source. Dormskirk (talk) 22:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice job. I would question as well the part of the sentence where it says the Japanese officers were determined to have every man under their command die. I don't know whether or not it's citing from Dower there but either way it's nonsense. The actual Japanese view wasn't they wanted all their men to die it was that soldiers should fight to the death rather than be captured. As a side note the grammar/punctuation in the sentence needs fixing as well though probably it would make sense to revise the information first.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:86B:4A00:A4D5:23B5:DE79:2A8 (talk) 17:42, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc

message: Allegations of sexual abuse of children by Billy have been made at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. The reports of this appear notable and RS. 49.182.151.159 (talk) 02:06, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: This material is already included in the article. --regentspark (comment) 17:33, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sex absuse of children alleged at Royal Commission 

message: A number of editors have made wholesale reversions of pointed edits to the article on William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim. Some of the removed material was sourced but irrelevant to the subject. While worthy of inclusion elsewhere, the material was not relevant to Slim. On a difficult issue like unsubstantiated allegations against a long-dead person, statements should be tightly about the subject. As edited, the article still contains clear statements of the allegations. No detail, relevant to Slim, was removed. What was removed were statements on the issue by a politician and statements about another party (the Fairbridge Farm School), not Slim. One of those statements was a journalist's "estimate" about the Fairbridge Farm School, not Slim. The statement "According to one estimate by a former pupil and journalist, David Hill, some 60 percent of children who went to Fairbridge were abused" says nothing about Slim but its inclusion used association and juxtaposition to suggest a connection. What was represented as a "recount" by an accuser was more appropriately identified as a "claims" but the quote was retained in full as relevant. I hope my edits provided balance.115.42.1.55 (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: 2021

message: One user has recently de-capitalised all the ranks Slim held.  I always thought that as formal titles they should have been capitalised.  I've asked him directly, but thought I'd see if anyone else had any thoughts one way or the other...--hydeblake 08:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Where ranks aren't used as a title the Manual of Style says to use them in lower case i.e. Slim was promoted to field marshal and Field Marshal William Slim. Leithp 08:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slim / British Army ranking 

message: * Lundin, Walter B. (2002) Slim's Generalship in the 1944 India-Burma Campaign (Abstract) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Further reading

message: This article says he retired from the army in 1948 (and indeed there is a London Gazette entry saying just that). But he was on the Army Council in 1949 (promoted field marshal) and ended his time as CIGS in 1952. What's happening here? Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 16:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slim's retirement 

message: MOS:FLAGS explicitly states: "Avoid flag icons in infoboxes. Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a 'country', 'nationality' or equivalent field: they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many. Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text. Flag icons are visually distracting in infoboxes and lead to unnecessary disputes when over-used. Examples of acceptable exceptions would be military battle infoboxes templates and infoboxes that include international competitions, such as FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games. The guidelines for a number of common infoboxes (e.g. Template:Infobox company, Template:Infobox film, Template:Infobox person) explicitly prohibit the use of flag icons. The use of country-related flagicons and signal flags in infoboxes for ship articles and military conflicts is appropriate."
Additionally, this article is of a military person, not a military unit, but that is of no consequence. Where can and editor find info to support your claim (MOS:FLAGS is directed from WP:MOS)?
::You'll note that MOS:FLAG says generally—it's advice, not the eleventh commandment. The use of flags in infoboxes of British military officers (including at least two FAs) is almost uniform and has been for longer than I've been on Wikipedia. I think one of the examples they give is Paul McCartney—his notability has very little to do with his nationality and so whatever prominence a flag give the nationality would be inappropriate, but nationality (or rather allegiance) is much more relevant to a military officer. Monty, for example, was the head of the British Army and would not have been so if he was, say, a French citizen. That particular part of the MoS wasn't written with military biographies in mind and they are (rightly) generally excepted from it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts?   23:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Bullmoosebell. Thanks for your contribution. I don't think there is any need to look wider than MOS:FLAG and the exception contained therein. I believe it was written with military articles, including biographies, in mind. There are literally thousands of articles which follow this principle. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 18:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  No flags in infoboxes 

message: The National Library of New Zealand holds three more photos of Slim. They are out of copyright in NZ, but files from their website are notoriously difficult to extract. Contact me through my talk page if you want a hand with getting the photos across to Commons. Schwede66 21:01, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  More photos 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I propose that we get rid of the post-nominals in the first line of this article per MOS:POSTNOM, which states "When an individual holds a large number of post-nominal letters or seldom uses them (common among heads of state and members of royal families), they should only be described in the main body of the article and not in the lead." Векочел (talk) 21:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect that the guideline to which you refer was primarily intended to deal with heads of state and members of Royal families who receive such honours ex officio. Slim had to work for his honours, and I don't think his list is so long that we need to remove it. Dormskirk (talk) 22:48, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Dormskirk. There is no practical benefit to removing the post-nominals here and the usage is consistent with similar articles. Slim's post-nominals were also regularly used during his lifetime, meaning the second component of MOS:POSTNOM quoted above does not apply. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post-nominals