Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 70

message: Can somebody take a quick look at the Korean War article and see why the semi-protection isn't working? About two or three weeks ago the semi-protection template was removed, and ever since it seems like an endless cycle of vandalism by IP addresses folowed by a revert by an established user. I re-added the semi-protection template, the DumBot removed it, so I re-added again with the nowiki markup per the instructions, but it doesn't seem to be working. IP addresses are still vandalizing the page. Thanks. wbfergus  Talk 22:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding the template does not protect the page. Only admins can protect an article. You can ask for protection at WP:RFPP. As it is, i looked at the history and it was quite full of vandalism so I have protected it for 3 months. Woodym555 23:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. That's what I was thinking, but wasn't quite sure from the instructions on the Dumbot page, which said anybody could re-add the semi-protect template. It seemed like another step would have still needed to be done, like an entry on a master list or something. Thanks for your help. wbfergus  Talk 23:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I semi-protect the [[Korean War]] article? 

message: The A-Class review for Battle of Baia is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Eurocopter tigre 17:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Battle of Baia]] now open 

message: This article is tortuously bad and a complete mess, anyone with some knowledge of the incident feel like helping edit it? Or barring that can some show me how to tag it with NPOV as I can't seem to get it rightRastov 22:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving [[US raid on Iranian Consulate General in Arbil]] 

message: I have question about style in citing distances or other measurements (such as tons, kilograms or miles per hour) in article for military history. Some editors seem to insist on inserting certain code that creates space. But military history books I read are fairly consistent in listing measurements in following style:
155mm ... 12ft 8in ... 100m ... 70mi
Which way is correct? Where do we have standard Wikipedia style rule? I believe we should have consistent style in describing measurements that is consistent with professional use. May we discuss this please? Shibumi2 00:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia does have a house style, at least for uses in article text; from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit symbols and abbreviations:Values and unit symbols are spaced (25 kg, not 25kg). The exceptions are degrees, minutes and seconds for angles and coordinates (the coordinate is 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, the pathways are at a 180° angle, but the average temperature is 18 °C).Kirill 00:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question about style 

message: Do we have a graph that shows war deaths?  I've seen one before, and it increases up to ww2, then decreases.  There's a couple of pages that could use the graph, and I'm wondering if we already have one, or if someone could make one. - Peregrine Fisher 04:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  War deaths graph 

message: There's an editor called User talk:Trip Johnson. He's making uncited amendments to the casualty figures for various battles. He's editing articles about two minutes apart so I doubt that his changes are authentic. I haven't quite decided that he's a vandal yet, but could people keep an eye on him? Nunquam Dormio 18:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trip Johnson 

message: There is a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Hyphens between number and unit in military and naval articles about, well you guessed it, hyphens in military articles. Woodym555 19:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant discussion on MOS 

message: There certainly will be different names for similar functions, but what, I suspect, is especially important to recognize early (not necessarily solve) are different cognitive and management approaches. I broke cognitive traps out into a sub-article of intelligence analysis, but I would be fascinated to know if these turn out to be US-centric or not. 
I'd note that the cognitive trap work probably preceded a lot of knowledge management technologies. Do various countries organize information in a like manner?  Certainly, there has to be agreement, within NATO, on things like geographic coordinates and message priorities, or there is no interoperability. 
What may or may not be still-relevant questions get into the use of information. Recognizing I'm going to use examples that aren't particularly intelligence related, I remembered a discussion between Patton and Montgomery, where Patton treated an order as only giving discretion about the means of execution, while Montgomery regarded an order, to a senior officer, as a basis for discussion. In a different area, I first saw the "O Group" as a UK custom, but the term seems to be propagating. Does it have the same connotation to all countries?  If, then, there is a framework for propagating the commander's intent and getting staff/subordinate input, is intelligence used in a like manner? I'd guess that the greatest differences among countries would be in the more interpretive parts, not collection or even basic analysis. In the dissemination article, I make some distinctions between estimates, and a broader concept that I think can encompass both US "net assessment" and Soviet (and presumably Russian) "correlation of forces", the latter term being more evocative for me. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Apropos national approaches

message: A few more editors are needed to complete the FAC for USS Illinois (BB-65); all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 07:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAC for [[USS Illinois (BB-65)]] needs attention 

message: As of 0830 (GMT), 5 December 2007:
# Bedford –  6,340
# TomStar81 –  4,250
# FayssalF –  3,500
# Cromdog –  2,200
# Roger Davies –  2,030
# BrokenSphere –  2000
# Maralia –  2,000
# Parsival74 –  2,000
# Jacksinterweb –  1,510
# JKBrooks85 –  1,250
# MBK004 –  1,115 
# Sniperz11 –  1100
# Kateshortforbob –  1000
# Raoulduke47 – 1000
# Welsh –  850
# Woodym555 –  800
# Colputt –  760
# Avocado –  750
# Eurocopter tigre –  750
# Blnguyen –  580
So far, 78 editors have assessed nearly 45,000 articles. Please help too. --ROGER DAVIES talk 08:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have trouble imagining how people can cover thousands. I am fairly active and I am just approaching 200... that said, bulk of my time does not go into this project, so this probably explains it. The more kudos for the people who do the bulk of assessment - as always, 10% of people do 90% of the work :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  13:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:MHA07|''Tag & Assess 2007'']] - Top twenty  

message: Chinese swords has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese swords 132.205.99.122 (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese swords 

message: Could some of the template/layout experts take a look at our deletions review page? The current arrangement means that a box appears to hide the shortcut that allows you to edit, at least when viewed from my computer. If the page could be rearranged so that it's easy to click on one link and contribute, that'd be really good. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletions page

message: I have nominated this article as a copyvio, with disagreement from the page's original creator, user:SuperTank17. However the WP:Copyvio page has a massive backlog. Would WP:MILHIST members who are also administrators please take a look at this issue and speed up a decision either way? Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[T-55AGM]]

message: The peer review for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 18:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment]] now open 

message: Just to let everyone know, the coordinators have just awarded the first set of Content Review Medals (seen at right) to some of the more prominent participants in the military history review process:
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Congratulations to the recipients!  We would also like to encourage everyone to take a more active part in the various reviews, as they're one of the most important ways in which we can help with article improvement. Kirill 16:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content review awards 

message: The peer review for Le Paradis massacre is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 21:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Le Paradis massacre]] now open 

message: The Top Twenty at dawn (GMT) Sunday, 9 December is as follows:
# Bedford – 6,400
# TomStar81 – 4,250
# FayssalF – 3,500
# Cromdog – 2,200
# Roger Davies – 2,030
# BrokenSphere – 2,000
# Maralia – 2,000
# Parsival74 – 2,000
# Jacksinterweb – 1,750
# JKBrooks85 – 1,250
# Kateshortforbob – 1,250
# MBK004 – 1,161
# Sniperz11 – 1,100
# Welsh – 1,000
# Avocado – 860
# Woodym555 – 800
# Colputt – 760
# Eurocopter tigre – 750
# Cricketgirl – 700
# Blnguyen – 650
In total, 79 participating editors have assessed just over 46,000 articles. Thanks for all the effort so far and please keep up the good work. --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tag & Assess 2007 

message: The peer review for CVA-01 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 12:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[CVA-01]] now open 

message: The A-Class review for 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 12:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing]] now open 

message: We've had real problems with several single purpose accounts adding hundreds of these links in spite of requests to stop. I started a discussion at:
*Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Virtualology and Stanley L. Klos -- boon to our historical articles or just a bain of spam?
then left messages on various Wikipedia noticeboards inviting others to join the discussion. I just learned I should have left a note here, so here it is. The domains include not just famousamericans.net but also at least 270 other domains. famousamericans.net has been blacklisted but there is concern that this was done prematurely and that some of the links were removed with too little thought. Other commenters have been opined that these sites and the Appleton's Cyclopedia on which they are based are unreliable and full of errors.
In any event, if you have a point of view, you are invited to bring your guns and other MilHist paraphernalia and join the discussion there.
I'm sorry to overlook this WikiProject in my earlier notifications; pleas don't shoot! --A. B. (talk)  23:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  famousamericans.net and related links 

message: The A-Class review for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 02:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This was withdrawn. <DREAMAFTER> <TALK> 03:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-Class review for [[Heuschrecke 10]] now open 

message: The peer review for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 21:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Heuschrecke 10]] now open 

message: Can we please have some more eyes on this page? We have an exercises section, somewhat sourced, attempting to compare various fighter combat exercises as part of the article. I've reverted people deleting the section a couple of times, but there may be reasons to delete it after all. Would people with more knowledge than me about these matters please kindly take a look, and we can come to some greater consensus than there is at the moment... Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 09:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Fourth generation jet fighter]]

message: The peer review for Sissi (Finnish guerrilla) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 04:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Sissi (Finnish guerrilla)]] now open 

message: I just rewrote USS Illinois (BB-65) to improve her shot at passing FAC, but I need new eyes to correct the sp&g errors and ensure that I didn;t leave anything out. Thanks in advance. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On that note, there are actually a couple of FACs at WP:MHR#FAC that could use some additional input, if anyone has a bit of free time. Kirill 17:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Help

message: The peer review for Swarming (military) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 17:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Swarming (military)]] now open 

message: With nearly 55,000 articles tagged and assessed, the current Top Twenty is:
# Bedford – 6,580
# Parsival74 – 5,000
# TomStar81 – 4,250
# FayssalF – 3,500
# Kateshortforbob – 2250
# Cromdog – 2,200
# Roger Davies – 2,030
# BrokenSphere – 2000
# Jacksinterweb – 2,000
# Maralia – 2,000
# MBK004 – 1,281
# JKBrooks85 – 1,250
# Sniperz11 – 1100
# Raoulduke47 – 1000
# Welsh – 1000
# Blnguyen – 880
# Avocado – 860
# Woodym555 – 800
# Colputt – 760
# Burzmali – 750
The drive has two weeks left to run so there's plenty of time to earn some lovely barnstars. See Tag & Assess Drive sign up for details! Happy tagging and happy holidays! --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:MHA07|Tag & Assess 2007]] Top Twenty  

message: I'm wondering if it would be helpful to add some material to the style guide regarding permanent-stub articles and the preferable approach to dealing with them.  I think that we may be able to minimize the potential impact of deletion nominations if we have a coherent guideline advocating merging snippets of information on the more minor people/events/etc.—about whom there is insufficient information available to sustain full articles—into overview articles/lists (e.g. Battles of the Crusades, Military leaders of World War I, etc.) rather than simply deleting them.
Is this worthwhile (or even sensible?), or am I overthinking things? Kirill 15:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points Kirill. Following your logic, do you (or anyone else) think about using "permanent stub" as a 'concept' instead of just a 'procedure'? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up®  16:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not quite sure what you mean; is there a practical difference that would result from making that distinction, or is it just a terminological matter? Kirill 03:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's a permanent stub? Isn't the general idea to expand all articles to contain as much relevant information as possible? JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Brooks im gona guess that a permenent stub is an article that doesnt have enough infomation to make it past stub size. BonesBrigade 04:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty much.  Examples can be found everywhere, but the typical ones would be obscure ancient and medieval topics; there are many battles for which all we know is the year and the kings fighting, for example. Having an article that's almost certainly not going to grow beyond "According to the Chronicle of N, the Battle of X was fought in 903 by Y and Z" isn't really the optimal approach, I think. Kirill 04:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging permanent stubs 

message: A discussion  regarding Japanese swords is taking place at JA:WP, regarding the validity of some articles/article entries. Any input would be welcome. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese swords discussion at JA:WP 

message: The peer review for Anglo-Japanese Alliance is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!  Thanks! Kirill 21:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for [[Anglo-Japanese Alliance]] now open 

message: In my assessment efforts, I have noticed a number of articles (specifically those on WWII/Cold War US Bombardment Groups) which feature numbers such as 382d and 333d instead of 382nd and 333rd. Is this standard in modern unit designations, or is it a mistake? LordAmeth (talk) 13:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a usage common in US military documents, if I recall correctly. Kirill 14:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem with it, I think, is that it /looks/ like a mistake to the untrained eye and that the articles are often inconsistant and use both. I acctually fiddled with one a while back as half were 33rd and the other were 33d. Narson (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unit numbering 

message: Folks, looking for a bit of advice here.  Having worked on several Battle of... articles in the past few months, I'm about to start on my first Siege of... article, and it strikes me that  may not be entirely appropriate for a siege.  Is there an alternative infobox more suitable for a siege article, or can someone point me at a decent quality (GA/A/FA) siege article so I can check out parameter usage and stuff?  
Thanks in advance. Carre (talk) 17:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only siege articles at the A/FA level that I could find are Defense of Sihang Warehouse and Siege of Malakand (although a few other battles may be borderline, or include siege components), both of which use the infobox.  Personally, I'm not sure what the problem with using the infobox for a siege would be, and most developed siege articles I've seen use it with no issues; is there some particular problem with it that you see? Kirill 18:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for those links Kirill;  the infobox doesn't look too bad for those ones.  The main things I was concerned about were the numbers:  Strength isn't so bad, as I take it the number should be the highest during the period of the siege (although the fact I have to assume that isn't ideal);  Casualties is the main problem though.  For a protracted siege (over months or years), Peninsular War historians (the articles I'm playing with) don't give definitive numbers list of casualties, not even Oman.  Any sally or sortie gets its own casualty figure, and notable injuries or deaths are recorded, but not a lot more.  I guess I should just leave the casualties out of the infobox, and follow the historians lead. Carre (talk) 18:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, ok.  This isn't really an issue limited to sieges, I think, since there are many pitched battles for which we don't have casualty figures as well.  Leaving out the casualty figures entirely is one option.  Another option would be to give any known numbers as a lower bound; if, for example, one assault is known to have caused 5,000 casualties, but no numbers are available for the entirety of the siege, one can give "5,000+" as the overall number (see, for example, the infobox and footnote #2 here). Kirill 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox query 

message: Could we have some eyes on Johnson Beharry‎ there have been a couple of recent attempts to insert a "Controversy" section into the article - so far without giving any sources at all, so I've reverted per WP:BLP, and I'm trying to get some discussion going, but since I really only went to the article to fix the London Gazette refs, I'll soon be out of my depth.  David Underdown (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That looks like a clear cut case of ill-informed speculation and POV pushing. VCs are only handed out after very careful consideration, so any claims that a VC winner didn't deserve their medal need a very strong citation to be worth including (eg, something which quotes a recognised expert). It's notable that the source provided by User:Lloyds2007 is "Controversy highlighted in ARRSE (Army forum)", which isn't close to being a reliable source, and the disputed text looks like it's a collection of message board posts from armchair generals. It looks like there might also be some sock pupetry going on with User:Lloyds2007 and User:Whygurkhas? making identical edits... --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Johnson Beharry‎]]