Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 29

message: Can we merge :Category:Warriors, :Category:Military leaders, and :Category:Soldiers (and the similarly-named sub-categories) back into the main military people/personnel tree?  They're pretty much unused; and while I can see the point of categorizing by rank or branch of service, I think it ought to be done with names that are somewhat more obvious than these general terms. Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't see why not . . . UnDeadGoat 02:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Still, while Marshals of Foo and Generals of Foo are viable, "military leaders" will come in handy when categorizing lieutenants, captains, majors or colonels. Andrés C. 03:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably "Officers of Foo" would be a better name in that case? Kirill Lokshin 03:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True. Still, we will need some kind of leaders category for quite a few individuals, and for different reasons. That is true, especially for political-military leaders. Consider the following cases, picked at random: Attila, Timur, Alexander the Great, Hitler (which otherwise would have to go to cat corporals of Germany), Churchill, Charlemagne, that gentleman from Georgia (again)...Any suggestions for categorizing all those military leaders that never went to their local Sandhurst? Andrés C. 14:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  Maybe we should retain the "military leaders" categories and make all the specific rank ones sub-categories of them?  So each "Military people" category could (optionally) have a "Military leaders" sub-category with the same name (e.g. "Military people of France" → "Military leaders of France" → "Admirals of France" and "Military people of WWII" → "Military leaders of WWII").  Kirill Lokshin 15:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I understood you right, this is how it'll work: Parent category: "Military people of France", with subcategories "Military leaders of France" (here would go Vercingetorix, Charlemagne, William I of Normandy, Godfrey de Bouillon, Philip IV, Joan d'Arc, Emperor Bonaparte, de Gaulle, others...never mind if Vercingetorix never heard of the word "France"), and then "Marshals of France", "Admirals of France", "Generals of France", "Officers of France", and "Soldiers of France". Am I correct? If so, let's get to work and see how it turns out. Andrés C. 03:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's what I meant ;-)  Presumably everything except for soldiers could be a sub-category of "Military leaders"; do we even need an explicit "Soldiers" category, then, or can we just assume that anyone not explicitly categorized as being a leader of some sort is a regular soldier? Kirill Lokshin 03:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant categories 

message: Curiously enough, someone else started a discussion on one of the by-war categories here that seems to be favoring "of the Foo War"—rather than "in the Foo War" or "involved in the Foo War"—for the naming convention.  Thoughts?  Should we go along with this, or try to push the other variant? Kirill Lokshin 21:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External nomination 

message: I apologize if this has been covered already, but the current project requests that battles should always be placed in a category by year, but these categories are becoming unmanageable.  I would like to propose that battle article should always be placed in a conflict category by year, such as :Category:Conflicts in 1876 or :Category:1876 conflicts.  I prefer the latter, but someone started off with the former, so I continued the convention.  I don't think it's realistic to continue placing military conflicts in the category of the year itself.  I'm not particularly attached to that name, so if anyone has a better name in mind, I'm open to suggestion.  The category appears to have been created by User:Mikkalai in July, 2005, and I've asked him to comment here. —Viriditas | Talk 22:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do we want to go by years or by centuries (or perhaps both)?  Years are good for battles, but not particularly useful for wars, unless we want a dozen date categories on each article. Kirill Lokshin 00:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One example: the world war cats are categorized by century, as are the lists of battles and wars articles.  The ww cats are members of multiple year and decade cats.  It makes sense to do it this way, since the main articles don't require date cats (already members by subject cat).  I know that doesn't exactly answer your question, but it's interesting to look at the current scheme. —Viriditas | Talk 00:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting.  As a side note, would we want to rename these to "Military conflicts in 1876" rather than "Conflicts in 1876"?  I don't think we want other types of conflicts being tossed into the same categories as battles and wars. Kirill Lokshin 01:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have an answer for you, but I can say that the Conflicts by year category is just that.  Battles and wars will still be categorized as such.  —Viriditas | Talk 01:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes.  My question was more to whether the category had been intended for military conflicts, or for anything that might be termed a conflict (strikes? crimes? high-profile arguments between politicians?). Kirill Lokshin 01:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, which is why I asked the creator of the category, User:Mikkalai to comment here.  As it stands, the category appears to contain battles, wars, massacres, rebellions, uprisings, etc. —Viriditas | Talk 01:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which makes sense, I suppose; but we can wait for Mikkalai to comment before deciding on the exact names to use.  (The reason for the question is the persistent appearance of things like :Category:War on something and its ilk within various parts of the warfare category tree that were really intended for military topics.) Kirill Lokshin 01:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand, which is why I hope this project will come to a decision not only on the naming conventions, but on category maintenance as well.  The category in question is not that large, so if Mikkalai does not respond, and this project can come to a decision, I would be happy to help re-categorize articles. —Viriditas | Talk 01:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I see no problem with adopting this scheme in general (could we get a bot to create the categories for us, though?), probably with a two level-scheme (e.g. "Conflicts in the 16th century" → "Conflicts in 1512").  I still think that calling the categories "Military conflicts in ..." is better, since it reduces ambiguity about the purpose and matches the existing :Category:Military conflicts. Kirill Lokshin 13:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicts by year 

message: I have added the WikiProject Military history template to the discussion page on Emperor John II Komnenos. His son Manuel I Komnenos is now a featured article, so it would be great if the article on John II could reach the same level too. Anyone interested in helping to make improvements to this article on an important Byzantine emperor, your suggestions would be very welcome. Thanks! Bigdaddy1204 11:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: John II Comnenus

message: Hey guys, I've been working on Category:Ship classes, trying to sort the various ships into the sub-categories.  I've been making really good progress, but I've run into something that I wanted to get a second opinion on.  The term destroyer escort was used by the US to describe ships smaller and slower than destroyers that were used to escort merchant vessels.  The Royal Navy built similar vessels and called them frigates.  When American destroyer escorts were given to the British through Lend-Lease, the British called them frigates.  Since World War II, the US has stopped using "destroyer escort" and now uses "frigate."
My question is this: Should I categorize American destroyer escorts under Category:Frigate classes or create a category just for them?  If I put them in a separate category I could include a "see also" on the cat pages, but since they are the same thing I'm tempted to stick them in one.  What do you guys think? TomTheHand 15:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  From the way you describe it, it sounds like they should be put under "Category:Frigates." If they're essentially the same in size, style, armament, etc, then it is really just a matter of semantics. But then, this is not my field of interest or expertise. Someone more in tune with 20th century naval history might feel differently. LordAmeth 16:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Ship classes 

message: I notice that we are missing articles on a number of wars, including:
* Anglo-Persian War of 1856.
* Spanish-Moroccan War of 1859.
* Ecuadorian-Columbian War of 1863.
* Spanish-Chilean War of 1865.
* Wars in Central America; no standard names, perhaps First Central American War of 1876 and Second Central American War of 1885, Third Central American War of 1905 and Fourth Central American War of 1907 (some sources use "First" and "Second" for the 1905 and 1907 wars respectively).
* Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882.
* Spanish-Moroccan War of 1909.
* Franco-Turkish War of 1919.
* Saudi-Yemeni War of 1934.
(Perhaps in a few cases we do have articles but I couldn't find them; in which case more redirects and links would be appropriate.) Gdr 10:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. The Ecuadorian-Colombian war of 1863 was such a relatively small affair (a declaration of war, a battle, and a pretty much inconsequential treaty) that it hardly would give us enough material to make an article dedicated solely to it. IMHO, I would suggest widening the scope of the proposed article to include also the war of 1862 (another brief war in which Ecuador found itself in war against one of the combatants in the Colombian civil war). More critical, I'd guess, is the lack of an article on the Ecuadorian civil war of 1859-60, in the midst of which a Peruvian expeditionary force landed in Guayaquil. Best Regards. Andrés C. 14:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested articles 

message: Can we please use a neutral or allied POV for East Front articles?  At least one of these [Battle of Kiev (1941)] looked like Nazi probaganda for a while. William Jockusch 09:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Point of View 

message: I came across List of countries by date of last war while looking at :Category:Lists of countries.  I'm not sure if you people are aware of it or not. So, I thought I would bring it to your attention.  It seems fairly inaccurate and poorly done to me. --Midnighttonight 01:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems a rather silly list to me, since it doesn't include any historical countries.  Even if it could be fixed, I'm not sure how useful it could be, since it's essentially a collection of random dates. Kirill Lokshin 01:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And it doesn't have America. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Remember 6/4! 02:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The United States is in the section titled "Countries currently at War". TomStar81 02:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An inaccurate mess... --Loopy e 03:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[List of countries by date of last war]]

message: There is currently a dispute at Talk:Trojan War about whether the Trojan War should have a Military conflict infobox. The primary argument against having the infobox is that the Trojan War is mythology and therefore not part of military history; the argument for the infobox is that all wars, be they historical or fictional, get an infobox. Would anyone care to comment here or at Talk:Trojan War? Thanks. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Replied on the article talk page. Kirill Lokshin 00:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military conflict infobox on Trojan War 

message: You folks might be interested in the next topic for Article assessment: War. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:AA]] topic 

message: I've just found out how easy it is now to add footnotes to an article. You can just use the note tags directly in the article, and it lists them all down below.
I've embarked on my own project of major rewrites of some articles that are hero worshipping in tone and very conversational. Others have no footnotes whatsoever and I have been slipping them in where possible. Some of them are:
*Battle of the Bulge
*Ilyushin Il-2
*Battle of the Scheldt
*Ross rifle
*Calgary Highlanders
*Hackle
*World War I
*Beret
*Herbert Sobel
I wonder if perhaps we don't need a task force just to go out and put footnotes from respectable sources into articles. The Il-2 article is particularly bad for "gossip". Check this thread out at Battlefront.com Sturmovik Debunking there are no footnotes in JasonC's comments either, but he identifies a huge disparity in published sources and what is currently in some of the hero worship articles on wikipedia. Maybe instead of working on new articles, we can identify some of the laughably bad ones and cram some verifiable sources down some throats. ;-)  Michael Dorosh 04:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone who's nominated an article for FA status recently will have found out that footnotes—and large numbers of them—are basically required. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 09:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Unfortunately, yes... <_< -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnotes 

message: More flyshit and pepper stuff - what is the opinion regarding the thumbnailing of maps? Obviously a necessity for large maps, but I wonder if we shouldn't strive for a window sized map (assuming 600x800 main frame resolution which can be used as a reference while reading the article? I've uploaded an example at Battle of the Scheldt. I suspect it will offend the sensibilities of editors quite quickly and it will be shrunk down to a 300px image off to the side, but do other members of the Project feel there would be some utility in keeping one map per article unthumbnailed as a general reference without the need to click- or does it matter?Michael Dorosh 16:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really like it, myself, both because it tends to cause unwanted horizontal scrolling (recall that, on an 800x600 screen, you can actually have significantly less width for the article itself, depending on the browser and skin used) and because the map can no longer be properly captioned.  My suspicion is that relatively few readers make frequent reference to maps while reading an article, and that those that do can be reasonably expected to open the map in another window should they desire to do so. Kirill Lokshin 17:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. I don't like the look of the larger maps either, can be distracting, but thought I'd see what the consensus is. Michael Dorosh 17:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps 

message: And it was one of ours. Wisconsin's a great article, and the fact that breaking up WWII's history was my contribution makes it no less sweet. Way to go, MH!
(Sorry i've been out of touch, finals tore me a new one and i've been picking up the pieces.)
Cheers,
Guapo
:Huh?  I thought Iranian peoples was actually the 1000th, and the Wisconsin was just the one that happened to be on the Main Page at the time?  Kirill Lokshin 09:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whoops, my bad. Still cool, though, isn't it? Guapovia 10:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congratulations on 1000th Featured Article! 

message: :Category:Military operations has been filling up recently with things that are properly battles (or wars) but, for lack of a better name, have "Operation" in the article title; this is creating a (rather unnecessary, in my opinion) split of the categories by article name rather than by topic.
One potential idea would be to standardize on using the various battle categories for all combat operations and to split what remains in the category into :Category:Non-combat military operations (which would include the various incidental transport operations, and such) and :Category:Espionage operations; I think that, between those three, everything should be fairly neatly categorized.  Comments? Kirill Lokshin 19:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense to me . . . UnDeadGoat 16:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military operations 

message: Do we have a link somewhere in the project pages to Wikipedia: Naming conventions (military units)? Just noticed it while editing.Michael Dorosh 20:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's linked to under WP:MILHIST#Article names.  I'm not convinced of the utility of that link, though, considering that page seems to have gotten stuck in perpetual draft form a year ago. Kirill Lokshin 20:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions 

message: The Weaponry task force is somewhat small at the moment, so I'd be very grateful if anyone else with a bit of time to spare could wander over to the task force talk page and comment on the proposed  :-) Kirill Lokshin 00:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consolidated infobox for weapons 

message: Why does the World War I template show the flag of Newfoundland as the tricolour? The Newfoundland regiment fought under the Union Jack and the tricolour has never been an official flag of the province. See  for one example. I would also think that Newfoundland would be included under the British Empire. BoojiBoy 14:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean the monstrous sea of semi-relevant see-also links that is ?  I've never quite seen the benefit of having that template myself; the relationship between any particular article it's placed on and the other ones it links to tends to be tenuous at best (and the ones that are directly connected are already linked through campaignboxes or other templates). Kirill Lokshin 14:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wondered the same thing about that flag myself a while ago, but ended up just leaving it with the assumption that someone knew more about it than I did. --Loopy e 21:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been bold and removed it. BoojiBoy 20:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  World War I template 

message: Should paramilitary units and division be included in the project such as the CIA's Special Activities Division?--James Bond 01:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that if they carry out any "military" activities—including things like SpecOps work—they're probably close enough to include.  It should't be more than a handful of articles anyways, so I don't think this will be a major issue. Kirill Lokshin 01:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paramilitary units