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No. 144 Squadron RAF tagged as copyvio

I've just tagged No. 144 Squadron RAF as a potential copyvio of [1]. Help in fixing the article would be helpful.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Mortar

The usage of mortar is under discussion, see talk:Mortar -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 03:07, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

A-Class review for Robert Howe (Continental Army officer) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Robert Howe (Continental Army officer); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 06:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

A-Class review for Helmuth Raithel needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Helmuth Raithel; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 06:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Russian weapons of debatable notability

At Talk:List_of_Russian_weaponry#Left-outs there is a list of Russian (Soviet?) weapons which have articles but aren't included in the article itself. An editor has said the sources in these articles do not establish notability. I've skimmed a couple of them and they read more like brief news items (i'm not convinced though that one is "freudian garbage"), but sources are -unsurprisingly- in Russian. Anyone in a position to help identify if they are genuine and likely to be adequately sourced, or alternatively if the sources are ropey to aid some AfD? GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:10, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I've no expertise in guns but has anyone checked to see if ru: gives them better coverage? Secretlondon (talk) 23:38, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Half-done GA nomination

Hello,

I've written the article on Belgium in World War II which has been up for GA Nomination for nearly a month. A reviewer started making the changes and believes that there is "not much work to do" on it but has had to drop out - I would be extremely grateful if someone would have a look at it so that it can be moved for A class nomination.

All the best, ---Brigade Piron (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Rank needed

Hi all! Does anyone have any suggestion how to translate into English stožerni brigadir - an officers' rank that existed in the Croatian Army before 2004. The rank itself was higher than OF-5 and lower than OF-6. The name could be translated literally as "staff brigadier" - but does that make any sense? Sources speaking of officers who held that rank generally say "brigadier", but that's also a translation of brigadir (OF-5) rank. Thoughts?--Tomobe03 (talk) 20:04, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

From memory these chaps were usually in the role of chief of staff of a formation headquarters? In the past, brigadier has not always been considered a general rank by some countries and this is probably the case with this rank too. I think the rough NATO equivalent is probably still Brigadier (especially if they were commanding a brigade), but you might like to use Senior Colonel (which is not defined in NATO). There is similar confusion with the Waffen-SS rank of Oberführer. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If it can be translated as 'Staff Brigadier' and is higher than OF-5, would use 'Staff Brigadier' with a footnote at first use explaining this semi-unusual rank, pretty much saying exactly what you've said in your query. If there's any list/article on Croatian army/other forces ranks, that could be linked as well. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably should clarify the issue of stožerni. My understanding is that stožerni narednik is sergeant major (narednik being sergeant), but in Bosnian štabni narednik is staff sergeant. I should add that I am talking about my understanding of a language I don't actually speak... So, whilst I should probably just shut up, I am not sure it can necessarily be directly translated as Staff Brigadier. My view is that it would be better to provide a rough equivalent in English to enhance the understanding of the reader rather than a straight translation if you are choosing between the two. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 05:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If we can't make a 1:1 mapping of Croatian ranks onto the ranks of the Anglosphere, we shouldn't try; otherwise we'll just mislead readers. I think it would be better to explain it when first mentioned in an article - "...Nomen Nescio was a "stožerni brigadir", a rank just above brigadier..." - and just go with the flow from there... bobrayner (talk) 07:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

"a rank just above brigadier" Is that known? Or is stožerni brigadir a parallel rank? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I'm not so sure about the role of chief of staff of formation headquarters though. Ademi held that rank in August 1995 (and was a chief of staff of the Gospić Corps), but the rank was also held by Krstičević and Korade at the same time (commanding officers of the 4th and the 7th guards brigades respectively). It's not that my memory is so good - these are visible in the photo taken in Knin on 6 August 1995 on (two stripes and four, um, "stars"). "Staff Brigadier" seems a reasonable translation for now - at least until a Biritsh/US equivalent is found.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

GA backlog

Gday all. The backlog at GA is starting to get out of hand. Now 41 articles at Wikipedia:GAN#WAR. Pls feel free to stop by and do a review. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually wonder sometimes if there should be a restriction on the number of articles one editor can have at GA at one time. I've done three reviews in the last three days and the new ones just keep pouring in. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

This year for the first time (that I've seen), reviews aren't keeping pace with nominations, in our article review processes generally. We can always ask nominators to help out with the workload, if it becomes necessary. - Dank (push to talk) 02:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Three prolific article writers account for about half of the 41 articles. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Parsec and Sturm have done a ton of reviewing over the years. I'm not sure what reviewing the other prolific nominator has done (I'll ping him). - Dank (push to talk) 03:15, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi all! You are right, I reviewed far too few articles in the Warfare department (only a couple IIRC). I would have done more, but I'm afraid my prose quality checks might be considered inadequate since I'm a non-native speaker of English. If there's a consensus that the non-native level of English is not a serious obstacle (I'd do the check as thoroughly as I can though), I'd be more than happy to take up reviewing the GANs regularly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 08:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's any benefit to forcing anyone to do something they don't feel competent in ... but everyone capable of writing articles that can pass reviews is comfortable with something, at least. A-class is a great place to start reviewing if you want to focus on just images, sources, checking for typos, formatting, neutrality ... anything that you've learned while writing your own articles. - Dank (push to talk) 11:29, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry, I'm not under an impression of being forced to review GAs. I'd be glad to review the nominations, after all I'm just as unhappy about the GAN backlog. I just felt that a pass might be perceived as counterproductive if few grammatical mistakes slip through - not that I plan to neglect prose review or let things slide. If that is not a problem - I'm ready to start right away!--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

If you let me know when you've done a review, I'd be happy to doublecheck the prose tick. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. Will do.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

There are currently 36 GANs that are not spoken for. Everything from operations in the former Yugoslavia through oodles of fighting ships to plenty of bios, including that of the first Filipino American to become a general in the US Army. All welcome. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I have heard from a few people that they don't want to review GAN's because they don't feel like they have the "expertise" in the article subject matter. I want to be clear that, at least as I read it, the GAN criteria do not require that the reviewer knows anything about the subject, just that the reviewer have a brain and be drawing breath. In my reading of the criteria, the "comprehensiveness" portion is not about "did the article leave out any details that only an expert would know" but that it's actually about "did the article leave open any questions that a reasonable, average reader would seek to have answered (ie: in a bio, did the subject have a spouse/kids? Or, in a Battle article, how many casualties were there? Or, for a ship, how many guns did it have?). Just my thoughts, but I think that's why there's a backlog. If it were made clear that anyone can review GAN - not just subject-matter experts - I think more would review. Cdtew (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but there may be a problem when the article coverage does not cover all major aspects and it is not as obvious to a "non-expert" looking at the sources offered in the articles plus a check of online available info. At any rate, the more reviewers the better.--Tomobe03 (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Despite some progress there are still 40 articles at GAN. Further efforts would be appreciated. Anotherclown (talk) 21:34, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd echo Cdtew's comments; Good Article reviews are definitely one of those areas where special expertise is not necessary - just a knowledge of what a good encyclopedia article should look like. Hchc2009 (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, at some point experience comes in handy. For instance could someone please have a look at the 2nd opinion request at the Talk:Emilia Plater/GA1. Thanks!--Tomobe03 (talk) 08:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll get to work on doing a few reviews. —Ed!^(talk) 11:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

A second opinion is sought at Talk:Robert Surcouf/GA1. Thanks!--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

June 2013 backlog reduction drive

Gday all. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/June 2013 backlog reduction drive is planned for next month. The drive starts at 00:00 UTC on 31 May and runs through 23:59 UTC on 30 June. Focus will be on both article improvement and on assessment, rather than just one or the other. Anyone interested in participating is invited to sign up. Anotherclown (talk) 10:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Article assessment tool - very helpful!

Apropos of the backlog drive announcement above, I wanted to tell people about the little-known but truly amazing rater gadget by Kephir. It displays a "rate" tab at the top of article pages; clicking this brings up a JS overlay box with a summary of the talkpage assessment templates, their subfields, and the option to amend any of the details (or add new project tags). It doesn't quite natively support the B-class checklists, but it does allow you to enter/amend the values. Click, save, and it's done.

The only bug I've found is that the tab sometimes doesn't show after editing the page - you need to refresh a second time. Either way, it's certainly immensely faster than opening the talkpage, and means you can see the content in front of you as you rate! Andrew Gray (talk) 18:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

United States Army Air Service Mexican Border Patrol

Have just moved this from my sandbox to normal article space. Would appreciate if some other editors have a look and comment on anything necessary in it. Thank you :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Have assessed the article as Start class after making a couple of spelling corrections and eliminating a redirect. Interesting article. I have checked the criteria for B3, B4, and B5. I have not had a chance to check B1 or B2, but will probably be able to do that a little later if someone hasn't already done it. Consider entering it in the Military History Project monthly contest along with any future article you might develop. Cuprum17 (talk) 17:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Book author parameter

Hi all! I recently stumbled upon use of author parameter of the {{cite book}} template to designate an organization which "authored" a book. Would such a use of the parameter, specifying the "Central Intelligence Agency", be beneficial for articles using the Balkan Battlegrounds [2] as a reference, or would that be an obstacle in a MILHIST ACR or a FAC since the template documentation does not offer such an option?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that in this case (and most cases?) the organization is the publisher, not the author. If the article you stumbled on used the Google Books page to fill in the template, that would lead to the anomalous situation where the publisher is a branch of the author. The template description for the author parameter assumes a human being's name will be used in this parameter. If there is none to which the book is attributed, it should be blank.--Lineagegeek (talk) 21:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I do not necessarily agree with Lineagegeek because leaving out the author does not help with linking short citations to a long reference. What I do in the case of an institution that has a web page but no author (for example here) is add "author=institution's initials staff" this then allows one to use the {{harv}} templates to link to the article referenced in the "References section" (to take a phase from cooking programmes: "Here is one I prepared earlier"). -- PBS (talk) 11:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• The author is always a person. In case of this book the author is unknown and that should probably be presented to the readers in this case.
• Re obstacle issue, per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history With the exception of certain recent topics that have not yet become the subject of extensive secondary analysis, and for which a lower standard may be temporarily permitted, articles on military history should aim to be based primarily on published secondary works by reputable historians.. Since the authors of this work are unknown, it is impossible to verify if they are reputable historians and if the request of this manual of style is followed or not.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

An author can be working for an organisation and the legal owner of the copyright can be an organisation and so stating that it was written by the organisation's staff is a coomon way the author is given in such cases (one could use the term servant but that has a specific legal meaning within company law). This is also true for many government works, who for example writes a Blue Book such as this one if it is not the staff of the Office for National Statistics? The Economist as a matter of policy does not, and has never has, include author information on its articles, one can use the editor for providing the link between the short citation and reference, although that may be more confusing than adding "Economist staff" as the author. Obituaries in newspapers and magazines are traditional published without an author. Do you really suggest that all those reliable sources always be excluded from any military article because they are not the product of a named historian? Was Winston Churchill, who did not have a degree in history, an historian, or do we disregard his voluminous work on the Duke of Marlborough? Bill Slim was not an historian so do we exclude his book "Defeat into Victory" ("an outstanding example of the best of British military memoirs"--Louis Morton) as a source the Burma Campaign. I think you are interpreting the guideline in a way it was never intended to be used. -- PBS (talk) 12:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

No, the MOS I quoted is clear and does not request to completely exclude sources whose authors are not reputable historians. The point is on the term based primarily. FAC should not be primarily based on such sources.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

German Navy in WWII

Hi. Recently User:ÄDA - DÄP reverted several of my edits on entries for WWII U-boats, in which I had substituted "German Navy" for "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" or similar phrases. I would like to raise the issue of proper and equitable references to the German Navy in WWII, and herewith I am transferring (at ÄDA - DÄP's suggestion) the comment I placed on his talk page for general comment:

In response to your reverts on the U-boat entries, I'd like to raise the issue of the historically proper designation of the German Navy, in English, in WWII. First, let me say that I have no sympathy whatever, in any way, for Nazism.

However, please note that:

* There was never any organization officially called the "Nazi German Kriegsmarine," which is the way it is styled in numerous entries related to vessels of the WWII German Navy.

* There is no accepted word in English called "Kriegsmarine" -- which of course is German for, literally, "war navy" or more loosely, "military naval force."

* No branch of the German armed forces in WWII officially included the word "Nazi" in its name, and officially there was never any country called "Nazi Germany," although the latter has become a convenient shorthand term among historians and journalists for Germany as it was in 1933-45. (Indeed, I believe that members of the German armed forces, except, probably, for the Waffen-SS, were officially prohibited from membership in the Party, but I'm not entirely sure.)

* The word "Nazi" itself was a slang contraction for National Sozialistische — taken from the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (English: National Socialist German Workers Party), which was the only 'legal' (in Nazi terms) political party in Germany after mid-1933. (The true Socialists, similarly, had been known as Sozis.)

I think the terminology used to designate the German Navy in WWII should be changed in all cases to simply "the German Navy" out of historical verity, to avoid broad-brushing all members of the German Navy as "Nazis," and as a matter of linguistic equity. (Hitler himself is quoted in several biographies I've read as saying, supposedly humorously, "I have a Nazi air force, a Christian navy and an imperial army," or words to that effect.) This would be in line with references to "the U.S. Navy," "the British Navy," "the Italian Navy," "the Japanese Navy," etc.

Everyone knows that during World War II Germany was run by Hitler and his Nazi crew of political gangsters, but I don't see any point in designating all vessels in the German Navy of that war as politically "Nazi."

Sca (talk) 17:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As the related article is called Kriegsmarine then we should use that, German Navy is used in wikipedia for the modern post-1945 organisation. MilborneOne (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Sca, it all comes down to references, references and more references. Simply find and cite enough references that support your position that the German Navy was not a Nazi force, then you can overcome any controversy and neutralise the Nazi point of view. At the moment, the dispute with ADA DAP is locked, and needs to be resolved by proving such verifiable references, to result in a civil conclusion. Don't worry that people think all German forces were Nazi, just worry about finding neutral third-party sources which way otherwise. We're not here to push views, but to present neutral and factual information. Enough sourcing will give you that leeway, and make your edits less easy to revert or challenge. What "everyone knows" and what is documented are world's apart. This isn't a straight-forward WP:SKYISBLUE issue, it will need thorough referencing to convince readers, because there are a lot of hardliners out there will whitewash Germany with the Nazi banner. If enough historians have said otherwise, then they can't maintain articles using such claims. Remember, Military History is here to aid you in finding and presenting the truth, not to take sides in editor disputes, but to settle tricky matters such as these by helping you find the material you need. Or, if you're wrong, by showing you why you're wrong with contradictory references. Good luck. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Most English-speaking military historians of World War II refer simply to "the German Navy." Regarding other branches of the Wehrmacht — a term that in German encompassed all three services, plus the Abwehr (military intelligence) — English-speaking historians often use the term "Wehrmacht" to refer specifically (though somewhat inaccurately) to the German Army and "Luftwaffe" to refer to the German Air Force; this, because the German terms Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe became so widely known in the West. Kriegsmarine, I submit, is not so widely known among English speakers.

User:MarcusBritish seems to be saying that in Wikipedia we base decisions about terminology entirely upon some sort of numerical data about prevailing usages, right or wrong. That would seem to perpetuate obvious historical inaccuracies. Once again, there was never any organization called "The Nazi German Kriegsmarine," but I'm not going to try to prove it by endless sifting through book titles and references online.

Would we refer to the "Liberal Democratic Capitalist British Navy" or the "Liberal Democratic Capitalist U.S. Navy" — or the "Communist Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Soviet Navy"?? Ridiculous....

(And by the way, the Kriegsmarine title of the article on the WWII German Navy should be changed to "German Navy in World War II." That the modern German Navy (officially, the Deutsche Marine) is a creature of today's Federal Republic of Germany — and is vastly different from its World War II predecessor — is obvious to any rational person with a sense of chronology.

Sca (talk) 21:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

"User:MarcusBritish seems to be saying that in Wikipedia we base decisions about terminology entirely upon some sort of numerical data about prevailing usages, right or wrong." Eh, no.. I'm saying we use terminology based on the general consensus, derived from historical sources. If a majority of reliable and academic sources do not describe the German Navy as a Nazi force, then you can do away with the usage of it on Wiki as a point of view that is not reflected in most references. For example, if some article on Wiki describes some army as a terrorist organisation, while most historical sources are found to describe it as militia fighting a guerilla campaign, we adjust the article to reflect the consensus. A lot of areas of history have grey areas where opposing points of view become controversial for one reason or another. You don't like the German Navy described as a Nazi navy, ADA DAP does. You're not going to settle the matter any other way than identifying what a number of prominent historians class it as, and reference them to support the correct answer. That is generally how consensus and referencing works in these cases. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 22:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, have it your way — continue to perpetuate a POV propaganda stereotype from a war that ended 68 years ago. Sca (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

In fairness, Marcus never said that. He actually suggested that you do what you ended up doing, Sca: find sources for your position and use them. I'd suggest you use the in the articles, not here. Provoking people here isn't going to help you one bit. Intothatdarkness 19:01, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey, now look here, because my patience is starting to grow thin. You came to us for advice, and you got advice. I've tried to be polite and give you thorough answers. I didn't write the bloody articles in question, and personally I couldn't give a toss whether they say "Nazi" or not, because I won't read or edit them. You've been told, and you're going to be told again, if you feel there is a stereotype issue, then the onus is on you to raise the issue correctly and counter it with reliable sources. Read your last comment, it states, "Most English-speaking military historians of World War II refer simply to 'the German Navy.'" So how about you get off your high-horse and go find some of those "most historians" and reference them, to the precise pages in their books where they use the term "German Navy" and/or define that navy as not being a Nazi navy. That's the only way you're going to resolve the issue you have, not by bringing uncivil remarks to this board and accusing uninvolved editors of bad faith behaviour. If you have a POV imbalance to push back into perspective, then go push it using the correct Wiki policies and guidelines. But don't expect help from anyone with an attitude like that. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 14:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

All right then, here are a few examples gleaned from books I happen to have on hand:

Churchill, Winston S. Their Finest Hour. Houghton Mifflin, 1949, p. 594. "… paralyzed for the time being the Germany Navy in home waters."

Churchill, Winston S. The Grand Alliance. Houghton Mifflin, 1950, p. 42. "The German Navy was instructed to concentrate …."

Bullock, Alan. Hitler; A Study in Tyranny. Bantam (paperback), 1961, p. 532. "An acrimonious debate was conducted between the [German] Army and Navy…."

Ibid, p. 611. "Meanwhile, the [German] Navy had to be content with what it could scratch together…."

Ibid, p. 612. “Which neither the German Navy nor the Luftwaffe….”

Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. Barnes & Noble, 1973, p. 374. "…the Graf Spee, one of the pocket battleships of the German Navy…."

Ibid, p. 375. "[Hitler] spoke about the incompetence of the German Navy…."

Ibid, p. 404. "The German Navy remained locked up…."

Ibid, p. 405. "… both the German Army and the German Navy begged…."

Kershaw, Ian. Hitler; 1936-1945 Nemesis. W.W. Norton, 2000, p. 58. "The [German] Navy was left alone."

Ibid, p. 276-77. "While there was express praise for the [German] navy…."

Ibid, p. 278. "… scarcely veiled criticism of army leaders set against praise for the Luftwaffe and the navy…."

Kershaw, Ian. The End; The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany., 1944-1945. Penguin, 2011, p. 179 "The German navy sent help in rescue effort…." and, "… the German navy used an ice-breaker…."

Roberts, Andrew. The Storm of War. Harper-Collins, 2011, pp. 353-54. "When it actually began five years too early, the German Navy did not yet have…."

Ibid, p. 538. "The German invasion of Norway in April 1940 cost the German Navy dear…."

None of the above authors, from Churchill to Kershaw and Roberts, ever uses the phrase, "The Nazi German Kriegsmarine" — although Kershaw does refer simply to "the Kriegsmarine" in a couple of places.

Now, having dismounted from my "high-horse," I suggest you do the same. Thank you.

Sca (talk) 18:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I suggested a broader discussion as I am at a total loss which policy to follow. If one would go by "use English", German Navy would be the obvious choice. Alas, that is already the name of an article on the current German naval force, which has little in common with the Kriegsmarine of the WWII era. German Navy in World War II would unnecessarily limit the scope of the article on the war years, when in fact the Kriegsmarine existed from 1935 till 1945 or even 1946 depending. While the German Air Force still uses the name Luftwaffe, the navy has dropped the Kriegs in Kriegsmarine and calls itself Deutsche Marine. In the WWII literature I surveyed, German Navy and Kriegsmarine are used synonymously. As there is no need to differentiate between different epochs of German history it is unsurprising, that the phrase Nazi German Kriegsmarine is seldom used. Alas, it is used and more often the German Empire of the time is called Nazi Germany. So, there would be nothing gained from changing the name of the naval establishment of Germany between 1935 and 1945/6, and Kriegsmarine seems to be the preferred option in English-language publications. The alternative would be Nazi German Navy, which I find rather cumbersome.

BTW: Nobody who writes about the Royal Navy assumes that only members of the royal family serve in it. Why should anybody assume that all members of the Kriegsmarine were somehow linked to the Nazi party? ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) References need to be applied to articles, and cited, preferably in-line and in context with regards to the article subject. Don't just cite them because they use the wording "German navy" as that would be WP:POINT-like behaviour. They need to express the opinion, or fact, that the German navy was not a Nazi formation. Some authors may simply be using the term "German navy" rather than Kriegsmarine all the time, just as many use "German army" rather than Wehrmacht or Waffen SS every time there's a mention of the infantry, or "German airforce" instead of Luftwaffe. Simply because it's common practice to transliterate, or rather Anglicise, meanings for readers, so they don't have to keep using a glossary or translation list for every German term. If you cite these texts just because the words "Germany navy" appear in sentences you may be seen as taking things out of context. I don't see a reference there that says something that implies that, "The German Navy was not a Nazi force". Your specific point made earlier is that the German navy were not affiliated to the Nazi Party. This is the point you are going to have to prove. None of the quotes made here do this adequately enough, in my opinion. Using 20 sources that simply have the words "German navy" in them amounts to WP:SYNTHESIS, because of the lack of support for your claim in those 2 words alone. There needs to be something more which illustrates your point. That is the function of any good, unbiased, historian. I can never be accused of bias, so I can only suggest you take my point as being in line with what Wikipedia expects from references. References are subject to scrutiny, per WP:VERIFY, but if your sources only amount to the use of the wording "German navy", they don't live up to you claim that that navy was not Nazi, because the use of that wording doesn't directly imply that, just as using "German soldier" doesn't mean every German soldier was a dedicated Nazi either. I'll give you an example that relates directly to your case: The film Sink the Bismark! depicted Admiral Günther Lütjens as a hard-case Nazi. This portrayal of his character has been disputed, and references supporting the "he was not a Nazi" position have been cited. You must do the same, with detailed references, not 2-word assumptions. Very few authors would repeatedly use term "the Nazi German Army" either, it would be exhaustive to read, so you don't have a particularly strong argument on that point. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Most sources I've seen use Kriegsmarine and German Navy pretty interchangeably for this period, as has been pointed out many times now. The earlier statement about the navy not being Nazi, or that military members were banned from Party membership is obviously incorrect, so let's not belabor that. Intothatdarkness 20:29, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

His Robert Payne quote "both the German Army and the German Navy begged" shows that source unreliable for his point anyway, give that the "German Army" could mean many things, Nazi and non-Nazi, so the same applies to Navy equally. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The preceding comment re Payne does not make sense to me.

I have never said or contended that there were no Nazis in the WWII German armed forces — duh — only that it is unjust to imply by the terminology employed that the entire German Navy, or by extension all who served in it, were Nazis, which obviously was not the case. Ditto re the other branches of the WWII German military.

I have never seen the phrase "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" used anywhere other than on Wikipedia. It is not one employed in Western historiography, so far as have seen in 40-some years of reading.

I am certainly not going to waste my time trying to document politically neutral terminology with specific regard to the hundreds or thousands of Wiki entries relating to WWII German armed forces. The number of entries about individual U-boats alone is staggering. It is an overall policy I sought to change. However, I conclude from the comments of User:MarcusBritish and others that certain Wikipedians active in this field are determined to abide by the existing POV terminology.

BTW, I also object to the terminology one frequently sees in popular media of "Nazi U-boat," "Nazi tank," etc. Weapons and machines are not members of political parties. One can speak of a "Soviet tank," of course, since "Soviet" was part of the name of the country, but one would not speak of a "Commie tank" — not if one was educated.

Sca (talk) 23:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Your attitude is ficken widerlich! The war may have ended 68 years ago, but you appear to be still fighting it. Or me. Maybe you don't like Brits. Either way, I don't really care. If you don't want to waste your time, that's your choice. But don't waste mine and other's here be being a griever (defintion: someone who whines a lot). You've already been advised how to deal with the POV concern, with regards to Wiki requirements. It seems to me that you're unwilling to take that advice, which suggests you're afraid of making your own POV known because it is untrue. Regardless, WP:NPOV is a key requirement on Wikipedia. But if there are "hundreds or thousands", and I smell hyperbole in that claim, it is highly unlikely that just a couple of editors wrote all those and decided to use the terms you object to. Which suggests that the German Navy is considered a Nazi navy by many editors, depending upon their sources. So you go huff and puff and try to blow that house down with that haughty German attitude of yours, and we'll see how fast you either end up being sanctioned or blocked for trying to bring about a massive change in those "100s or 1000s" of articles without putting in the effort to prove your claims, like any reasonable editor would. Personally, I don't know why you came here in the first place, when you don't seem to have the slightest interest in listening to what anyone says, unless it meets with your expectations to push your POV. Not happening.. nor given another 40 years. And FYI, tanks and U-boats don't have a nationality either, but they're still "German". So again, you objection is noted.. but is a subjective objection and also requires referencing to change the POV is the usage is "staggering". Though I doubt the issue is that widespread. Decent editors should refer to tanks and U-boats by type or name, e.g. Panzer II or Type XI, or U-101, etc. If you want to deal with articles using terms such as "the Nazi tank" simply copyedit the wording to "the German Panzer" or similar accurate identification, as long as there is no loss of meaning it should be acceptable. If it doesn't waste your precious time, that is. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 01:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
– Personal attacks removed – Sca (talk) 14:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC) ..."ficken widerlich" (bad grammar!) ... "that haughty German attitude of yours" -- feeling of inferiority, Marcus British? Very un-British, indeed! --77.181.66.155 (talk) 02:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC) Probably a WP:SOCK used by Sca. Note the German IP, and use of the double hyphen --  Looks like a duck to me. Childish for someone of that age. Only proves by point.. POV-pusher. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 03:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC) Please do not attack other editors with your chauvinistic attitudes. Thank you.--89.204.155.32 (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC) Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Sca – we'll see who's the chauvinistic one real soon when the results come through. You'd need an army bigger than the SS to bully me, Sca, old boy. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 03:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC) The language you use - that's terrible, really terrible! People like you should not be editing the WP. He laughs best who laughs last. --89.204.139.150 (talk) 05:14, 10 May 2013 (UTC) The language I use is English, get over it. And the correct phrase is, "he who laughs last, laughs longest". SPI will wipe the smile off your face, or you could just take your dentures out. Socking, trolling, harassment.. and you call yourself "educated"? Ma®©usBritish{chat} 06:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC) Gentlemen! You can't fight in here; this is the war room! bobrayner (talk) 02:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC) Classic, Bob! Xyl 54 (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to weigh in, here;

I wouldn’t have thought there was a problem with the phrase “Nazi Germany”; it’s pretty common in English; though I don’t know that Kriegsmarine is generally used in sources, it usually (in my reading) just says German Navy.

OTOH linking to the relevant articles is tricky in this case, as the Germany being referred to is Nazi Germany (as our article is titled), and the Navy involved is described at Kriegsmarine.

So one remedy would be to pipe the link, thus [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Kriegsmarine|Navy]]: Does that solve anything for anyone? Xyl 54 (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

May break WP:EASTER EGG recommendations, but more than that, it's a compromise designed to satisfy the misgivings of one Wiki-editor over others, without making him present referencing. History should be present accurately in an encyclopedia, following NPOV policy with regards to the information, not the personal feelings of a minority. I am strongly against compromises which serve to solve debates without addressing the real issue of whether there is a fault with the problem article(s), as it means we don't get to the bottom of the issue. If User:Sca has a genuine claim that the German Navy was not Nazi-affiliated then he must prove it. We don't simply censor the disputed text and sweep it under the carpet. If there are 100s/1000s of problem articles, as he claims, adding a load of misleading wikilinks into them all does nothing for the quality of those articles, and reflects badly on this project for allowing such a poor clear-up to proceed. I'd have to see a strong consensus in favour of such activity before withdrawing by opposition to it. As Sca claims that most historians indicate that the German navy was non-Nazi, I still await examples of this. So far we've only witnessed synthesis of his claim based on 2 English words in a few select books. I don't believe for a moment that he doesn't have access to a book describing the history or formation of the German navy, which includes relative details regarding control of the fleet, given how "educated" he purports to be. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 03:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It's bad manners. And you wish to become an Admin? That is never going to happen. First learn to behave properly. --77.181.66.155 (talk) 03:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Who wishes to become an admin? I know I never said that, and I don't see anyone else saying that. Nor is it relevant. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 03:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know, but I've heard that because the word "Nazi" continues to be used extensively as a pejorative, there's something of a trend in academia to avoid using the word as frequently as in the past, although it's still used quite a bit. - Dank (push to talk) 03:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think [[Nazi Germany|German]] ''[[Kriegsmarine]]'' (navy) works well, with Kriegsmarine used after the first mention. "German Navy" doesn't work IMO because there are about six German navies to choose from in the 20th century, including the Kaiserliche Marine, Reichsmarine (which was also the German navy for the first two years of Nazi Germany), the navies of the two Germanies and the current one. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

That sounds doable. It is not necessary, I think, to qualify "German" in this context, as it is clear what it refers to. Occasionally one reads Nazi Kriegsmarine which is redundant since there was no other German Kriegsmarine at the time. That is probably the reason for the trend to avoid the term in academia mentioned by User:Dank. Anyway, there is not much hope to separate party and state in the Nazi era with both being intermingled as they were. From the beginning the war flag showed the swastika, the party symbol, and in the end, an admiral became leader. BTW you missed the Vorläufige Reichsmarine of 1919-1921. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 08:25, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the German ref is appropriate in the lead of an article. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Break

'Nazi Germany' tends to get thrown around too much in articles. There never was a country called 'Nazi Germany': this refers to an era in the history of the German state of which the modern 'Germany' is, as I understand it, the lineal descendant in legal terms, though obviously attitudes are totally different. I've managed to write two FAs with a strong focus on the German military of this period without using the word 'Nazi' once (Black Friday (1945), Operation Teardrop). I also prefer the perfectly clear and accurate 'German Navy' over the potentially confusing non-English word 'Kriegsmarine', and used this in both of these articles. I don't know what the common usage is here, but 'German Navy' is often used in sources. At the risk of repeating myself from previous discussions, the dangers of over-using 'Nazi' is that it can confuse readers about what this era in German history actually involved (the Nazis rose from within a large minority of German society to lead the existing German state, and weren't some kind of external force which ruled over it), and using non-English words for phrases in which there are workable English translations is more helpful to readers. Nick-D (talk) 10:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the problem here is one of terminology - "Nazi Germany", "Third Reich", "Germany 1933-45", it all means the same thing -, but of periodisation. 'Nazi Germany' is a perfectly acceptable term describing the German state between 1933 and 1945, so there is no need to get rid of it or avoid it. What User:Sca did, was to link a Nazi-era U-boat to the present-day Navy of Germany, and that is why I reverted his edits. The trick is to find a working solution to the problem of differentiating between the organisations and countries at different places in time. There never was a country called Weimar Republic but you will find literally hundreds of books using the term to describe the German Empire between 1918 and 1933. The same is true for Nazi Germany. The big advantage of Wikipedia is, that you only have to link a term to the proper article and any user can enlighten themselves about the subject and thus avoid confusion. So far, Peacemaker67's suggestions seems to me the most practical solution to the problem.ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 14:27, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Historically it's not unusual for a country to be referred to based on the government in power at the time (or the form of government/royal dynasty/whatever). I would hope that a reader could figure out that an article titled "The German Navy in World War II" was covering the German Navy during World War II, but perhaps I'm an optimist. Intothatdarkness 14:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately they are not equivalent. The Reichsmarine was the "German Navy" for two years of Nazi Germany, the Kriegsmarine was the "German Navy" for the rest of Nazi Germany's existence. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 14:48, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Nick, just to be clear, I'm not actually advocating that. I saying easteregg the [[Nazi Germany|German]]. No need to even mention Nazi Germany if you do it that way, and even the infobox can use Germany and a swastika icon. Easy. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 14:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

By my reading of the relevant articles, the 'Reichsmarine' was simply renamed 'Kriegsmarine', and they were essentially the same organisation. I've used that approach for presenting 'German', and it seems sensible - it's a more precise link. From memory, a few years ago a German editor raised concerns here about directly linking to modern Germany on the grounds that this could also confuse readers, which seems a reasonable point. Nick-D (talk) 01:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to add-Nazi Kriegsmarine was not only associated with Nazi ideology but directly involved in Holocaust when it helped exterminate Jews in Liepāja, Latvia. The war crimes section in Kriegsmarine article btw needs expanding.

--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 02:05, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Czesc, Molobo! Co nowego? Sca (talk) 23:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Weren't you supposed to stay away from subjects like this [3]?? - so please keep your inciting speech for yourself. --IIIraute (talk) 02:28, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

MyMoloboaccount's restrictions were actually lifted as a result of that thread you linked to an early version of: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive247#Request to lift restrictions. Nick-D (talk) 02:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, on the terms that his attitude has changed - I don't see what his comment has to do with this discussion.--IIIraute (talk) 02:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I was never restricted regarding discussions about Nazis, WW2 or Kriegsmarine IIIraute, hope this answers your question.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 12:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the German Navy had more than the average ratio of hard core Nazis (including its commander for most of the war Karl Dönitz). Nick-D (talk) 02:09, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

And that's why the term "Kriegsmarine" should always have the word "Nazi" attached to it, or what? Bit childish, isn't it? --IIIraute (talk) 02:47, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I've argued the exact opposite to what you're attributed to me above above. Many naval personnel were committed Nazis, but the organisation itself wasn't 'Nazi'. Nick-D (talk) 03:36, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you got it the wrong way round. For 70 years it has been attempted to add out Nazism from German military (and naval) history putting the blame on Hitler and his cronies alone - to no avail. To the contrary, in the past two decades there has been a surge of publications showing the involvement of the armed forces in Nazi politics and vice versa.

The Reichsmarine was always considered a stop-gap until Germany would get a 'real' navy again, preserving as much know-how as possible from its predecessor (much like the army). After the Nazi takeover 80 years ago this year, the new regime could draw on existing plans for rearmament and expansion of the armed forces. Over time both, the military and political establishment melted into each other. This is not to say anything about the political orientation of any of its members just that it is impossible to see the one without the other. Thus, if some editors consider it an achievement not to mention Nazism in an article on German operations in WWII, it could as well be seen as an omission - whether accidental or intentional.

Linguistically, we are in troubled waters. Marine (as in Kaiserliche Marine) and Kriegsmarine basically mean the same thing: navy. Subsequently Imperial German Navy is used for the Kaiserliche Marine (actually it should be German Imperial Navy but never mind). As there is no adequate English term for Reich it is hard to translate Reichsmarine (as 'imperial' is out of the question, the closest thing would be Reich Navy). The change in name to Kriegsmarine (Krieg means war) is consistent with the martial stance of the Nazi regime, but "War Navy" seems tautological. The current 'German Navy' consequently dropped the Kriegs and refers to itself as Marine - only consequent for an organisation which has never fired a shot in anger.

While it may be clear to an editor when writing an article, that the Kriegsmarine was the navy of Germany during the time of Nazism and World War II, it is quite natural to use 'German Navy', but it is not necessarily clear for who ever is reading it. (E.g. stating the fact that U-32 of the German Navy sunk RMS Empress of Britain makes sense in the context of WWII. But it requires the prior knowledge that there are other ships called U-32 and Empress of Britain respectively, and that the only time a U-32 could have sunk an Empress of Britain is in one of the World Wars, which one is another question. Meanwhile, stating that U-32 of the Kriegsmarine sunk RMS Empress of Britain would make it easier to grasp the context.) Any reader who does not get that Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany, can look it up, but if editors feel the need to qualify it, they can use 'German', and even 'Nazi German' is acceptable as it puts the events firmly in the era of WWII. The risk of misinterpret this as meaning the Kriegsmarine was an organisation of the Nazi party is minimal, and even if anyone should come to that conclusion it is only half wrong (see above).

Using precise terminology consistently is IMO the best way to prevent confusing readers. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 05:54, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we should use the terminology: the "Nazi German Wehrmacht", the "Nazi German Third Reich", and "Nazi German Nazi Germany"? - Am I getting too technical for you? ..."Nazi German NSDAP", maybe?--IIIraute (talk) 06:26, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, because you are so smart and I am so dumb. Am I right that mocking me means you have nothing to add to the discussion and merely want to show of your superior mental powers? ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 08:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, one thing we don’t need is another battleground. It seems axiomatic that the term Germany is an article on WWII is referring to the German state at that time, not the present one; OTOH the term Nazi Germany is a common enough term to describe that state in English.

As either one is acceptable and normal in English, it would be as wrong to go through all the articles we have on the subject adding "Nazi" to the term Germany as it would to go through deleting it. Most U-boat articles make reference to Nazi Germany, (usually in the Infobox) but have simply Germany in the text, which seems a reasonable enough arrangement.
The place for an examination of the extent of the support for, and collusion with, Nazi aims and ideology in the Navy, or in the state as a whole, should be on those pages (as indeed it already is). But as has already been said, the Nazi apparatus didn’t exist in a vacuum, and the tendency nowadays to try and draw a bright line between the institutions then and now smacks of denial, to my mind. Xyl 54 (talk) 23:24, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

While there is nothing wrong with using the term "Nazi German/y" per se, it is the dosage that matters. The term "Nazi German/y" is not used as some form of judgement, i.e. to put some form of stigma on "German/y", but to describe a period of government within the long history of the country. Ergo, there has been a Germany before and after - that's why this post-war colloquial appendix is in use. However when using terminology that is unique to this certain historical period of Germany by date (1933-1945) - such as: Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Third Reich - and/or context, such as NSDAP, SS, Hitler Youth, etc. this appendix becomes redundant. While it makes sense to speak about the "Nazi German secret police" - to speak about the "Nazi German Gestapo" does not. It is called tautology, and is considered a fault of style - and I somehow get the impression it is done intentionally. Honi soit qui mal y pense.--IIIraute (talk) 03:13, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

@Xyl54: I have no intention of deleting or adding Nazi "per se". I just had a go on checking the links to 'German Navy' and found quite a few which were just wrong, so I changed them. In fact, there are so many questionable links to that article that I gave up on this as it did not seem worth my time and effort. Occassionally, I might expand the Kriegsmarine article, but currently I am more interested in WWI, so it will have to wait.

@Illraute: Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. If it's not terminology but frequency you are worried about, I would suggest to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone who does not know, what these funny names and acronyms mean. In this discussion, the common readers are expected to be a) easily confused by non-English terms and b) knowledgeable enough to know exactly what is meant when non-English terms are used. That sounds a little contradictory to me. What concerns me is that anyone who reads about a Kriegsmarine u-boat is pointed towards 'Germany (1933-45)' and World War II immediately, not only via linking but also by spelling it out in the article lead - once (and maybe in the infobox, too). Yes, this will affect hundreds of articles, but it's not my fault the Nazi painted their bloody swastika on anything German(ic).

ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 05:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Unblock

I've unblocked User:Sca. I don't think King of Hearts did anything wrong, but a sufficient reason for the unblock IMO was that MarcusBritish added a block template to the user's talk page after the block, giving the user got the impression that the blocking tool was being used to gain an advantage in a discussion. Also, I think there's a reasonable chance that a softer approach will work, and I've invited SCA to help us with this issue of when we want to use the word "Nazi" ... this issue comes up a lot, and some clarification would be great. - Dank (push to talk) 14:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The above comment is a fallacy. I only placed an SPI notice on Sca's talk page, there is no evidence that any "block template" has ever be added by me after his block, and only sock-suspect templates were added to the IPs he used. Wrongful accusation made here. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:00, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I misread the time stamp. Nevertheless, the user got the impression that the blocking tool was being used to gain an advantage in a discussion, and I hope everyone sees how it wasn't a stretch for them to reach that conclusion. This is important stuff to think about if our project is going to contemplate using a new tool (Level 2), as we seem to be in favor in the discussion above. - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. This baseless accusation appears to be an act of – personal attack removed – by User:MarcusBritish because I strongly opposed his viewpoint above.

In nine years on Wikipedia, I have never edited from any platform other than my own registered user name. This is personal attack on me, and seemingly an act POV nationalism on the part of MarcusBritish (whose home page is headed by a large RAF roundel). What ever happened to the famous British spirit of fair play?

Regarding German Navy terminology, I understand some editors' concerns about which German navy we are referring to, but I believe that some modus vivendi should be found other than the implied blanket condemnation of the entire WWII force — which organizationally was in existence before the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 — as a "Nazi" institution. It seems a relatively simple linguistic point, but one that is amply supported by Western historiography.

Sca (talk) 15:01, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's a logo used by the Mods during the 1960s, and bands such as The Who. So that debunks that nasty little assumption. Not sure how nationalism relates to this topic, given that it's about Germans, and no pro-British views have been made. Note that patriotism is not a crime, either. Also, I have no interest in the RAF, because I focus on Napoleonic and American Civil War history, there were no planes. I have 4 flags hanging on my walls: the Union Jack, the US flag, the Confederate flag, and a bass drum cover with the Mod logo on it.. or the RAF roundel as you call it. I'm also an admirer of Napoleon, who hated the British. So please do tell us where my "nationalism" lies, given these facts? Or just STFU, because it's easier that digging a hole with your theories. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you redact the "petty vindictiveness" remark within the next few minutes, or I shall do so using the provided template. Personal attacks are not welcome here. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:04, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, another arrow in your techie quiver! Re the symbol, on the page referenced the cutline describes it as a "Royal Air Force roundel, a mod symbol." Sorry not to know about "mod," but I submit that most readers would identify it, as I did, as the RAF symbol.

I don’t wish to continue this thoroughly unpleasant discussion. It's a beautiful sunny day here and I think I'll go for a top-down drive. Goodbye. Sca (talk) 16:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Another break

I think it's better to use the term "further input." Clarification implies that Sca's position is somehow correct or more authoritative. If we're working on a consensus model, it's best to keep the language open and inclusive. My $.02 anyhow. Intothatdarkness 14:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think some practical discussion of a solution would be more useful. Sca's initial return comment is rhetorical. How about discussing a solution you can live with? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 15:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I thought of "German War Navy" — a literal translation of the German term — as a substitute for "Nazi German Kriegsmarine," but the problem with that is that there was also another, larger German 'war navy,' the one that met its final fate in Scapa Flow in 1919. Sca (talk) 16:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Are we sure that there's really a problem, or is this a solution in search of a problem? Judging from the discussion above (aside from occasional walls of text), most people who've commented seem comfortable with the use of either "German Navy" or "Kriegsmarine" to deal with the German Navy during World War II (and I would include the immediate pre-war period in that). Is it totally accurate? Perhaps not. But we're not writing specialist scholarly literature here, are we? If the intent is to create more generalist encyclopedia articles, then maybe we should use more generalist language, and in that context the general discussion consensus seems valid. Intothatdarkness 15:14, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I've written several articles on WWII-era German warships, and the general rule I've followed is to use Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine for the period under discussion (since the RM only became the KM in 1935, 2 years into the Nazi regime), but also simply "German navy" and variants thereof interchangeably. The two are not mutually exclusive in my opinion. I don't necessarily think "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" is the best terminology, if only because the KM only existed during the Nazi period, so it's redundant. Just my $0.02. Parsecboy (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Concur. Seems sensible, reasonable, and easy to work with. Intothatdarkness 15:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Parsec; "Kriegsmarine" is the WP:COMMONNAME, the official name, and the non-redundant name. ("German War Navy" may be the correct translation but nobody ever uses it.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I could live with "German Kriegsmarine," though it's a linguistic anomaly. I'm not convinced that the German title Kriegsmarine is in general English usage, even though Luftwaffe and to a lesser extent Wehrmacht are.

Also, it seems to me that in English we don't normally use non-English titles such as Regia Marina (the Italian Navy in WWII) or Советская Армия (Soviet Army) to denote non-Anglo-American military forces. Thus, we are treating the German forces differently, which is stylistically inconsistent and contrary to editing principles, IMO.

Sca (talk) 16:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I've seen "German Navy" used occasionally, but "Kreigsmarine" is the WP:COMMONNAME in English in my experience - in addition, on Wikipedia, it's used to distinguish the WWII-era German naval force from the post-WWII one (for instance Category:Ships of the Kreigsmarine vs Category:Ships of the German Navy). "Regia Marina" and "Советская Армия" are not the common-names for those forces in English, however "Kreigsmarine" is. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:22, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Regia Marina is used to distinguish the pre-1946 establishment from the current 'Italian Navy' on Wikipedia. Using Cyrillic is not helping promoting knowledge by the medium of English, so it is regularly transcribed and usually translated, too. Apart from that, the tendency seems to be, that were the terminology is purely descriptive, like x-ian Army/Navy/Air Force, the names are translated, but when it becomes more specific and specialised, like Spetsnaz or GSG 9, the non-English name is kept. The trick is to understand if and when a term is used purely descriptive (e.g.: Italian Navy - actually Marina militare) or as a proper name (e.g.: Royal Navy) - the article on the 'Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR' (literal translation) is conveniently named 'Soviet Navy btw. Basically, there are no principles or generally applicable rules but only case to case decisions. My guess is, since English is partly a Germanic language, native speakers tend to think they understand other Germanic languages - eg. German or Dutch - as well. But more often than not, that is not the case. And no linguist has yet called English a logical language - it's more like a hoover, sucking up words and grammar from other languages. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 17:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

True, however it probably shouldn't be (re: R.M.); the Regia Marina-to-Italian Navy change was more a simple name change, vis-a-vis the various German navies, but that's another kettle of hagfish. As for the purity of English, I think James Nicoll put it best. The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Damn, you beat me to the quote! :-( Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

♠"Damn, you beat me to the quote!" Seconded.

♠As for "Nazi", I object to it not for the pejorative per se, but for the mania to label everything German in the WW2 era as "Nazi". This may be to distinguish it from modern German equivalents, or for POV reasons, or from simple ignorance or laziness, IDK. It irritates me. I don't think WP should be doing it, since IMO we're smarter than that, & should encourage smart.

♠I also dislike "German War Navy", accurate a translation tho it is (& that's a contradiction for me, so I'm relying on the "hobgoblin of little minds" defense ;p ). I expect most readers not to draw a big distinction between "German Navy in WW2" & "German Navy now". Those who do probably don't need the translation anyhow. If it bugs anybody, we could use Reichsmarine (slightly inaccurate, I know) as a default dab, maybe. (I know, that doesn't help with how to translate it... :( )

♠If it was up to me, I'd use the German & damn the translation. :D I don't expect that to survive a challenge, tho. :) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 10:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

No one's defending the "purity" of English, which as we all know is a sort of linguistic amalgam. What we're arguing for is equal and apolitical (i.e., neutral) treatment linguistically. Sca (talk) 14:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

If no-one is defending English then maybe someone should, if not the "purity" of the language (which might also be interpreted as a tolerance/acceptance of other forms) then at least the principle that as English is the language of this WP, and of the majority of its contributors and readers, then English is the language we should be writing in.

English may not be logical, but it is the language most of us grew up speaking, and if anyone needs help with its eccentricities that help is freely offered.

I would not like to think that an argument for “equal and apolitical linguistic treatment” is a demand to “do it our way, because our language is purer”. I don’t think a demand to do things the English way for English subjects would go down well on the German WP, and I don’t think the reciprocal should apply here.

If "Nazi Germany" is a common term in English, then it should be OK to use it (sparingly, at least; I’m all for avoiding redundancy); and I do think we should be calling a spade, a spade (or even a bloody shovel). Xyl 54 (talk) 22:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with whoever said that "Nazi" in the phrase "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" is redundant. Everyone knows that in WWII Germany was run by the Nazis. This does not mean that all Germans were themselves personally convinced Nazis — as the various plots against Hitler show. To cite only one of many examples in print, I've just finished reading Giles MacDonogh's biography of Adam von Trott zu Solz — tragic but fascinating. Sca (talk) 23:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

And I agree with whoever said that the Nazis rose to power from within German society and weren’t some external force ruling over it, as the vast numbers of newsreels of cheering crowds show. And I’ve just finished watching an episode of “The World at War”, which was merely tragic.

We seem to be simply repeating our positions now: Is there anything new to be said on the subject? Xyl 54 (talk) 02:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

And your point is...? Please let me repeat my previous statement: While there is nothing wrong with using the term "Nazi German/y" per se, it is the dosage that matters. The term "Nazi German/y" is not used as some form of judgement, i.e. to put some form of stigma on "German/y", but to describe a period of government within the long history of the country. Ergo, there has been a Germany before and after - that's why this post-war colloquial appendix is in use. However when using terminology that is unique to this certain historical period of Germany by date (1933-1945) - such as: Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Third Reich - and/or context, such as NSDAP, SS, Hitler Youth, etc. this appendix becomes redundant. While it makes sense to speak about the "Nazi German secret police" - to speak about the "Nazi German Gestapo" does not. It is called tautology, and is considered a fault of style - and I somehow get the impression it is done intentionally. Honi soit qui mal y pense.--IIIraute (talk) 07:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The term "Nazi German/y" is not used as some form of judgement....

Because of the extreme opprobrium rightly attached to the (originally slang) word Nazi — a result of the colossal scale and horrific character of Nazi crimes — Nazi is not a neutral term. Thus, to label the Germany Navy in WWII as "Nazi" does convey an extremely negative political judgment on a military organization that was not per se political, and whose tens of thousands of members included people of various political views.

One high-profile example: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who was involved, or benevolently aware, (beginning in 1938) of the various plots against Hitler — was for that reason executed by the Nazis (along with such sainted anti-Nazis as Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Canaris, head of the Abwehr, was a long-term, high-ranking officer of the German Navy in World War II. Like so many other military opponents of Nazism, Canaris was a conservative German patriot who had served in World War I (aboard the storied cruiser SMS Dresden), and wished to undo Versailles — but he came to detest the Nazis, initially for their crimes in Poland and later for a host of reasons.

After years of providing a safe haven for anti-Nazis in the Abwehr, and vainly attempting to elicit some expression of Allied support for the anti-Nazi conspiracies, Canaris was caught up in Hitler's paroxysm of revenge after the 20 July plot, and was among some 11,000 anti-Nazis executed before war's end. In Canaris's case, the gallows came on April 9, 1945, just one month before Germany's unconditional surrender.

Linguistic note: In the phrase Nazi German Kriegsmarine, the word "Nazi" is an adjective modifying "Kriegsmarine." It does not modify "Germany," and the word "German" also is an adjective modifying "Kriegsmarine." Thus, in grammatical terms, this phrase means that the "Kriegsmarine" was a "Nazi" organization.

Sca (talk) 16:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I know - I think you misread my comment, and I think you are right - but this (content matter) isn't for us (editors) to decide → WP:NOR. However, much more important is, that you will not find any serious historian using such "fault of style" terminology anyway → WP:RS, so using it is not permissible. --IIIraute (talk) 03:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I fell like this discussion doesn't go anywhere.

As to linguistics, I am not sure you are right there. The Roman Catholic church is not the Catholic church of Rome, Italy, but all over the world. And the Nazi German Kriegsmarine is not a German Nazi organisation but the navy of Nazi Germany. Sorry, but this is getting semantic. Now, as to redundancy and tautology: 'Navy' can be translated into German as either Kriegsmarine or simply Marine. War Navy would therefore be tautological. In English, Kriegsmarine is only used in context with WWII and 'Nazi Germany', yes. But, can we safely consider this to be common knowledge? I don't think so. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 11:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Semantic hairsplitting. Put the word "Nazi" in front of a noun and you are labeling the thing as being "Nazi," by implication uniformly so.

That said, I don't object to the phrase "Nazi Germany" because Germany in 1933-45 was run politically by Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy — in the German phrase, the NS-Diktatur — which claimed and enforced exclusive power in the political realm. The phrase is well known in English historiography and elsewhere, for example in German as Nazideutschland. Not so "Nazi German Kriegsmarine."

Sca (talk) 15:23, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

"Nazi German Kriegsmarine" is not permissible, per WP:RS, WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:VAGUE and in reference to WP:TITLE - and should be reworded wherever in use.--IIIraute (talk) 17:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

And another break

You still don't get it, do you? I put 'Nazi German' in front of a noun as German is no noun, if I am not mistaken. It is a multi word expression which means one thing and one thing only. Like Roman Catholic, Latin American, French Canadian, Royal blue, you are not dealing with two adjectives but one. Out. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

You shouldn't do anything that is not in compliance with WP:RS and in misconduct with WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:VAGUE, WP:TITLE. Please refer to some academic WP:RS that are in support of such a "fault of style" terminology.--IIIraute (talk) 18:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I do "get" the contention by User:ÄDA - DÄP that "Nazi German" is a compound modifier. As such, one school of editing would hyphenate it as an adjectival phrase. But that doesn't eliminate the problem. The import of "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" remains to label the entire Germany Navy and everyone who was in it as perforce "Nazi." Which notion is false. And remember, "Nazi" is inherently a highly pejorative term. Enough said.

Sca (talk) 21:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

That all doesn't matter. If there are no academic WP:RS that are in support of such terminology - please reword wherever in use. "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" is not permissible, per WP:RS, WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:VAGUE and in reference to WP:TITLE, and therefore violating several WP policies. I don't think it is a problem to find reliable WP:RS for terminology, such as: Roman Catholic, Latin American, or French Canadian, for example. So, please do not invent your own academic terminology. Thank you. --IIIraute (talk) 22:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Illraute: Are you seriously suggesting that the term "Nazi Germany" fails Verifiability, or that it lacks reliable sources? Tell you what, here are about a million hits from Google Books to be going on with.

And this, from the first line of the Kriegsmarine article:

"The Kriegsmarine ("War Navy") was the name of the Navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945". Which is only a longer way of saying "Nazi German Navy/Kriegsmarine". So what's the problem? If you want a different phrase (and the current one could be a bit clunky) how about "Nazi Germany's Navy (the Kriegsmarine)" (as on the U-530 page). But what isn't acceptable is this attempt to whitewash the organization by expunging all references to Naziism.

"But what isn't acceptable is this attempt to whitewash the organization by expunging all references to Naziism." Who is doing this? Why do you refer to me? I think you see a political motive, when there is none. I have explained my argument thoroughly - much earlier in this discussion - it is terrible, fault of style terminology. Please refrain from further personal accusations. Thank you.--IIIraute (talk) 03:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Sca: Trotting out Canaris as evidence that the Navy wasn't a Nazi institution is clutching at straws; apart from poster boys like Prien, Schepke, Luth (all enthusiastic proponents of National Socialism) the mood was set from the very top (try Erich Raeder's article, particularly this bit).

We've racked up over 40KB of verbiage on this and spent over a week on it; I really think it's time to drop the stick, now. Xyl 54 (talk) 01:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I second that. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, seriously! It's really simple: Please provide academic sources that support the terminology/phrasing "Nazi German Kriegsmarine". And don't use two different sources to support one claim → WP:SYNTH. Really simple: please show the phrasing "Nazi German Kriegsmarine". If there are no academic WP:RS that are in support of such terminology - please reword wherever in use. "Nazi German Kriegsmarine" is not permissible, per WP:RS, WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:VAGUE and in reference to WP:TITLE, and therefore violating several WP policies. --IIIraute (talk) 02:38, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Ever heard of the 1871 quarrel about: "Deutscher Kaiser" and "Kaiser von Deutschland". To answer your question - yes, there is a difference - "Nazi Germany's Navy" has a different meaning (and for the case that such terminology is supported by reliable sources - fine with me). Since the whole world of academia is not familiar with the terminology of a "Nazi German Kriegsmarine", I don't think we will start it here. It's pseudo-academic fault of style terminology that should not be used. It's as simple as that.--IIIraute (talk) 02:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

In that case I will from now on use Nazi Navy and reference it with History of United States Naval Operations in World War II vol. I 'The Battle of the Atlantic , September 1939 – May 1943', p.xix. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 08:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed Deletion of George Victor Berry

I have just proposed deletion of a George Victor Berry a 2006 article with only two watchers and little sign of notability. MilborneOne (talk) 20:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Tangential question, but how do you know the article only has two watchers? The watcher tool I use doesn't show the number of watchers if the figure is below 30 so that it can't be used to find out which articles are unwatched or nearly so and then vandalised. Nev1 (talk) 20:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

If you click on "Page information" in the left nav pane it says three watchers, the third will be me, this talk page has 903! (also Special:UnwatchedPages is available if you really want to find any unwatched). MilborneOne (talk) 06:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to note, UnwatchedPages is only available to admins. Parsecboy (talk) 19:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

as to WP:GNG, there is nothing on Google Books. Not notable. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Notification

Please consider commenting on a question raised that deserves the consideration of interested military historians, in my opinion. My76Strat (talk) 06:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Manchukuo

FYI, there's a notice at WT:CHINA and talk:Manchukuo about this article -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's the actual notice from Benlisquare. He apparently forgot to notify all interested parties (those with banners on that talk page):

It's currently being disputed whether Manchukuo was a puppet state or not. At the moment, I'm trying to compile a list of books and academic papers that refer to Manchukuo as a "puppet state". If anyone would like to help with expanding the list, please add a few more sources to the list at Talk:Manchukuo#NPOV "puppet state". Thanks. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Please participate if interested. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Ref Desk WWI question

Hi guys. I wonder if you might be able to help out with a question at the Humanities Reference Desk, and maybe to improve an article or two on the back of it? Thanks! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Material from 91st Missile Wing Article

Back in 2009, the 91st Missile Wing article was edited to include a section concerning incidents involving the wing and classified information, including the relief of the wing commander. Particularly in the June to September 2010 time frame the material was wholly or partially removed, restored, and edits were added and deleted. In August 2011 the section was removed. Through all of this there was no discussion or interaction on the talk page. The removed section is now on the talk page and a discussion has been started about whether it should be included in the article or not. --Lineagegeek (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Why We Fight

Just a heads up to everyone who works on World War II articles: I've recently uploaded all eight films (one is in two parts) of the Why We Fight propaganda series. These may be useful for finding pictures of certain battles or individuals. They are all available at commons:Category:Why We Fight — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

terrific--thanks :) Rjensen (talk) 00:51, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Email communications as references

Occasionally I request and receive emails from the Air Force Historical Research Agency with regards to units not listed on their website. I would like to make these emails available to others on Wikipedia. Is there a place on one of Wikipedia's sister sites which I can upload the documents? Bwmoll3 (talk) 20:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Not sure. Maybe take a look at WP:Wikisource or upload it as an image. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Look up WP:ORTS, get an OTRS ticket number, then add the info to the talk page of the article. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the information from such a source is not usable in Wikipedia articles because they are a primary source which have not been published in/by a reliable source ("that have been reliably published" WP:PSTS). This wording was long discussed and agreed because if such things as emails, birth certificates, uncatalogued archive material, that have not been previously published are included in a Wikiepdia article then the article changes from being an encyclopaedia type article based on previously published works in reliable sources, to an un-peer reviewed paper, and would drive a coach and horses through the No Original Research policy. -- PBS (talk) 11:48, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Could you encourage the AFHRA to publish the material on their website? Hchc2009 (talk) 12:03, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The source would be primary, but primary sources are usable references in certain situations, and the files can be hosted on Wikisource, but the primary sources should not be used to verify contentious content, nor can they be used to establish notability.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Beirut (1941)

I just came over the article Battle of Beirut (1941) and was wondering if this article is really needed. As it stands in the article, no such battle took place which makes it a clear WP:NOR in my view. Opinions? --Bomzibar (talk) 12:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

There's not much to go on in that article, but I see what you mean. However, the events seem noteworthy - perhaps Occupation of Beirut (1941) would be a better title? Ranger Steve ^Talk 21:16, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Forget OR, this fails notability. This isn't a battle or a capture; there's no fighting. Even the occupation of Rome is more deserving of a page, & doesn't have one. (Not counting 1870, which deserves it.) This ought to be called Beirut Military Parade of 1941. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

So it probably should be deleted. How is this managed in en:Wiki? --Bomzibar (talk) 18:04, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

• Through WP:Articles for deletion; see WP:AFDHOW section there. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better merged into the campaign page? (I'm not a big fan of absolute deletions.) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:54, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

There was no battle and so it cant be merged into the article. *sigh* You en:Wiki users and your fear about redlinks. ;) --Bomzibar (talk) 12:02, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

No, but there was an event, the Allied entry into Beirut, which event does merit a mention on the over-arching page. Not a link, just preserving the basic information (& any sources). TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Article improvement at Almogavars

I have been a long time watcher and occassional contributer to this article. It has evolved greatly but tends to be edited by IP with a limited grasp of wikipedia practice, especially citation. Many have English as a second language and, although their English is good, it does leave stylistic concerns. There is also a tendency to focus on Almogavar origins rather than on the later historic period, when they had their greatest impact on the Mediterranean world. All in all a shame, because there is a good article in there struggling to get out. Because the article has such a pan-Mediterranean context, there are almost certainly editors here with interests which could contribute to parts of the needed improvement, not just those interested in Iberian history. Can I encourage you to stop by and contribute in your field of expertise. I've made suggestions for improvement on the talk page Talk:Almogavars but it is by no means a complete list. ThanksMonstrelet (talk) 08:00, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Articles for creation

FYI I have updated the list of articles for creation at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks. If anyone is looking for some work to do there are still a remarkable number of topics that don't have an article. Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 10:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be called requested articles to match WP:Requested articles, instead of "articles for creation", which is a draft creation process (WP:Articles for creation) ? -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Calling all Wikimedians interested in the First World War

Yesterday Stevie Benton, Communications Organiser at Wikimedia UK, attended a workshop run by the Imperial War Museum, which focused on how to communicate the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War.

He took some extensive notes from the event which can be seen here. Anyone interested in First World War history is invited to give them a once over, and there might be some overlap with Operation Great War Centennial.

There's an excellent opportunity for Wikimedians to lead on fascinating projects related to the centenary. To this end I'd really encourage all Wikimedians interested in doing any work around the First World War to get in touch by emailing [email protected] and let us know.

There's great potential for volunteer-driven projects related to this topic over the next few years and the Wikimedia UK office is looking forward to supporting you. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm a bit uncomfortable about us being part of their communications programme. Our coverage of all wars is much broader than the British perspective (I would expect the IWM to deny they have a British perspective but obviously they do). I'd be happier for those who are writing/researching on this subject to just continue without official British government backing or some kind of approval from WMUK. This stuff raises real NPOV/COI issues for me (as well as the idea that we need to apply to write about this subject). It's just not the right vibe. Secretlondon (talk) 23:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Coming from more of a WP:GLAM perspective, I don't mind offers like this, but you're not alone in feeling that way, Secretlondon. I think the objective here is for anyone who needs or wants help can contact them. It isn't "official British government backing", it's for the ambitious who are interested in this sort of opportunity, one that is tailor-made for any Wikipedian looking to get into the museum field. And if you're not, it's a perfect way to obtain needed resources without investing your own savings in it. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:33, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Secretlondon, the idea that you "need to apply to write about this subject" is a misunderstanding. As Ed said, the idea is that WMUK might be able to help, so feel free to drop us a line. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:32, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

As a question, what forms of support is WMUK likely to be able to provide here? The IWM is certainly one of the world's leading expert institutions on this war. Nick-D (talk) 11:46, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Nick D. There's a variety of ways that Wikimedia UK can support Wikimedians interested in improving content about WWI. For example, because we are a part of the IWM's network there are various partnerships we can develop with institutions to enable Wikimedians to gain access to various archives and source materials - including the IWM. We'll be helping to deliver editathons on topics related to WWI. We would also love to hear from Wikimedians who may have ideas for projects they would like to work on related to the war. We want as much of this work to be volunteer-led wherever possible so do get in touch. Another element of support that the chapter can provide is our microgrants programme. This is only available to members of Wikimedia UK (it's only £5 to join for a year) but these grants of up to £250 can be made to Wikimedians for things like travel to events, source materials, reference works and equipment. In response to Secretlondon's question, I think it's a sensible point to raise. WMUK isn't a part of IWM's communications programme - we are entirely independent. However, we do participate in a network of interested organisations that discuss activity, possible activities and potential partnerships. By being a part of this network it enables us to see what other groups are working on, to share what Wikimedians are working on, and identify opportunities where we can have a broader impact. Of course, it is very important that content maintains as broad a perspective as possible and continues to adhere to the principles of NPOV/COI. There's absolutely no need for anyone to apply to write about this subject, either. All the chapter is doing is looking for ways that we can help those interested in the conflict to create better content. Of course, for those who prefer to work independently, this is absolutely fine too. I hope this is useful but do let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 10:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Help us organize a World War I edit-a-thon in June 2013

Hi!

We are organizing a number of parallel WWI edit-a-thons in a bunch of countries on Saturday the 29th of June! Have a look at meta:World War I edit-a-thons and read more about them! We would love to see as many people participate as possible and we want even more countries to organize events! So please get in touch if you think that you might want to do something!

If you cannot do a full fledge edit-a-thon in your country you can still organize an online event on your local Wikipedia version. If you use pictures from Europeana you can participate in the Europeana Challenge and have the chance of winning a nice prize!

Best, John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 14:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi John,

Wikimedia UK would love to work with you on this. I'll get in touch with some UK Wikimedians and see what we can do.

Thank you,

Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 12:10, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi! That's really great to hear Stevie and I am happy for all help WMUK can offer! I have actually emailed a bit with both Andrew Gray (who will be doing something at the BL together with Matt Shaw), and I have also send a few emails to Richard, but I am still waiting for a response from him.

Also, I would love to see an edit-a-thon take place in the U.S., Canada and India as well! If there is anyone interested? :) John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 14:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

GA and FA reviews

I noticed that numerous GA and FA nominations are nominated and reviewed by relatively small group of editors who are members of this WikiProject. I am concerned that it might influence the objectivity of the reviews. I saw several reviews where I think it certainly did. Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles mentiones "a particular consideration for articles within the scope of a WikiProject where the reviewer is an active member." Therefore I think something should be done to reduce the possibility for review to be influenced by personal beliefs and feelings about the article topic in case when both nominator and reviewer are members of this project.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:31, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Really? Some examples would be useful, Ad. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 16:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Am I understanding you correctly that you're arguing that in some cases, members of this project have been too lenient in reviews of articles that fall within the project's scope? If there are GANs you think were insufficiently stringent, you are always free to request a reassessment. As for FACs, those are the delegates' call, but again, there is a method for reassessment if you believe it to be necessary. Parsecboy (talk) 16:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

No. There is something else that concerns me. I think that a small group of members of this project who share the same POV in case of ARMBAC ARBMAC articles do not always properly address the POV issues of the nominated articles. No need for examples which could only needlessly personalize this issue. The reassessment could deal with it but it would be dealing with consequences. My proposal was to do something about the real issue. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

What's ARMBAC?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Corrected to ARBMAC. Basically Balkans (link).--Antidiskriminator (talk) 17:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I figured that's what you meant. Are there any specific examples you can provide? Parsecboy (talk) 17:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Specifics are definitely required. I've reviewed several Balkans-related noms and didn't see any POV issues.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

One such event I can readily think of was Antidiskriminator him/herself in this case here. Could this be a case of WP:BOOMERANG?--Tomobe03 (talk) 19:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Antidiskriminator, there is absolutely a need for examples. Without diffs, there is no evidence of any of the issues you address. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I've been impressed by the even-handedness and intellectual honesty of the recent crop of high quality articles on the Balkans in WW2 and the fighting during the 1990s, as well as the good humoured cooperation between the editors involved. It's a big improvement on the 'bad old days' when work on such topics was often dominated by POV pushing and awful disputes. Nick-D (talk) 23:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Likewise I've recently reviewed a few GAs in this area and haven't noticed any issues, but perhaps that is what the concern is? Would be interested in examples being provided of specific GA reviews that are of concern, otherwise this complaint is unable to be actioned. Anotherclown (talk) 01:28, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

My comment was not a complaint. I know there is a reassessment procedure to complain about certain past review. I am talking about the future.

I already quoted the guideline which requests "a particular consideration" if the reviewer is a member of the same WikiProject which covers the topic of the nominated article. ARBMAC articles within the scope of this project are often controversial so I think the "particular consideration" is more important in their case. Especially if nominator or reviewer are not only the members of this project, but i.e. blocked because of their edits within ARBMAC area before. Maybe additional independent input would be beneficial for the objectivity of the reviews in such cases. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 02:48, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Unless you provide specific cases where an editor permitted bias in an ARBMAC article, there's nothing we can do. And in our recent experience with military-related articles related to the Balkans, there have been no problems. Parsecboy (talk) 03:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Entirely agree. This is currently an argument from assertion. No evidence has been provided to support the contention this is occurring. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The U.S. Roads WikiProject has had this issue brought up in the past, but in the end I've found we get better reviews from project members than we do from outside editors. We do get the occasional experienced GA reviewer, but we've gotten an awful lot of reviews that are either missing obvious errors (such as the use of SPS) or reviewers trying to insert their own requirements into the GA criteria. Since we have a lot of short articles at GAN (lowest hanging fruit) and since at least 100 get sent there each year (if not more) the number of bad reviews that we have gotten has increased to the point where I keep an eye on reviews from outside the project. Typically FAC isn't the same way as the reviewers there are more experienced, though occasionally there is the exception. Hope this helps. --Rschen7754 05:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the point is that the project consists of people who are interested in the subject. But I've been getting good reviews from outside the project as well. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

This is a poisson rouge from Ad, in my view. For completeness, I checked my own successful FACs (as Ad and I have history) and found that one of the GA reviews of the four FAs I would put my name to was conducted by someone that "might" be construed as taking one side or another in the Balkans. Given it then went through MILHIST ACR then FAC with completely uninvolved editors, I think this "complaint" is without foundation (at least in respect of my FACs). If I didn't work in this area every day and have a pretty thick skin, I'd actually be a bit offended. :-) I have actually tried to make a point of avoiding reviewing (other than for prose to help Tom) any articles from the 1990s in Yugoslavia because of my personal experiences there might give the impression I had a conflict of interest (I don't believe I do, but others might). I did review Minefields in Croatia and Armed Boats Squadron Dubrovnik recently for GA and would be happy for anyone to check my work. I'd also be happy to ban myself completely from 1990s Balkans article GAN and FAC reviews if the project thought that would ensure that no possible conflict could work its way in via me. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:05, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

In my view it is a nonsense, and contrary to WP:GAN/I, to say that a project member is somehow to be disqualified from content reviewing. Project members are, as Hawkeye correctly noted, those interested in the subject - and are likely more inclined to contribute to MILHIST project (in this case) than any other subject, and the MILHIST is a successful project precisely because the project members are active in content creation and review processes. Arbitrary impositions of limits in that department would unnecessarily harm the project for no gain.

Having said that, neither project members, nor editors outside the project, are somehow absolved from following verifiability, neutrality and other applicable policies. I think that ACR and FAR processes, involving multiple reviewers, provide sufficient safeguards against negligent reviewing and make Ad's complaint entirely baseless in that department. As far as GAs are concerned, those articles are not immune to talkpage discussion and maintenance tags. If valid concerns are voiced, more experienced reviewers could take a look associated reviews and suggest improvements - after all the whole review process is designed to improve article quality. In essence, no additional policy or mechanism is needed, just some common sense on the part of the reviewers.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

"a project member is somehow to be disqualified". That is not what I said.

1. The articles about the Balkans are inherently very controversial
2. Especially those about military history of the Balkans
3. Many nominations/reviews of the articles about the military history of the Balkans are done within the small circle of members of this project
4. Some of them obviously share the same POV (which is easy to conclude based on numerous discussions)
5. Some of them were warned/blocked because of their edits connected with articles on military history of the Balkans

In such cases "a particular consideration" requested by Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles guideline might be necessary.

• I mentioned the "additional independent input"
• Members of this project are welcome to present ideas about other possible solutions which would be beneficial for the objectivity of the reviews in such cases

If other members of this project do not think "a particular consideration" is necessary in such cases this will be my last comment in this discussion. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 21:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid this has gone on long enough. You don't want to "personalise" the issue, or provide any evidence of your assertions, but you want this project to take action because, well, you say there is a problem, so it must be true. Anyone who reviews GAN, ACR and/or FAC and is a member of this project knows which editors you are referring to. I say you come here with "unclean hands" and a POV of your own. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 21:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

*Just to throw in my two cents -- I'm not an editor of Balkans-related articles, and I have no interest or personal connection to the subject. First, let me say that I think it's wonderful that we have such a group of passionate editors who focus on the Balkans, and who come from different backgrounds and have sometimes opposing viewpoints. That can be nothing but good for our encyclopedia. Let me rephrase that: An encyclopedia with many different, sometimes opposing viewpoints will have a stronger consensus (when one is reached) than an encyclopedia without. That being said, Anti, I don't see how the Balkans conflict of the 1990's would necessarily engender that many more bias issues than any other subject we deal with on a daily basis. Sure, recency, horrific nature of the conflict, long-standing enmity between ethnic groups, blah blah blah. Just one look at the "Nazi German" discussion in the purple box above will tell you that there are NPOV issues with any conflict, regardless of recency. Additionally, I disagree with this apparent concept of "Balkan exceptionalism" -- this idea that the Balkan conflict is unique in the fact that it still engenders such disagreement among the participating groups. I challenge you not to find that same mutual dislike and disagreement among Israelis and the surrounding Arab nations regarding the Six-Day War or the Yom Kippur War, or even among Southerners and Northerners as relates to the American Civil War (articles relating to which are surely some of the most vandalized and NPOV-issue-riddled in this project, at times). As a final note, if you see bias somewhere, confront it in that forum. I don't think establishing a rule is going to get anywhere towards fostering cooperation and reconciliation. Cdtew (talk) 12:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Contbituions for the May edition of The Bugle needed

Ian and I should be getting the May edition of the project's newsletter The Bugle out in the next week, but we still don't have an op-ed. While I've got an article which could be used for this purpose, if someone else would like to pen something that would be much better! We could also do with some book reviews (or reviews of anything else if you like). All contributions should be lodged via Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Newsroom. Cheers, Nick-D (talk) 01:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we can direct our readers to interesting opinions from milblogs, such as the one hosted by the United States Naval Institute or other such sources. An alternative, is that we can roll it into the upcoming drive that is planned, see why we edit, and why a backlog has built up.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Partisan Republic of Rasony

Hi all,
I think the Partisan Republic of Rasony would benefit from a little of WP:MILHIST's collective expertise. It's not really my area at all. The article looks bad, but may have potential... or maybe it's just coatrack. Any suggestions? bobrayner (talk) 22:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Not my area either, but that article -- just by looking at it -- gave me a migraine. If you pull apart the text, about one-half of it is text from an interview, the other half is text culled together from other Wiki articles (Operation Heinrich and Operation Hornung, as well as Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany), and some from third-party published sources (see, for instance: "Kalkulierte Morde" by Christian Gerlach]). Cdtew (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: I propose a complete rollback to [[4]], and letting someone who is interested just build the article from scratch; we can move the sources used to the talk page to serve as a toolbox for an interested editor. I don't have rollback, otherwise I would BEBOLD. I think immediate action is required, because this is just embarrassing. Cdtew (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I've gone though it and added line breaks where I thought they might be appropriate to improve its readability. Much work needs to be done, both grammatically as well as by someone who is much more familiar with the Eastern Front of World War II. Bwmoll3 (talk) 21:48, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the work, but I just don't think it's worth it. I'm going to remove the strange interview portions, then we'll see what's left -- remember that most of the remaining language was plagiarized from other works, or copied word-for-word from other articles. Cdtew (talk) 21:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

P.S. - I think this article needs an AfD nomination. See Books search and doing a google search reveals about 1,600 results, all of which appear to be English and other Wikis, and third party plagiarizers. This is very fishy, and needs some hoax investigation. At best, this is an article about a non-notable subject that needs to be redirected to Operation Heinrich. Cdtew (talk) 22:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Nice detective work! bobrayner (talk) 22:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

See discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Partisan Republic of Rasony. Cdtew (talk) 22:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I've also added hoax, RS, and POV templates to Operation Heinrich, which relies on many of the same dubious sources, many foreign language sources, several dead refs, and most importantly - was created by the same editor, User:Compaq 5, at around the same time. Of further note is an "alt history" bbs thread discussing a fictional WWI subject known as Operation Heinrich, which involves the Balkans in that conflict, and which may or may not be related. Additionally, see [5], which is a published work that seems to refer to Operation Heinrich only as a Europe-wide counterintelligence operation. A Google books search reveals nothing relevant to this article's purported subject published in English, and a words and connectors search of Google Books including the term "Belarus" literally only returns the Operation Heinrich page on this site. I think this officially needs more help from an experienced WWII/Eastern Europe editor to determine (1) if these articles are hoaxes or legit, (2) if this is legitimate, is it an editor making a mountain out of a {non-notable) molehill?, and (3) are there any reliable sources that support any information in these articles? Cdtew (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Update: I have added Operation Heinrich to the AfD. Naturally, if anyone can determine that there are reliable sources that discuss the topic, and that those sources lift these subjects up to support inclusion under GNG, I will be happy to withdraw my nominations. Cdtew (talk) 14:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Requesting input regarding sourcing

Please see Talk:Audie Murphy#Great Western Arms Company. There has been mention, removed and restored in the article, of Audie Murphy being part owner of the Great Western Arms Company. I'm unsure of the sourcing. Just seems to me there should be more sources on an alliance between a Medal of Honor winner-movie star and a company that manufactured guns. This article will eventually land here for "A" review, so I'd like us to have sourcing as tight as possible. Please post any input on that talk page. — Maile (talk) 23:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

AfD needing additional input

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mobile infantry is due to be closed tomorrow and, from my reading, there isn't a clear consensus either way. Editors with a view on whether this article should be kept or deleted may wish to join the discussion. Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Notice of RSN discussion

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to inform ya'll of the discussion at RSN regarding lylefrancispadilla.com which has been added to numerous articles that fall within the scope of our Wikiproject, sometimes as an inline source. As my editing time has been reduced, assistance regarding moving this link to the External link section would be appreciated.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

ACR needing attention

The following ACR has been open for over 28 days and needs attention from a further reviewer:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Norman conquest of England open since 3 April

Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Gun book question - anyone have Kasler's 1992 "Glock: The New Wave in Combat Handguns"?

We have a new editor adding all sorts of otherwise unreferenced info across many articles who just added a bunch of user countries to the Glock article. Added the info repeatedly against another editor removing as uncited, then they cited Kasler's book. I regrettably don't own a copy (despite having known Kasler tangentally before he passed). Can anyone check it and verify if it supports claims of use by China, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan? Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXVI, May 2013

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Dumelow on the French Foreign Legion and Nick-D on New Zealand military history Op-ed: Nick-D on military history tourism

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Armed forces rank insignia

I imagine that the rank insignia should not be given in biog infoboxes, in the same way that combatant allegiance flags should not be included. Rank insignia does nothing to enlighten the reader over and above plain text. See WP:Manual of Style/Icons. Very many biogs of members of the armed forces internationally have rank and allegiance flags added. See Stephen D. Lee as an example. Span (talk) 13:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to that, but the insertion of such images in MILHIST pages has been a continuing issue. Perhaps we should assemble some kind of guideline? —Ed!^(talk) 13:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I wasn't clear on what you are not opposed to? Yes, let's write a guideline. Span (talk) 14:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)The guideline on flags is clear. Span (talk) 14:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to removing rank insignia from the pages where we find it. There have been continuing discussions about various military imagery, including pictures of ranks, ribbons and medals, unit symbols, and emblems of national militaries, many of which did not end with a consequential decision. Lately it seems that WP:NOICONS has won out and pictograms like these have been removed. I'd say then that a guideline or an essay might be good to spell it all out, especially for people who aren't familiar with the discussion over the few years. —Ed!^(talk) 15:16, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok. Span (talk) 15:23, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think that the icons, both flags, and ranks are useful quick references to readers who know what they are looking at, but at the same time aren't necessary if a wikilink is provided to the reader. At the same time, I have seen other removes such wikilinks per a reasoning of bullet point two of WP:OVERLINK. So if one is going to be missing, IMHO, the other has to be there.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Support removal/style guideline or essay Perhaps it's because I typically edit articles about subjects that existed in a time where rank insignia was virtually non-existent and, where existing, not of consequence, but I support this removal. I've begun implementing this in my articles at this time, as I believe that firmly in it. Cdtew (talk) 15:51, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:INFOBOXFLAG is clear on flags: "Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text." WP:NOICONS also warns against icons that "convey no additional useful information". In case of combat biogs, icons do not add more than the text could convey. I think it would be useful to make biog insignia and maybe combat unit (etc) icons explicit. Span (talk) 16:32, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be good practice to include anything that has been decided or were consenus has been shown to exist in our guideline for content. Since an editor can start anywhere in wikipedia it might be with a military project article and they could come across our guideline before they hit guidelines on Flag use etc. It would be remiss of us not to mention something that we could have mentioned then rather than quote wiki-wide guidelines against them later. Doesn't have to be a long essay eg (and this is just a suggestion) "per WP:NOICONS and WP:INFOBOXFLAG, unit insignia, medal pictures and nationality flags are not considered to be constructive in Military personnel infoboxes and should not be included" GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree with the suggestion from GraemeLeggett. MilborneOne (talk) 18:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

All: I've put together a quick essay where I'm trying to detail where things stand on different military pictograms in articles, WP:MILICONS. Anyone is welcome to help me put add more information about where the discussion stands on each. —Ed!^(talk) 19:37, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Just thought I would point out that, in a related note, WP:INFOBOXFLAG has been edited so that it expressly permits the use of flags to show allegiance in military biographies. I disagree with that change, and wonder what spurred it. Note User talk:ProudIrishAspie#Flags and infoboxes. Cdtew (talk) 11:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars

I am looking for an opinion for the article I am working on Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars. The historian John Conner writes that Pemulwuys war ended in 1802 with his death and Tedburys War began in 1808-1809. But he doesn't give an opinion on the era of time between these two conflicts. From what I can tell the year 1803 was very peaceful so it certainly ended Pemulwuys campaign, however, beginning in 1804-1805 there was largescale conflict going on. Should I add a fourth war into the list? I don't believe it was a continuation of Pemulwuys war or an early beginning to Tedburys War due to the years of peace between them. And from what I can tell the 1804-1805 conflict was far more bloody than Tedburys war. What's your opinion on this? This site details some of the conflict between 1804-1805: http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/files/hsie/back09a.pdf

My question is should it be considered a seperate conflict given it's own name etc, "Second Dharug War". Or is it just a continuation of the wider conflict?--Collingwood26 (talk) 00:15, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

This is just my opinion, and knowing nothing about the subject (but having read the article to which you linked and finding it fascination), my impulse would be to say that how to title the wars isn't something you or we as an encyclopedia can answer. If you want, probably the best way to handle it would be to describe it "Conflict between 1803 and 1808", or "Violence between the wars". You're dealing with what were essentially quasi-wars and raiding conflicts, anyways, so there may be a legitimate reason they don't have an official name for that period. Doing anything other than that would be OR, and it may even have the effect of influencing later scholars' thoughts on the war. What you wouldn't want is some popular historian citing to your Wikipedia work as the basis for calling it the "Second Dharuq War", which is counter to our purpose. So, that's my unhelpful help. Just describe it, cite to your reliable sources, and move on. Eventually someone in the scholarly world may come up with a name for it, and you can edit it then! Cdtew (talk) 00:10, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok thanks man--Collingwood26 (talk) 00:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Victoria Cross holders photos

Several VC holders' photos are up for deletion at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2013_May_22 -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Rating Articles

Hi. I want to start rating articles. Can someone help with some hand holding to help me understand the difference between Stub and C class? Thanks Gbawden (talk) 09:19, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The Military History C-class (unlike some other projects) is awarded automatically. You'll need to fill in the B-class checklist and if the article fulfills a particular combination of criteria it will be awarded a C-class. (If it fulfills all, it will be awarded B-class.)

On other note, "start" class falls between "stub" and "C". For more information (indeed, a wealth of information relevant to your question), see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:30, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Where do I find the full text for the Project template that includes the B-Class criteria? Is there any checking process to make sure mistakes aren't made? Thanks Gbawden (talk) 09:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

{{WPMILHIST}} gives full details on using the MilHist banner. Criteria info. can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment. There is no formal second-check process, you are free to ask other editors for a second opinion for an article that is tricky to rate, or other editors may change a rating if they disagree with it, or to raise it if the article has been developed. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That answers my question. Will give it a go Gbawden (talk) 10:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Possible non-notable Canadian Army sub-units

Gday. Just came across the fol:

• B Company – The Lorne Scots; and
• C Company – The Lorne Scots

Both are currently active sub-units of The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment), a Canadian Army reserve battalion. Per WP:MILMOS/N and WP:GNG these don't appear to be notable to me and seem like they have been sufficiently covered in the battalion article. Not in any rush to bin them though so I'm interested in other's opinions before I prod. Or should we just redirect? Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I would boldly redirect to The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment). EricSerge (talk) 23:44, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, that is probably the best course of action. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

ditto. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Done this now. Anotherclown (talk) 12:06, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Identifying a WWI mortar

Any idea what type the mortar below is? If it helps, it's crewed by a group of Seaforth Highlanders in a battalion in one of the Indian divisions, July 1915. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

• 
• 

Looks like a Stokes Mortar--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd second Sturmvogel's suggestion. Hchc2009 (talk) 21:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both. I wasn't sure if they'd have arrived that early. Recatted... Andrew Gray (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

...and any idea on this gun, right? Hard to see given the position, unfortunately. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:39, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

looks like an 18-pounder judging from the ammo wagon, the rivets across the top of the basic gunshield and the trail spur. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

May also be a 13pdr at this stage of the war? Very little of the gun visible to compare - the barrel is the non-expert clue. If you knew the unit, it may help someone more expert on WWI artillery to tell. Monstrelet (talk) 07:33, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

August 1915; it's probably a posted photograph with men from an artillery unit in the Indian Corps and my suspicion would be the Meerut Division; we don't have any more precise information than that. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

• And a third - commons:File:A gun in action St Floris, France (Photo 24-169).jpg. This one is helpfully signposted as 8th Battery (13th Brigade), RFA; as it's a regular unit, I'm guessing that makes it an 18-pounder? Andrew Gray (talk) 15:50, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

• • Interestingly, another view from the same photo-session here

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8th-Battery-Royal-Field-Artillery-Doadpore-Troop-gas-masks-WW1-Stereoview-/161009157937?pt=UK_Collectables_Photographs_MJ&hash=item257ce4c731

According to this Orbat (page 2)http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/915BXBA.pdf , 8th battery had 6x18pdr at Neuve Chapelle in March. The same document gives no 13pdrs (all batteries are RFA, not RHA) but some 4.5" howitzers in the Indian Corps. Monstrelet (talk) 17:41, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

That photograph is very interesting. Girdwood (the photographer working for the India Office) also made stereographs for commercial sale through Realistic Travels; I had suspected but never confirmed that he did some of them at the same time. And that's clearly one side of a stereograph :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 18:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Organizing edit-a-thon in Belgium in June, who helps?

On Saturday 29 June there are European edit-a-thon planned in several countries with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it would be great and a good idea to organize an edit-a-thon in Belgium.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the needed ingredients?

• At least two users from Wikipedia being there (I am prepared to)
• A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the neutral point of view, fee license, no original research, mentioning sources. (is available)
• Cheatsheets <Help:Cheatsheet> (can be printed or ordered with a chapter)
• A list of subjects which are missing in a certain language
• Organization with knowledge/library (preferable) or other location, must have internet connection
  • Organization can also publish a press release to attract interested people and people from that organization

Conclusion: the only work is in finding an organization.

What are possible organizations?

• Brussels: Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History < http://www.klm-mra.be/ > in Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels

• Overview of museums: http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Type/WWI_1.htm

I am not aware of other museums/etc, anyone? Another possibility is a university with a history faculty. Which universities have such?

Questions

• Who want to contact organizations in Belgium to ask if they are prepared to participate? (We have a Wikimedia e-mail address if you like: wmbewikimedia.org.)

• Who wants to help out on the day itself to help users edit Wikipedia?

  (You only need to know how to edit Wikipedia and know what a neutral point of view is.)

• Who is willing to help with the rest of the organizing of this edit-a-thon in Belgium? (like creating a list of missing articles about World War I, etc)

For this purpose I have created the page: meta:World War I edit-a-thons/Belgium

Be welcome! Romaine (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Romaine, would be really good to tie this in with the events of WMSE and WMUK listed above! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The first focus is on finding a location to organize it, we have no contacts with organisations yet in this subject. Romaine (talk) 17:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Canadian Forces external sites

I've noticed many of the links for CF units (especially for the Army) go to unit association sites. Now, according to the CF, these are unofficial sites and we really should identify them as such. The reason being is that any official site needs to be bilingual, fully accessible and follow the Government of Canada's common look and feel (yes, we all hate that term). Anyway are you guys okay if I start running through the pages to double check the external links? I'll mark those that are unofficial or to unit associations/societies as such and add the official links when I can. Superfly94 (talk) 18:49, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

That sounds sensible to me. Nick-D (talk) 23:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Level 2 protection

And now for something completely different: I'd like to propose that we add Pending Changes Level 2 (PC2, or just Level 2) page protection to a handful of article pages where we suspect we may be dealing with perpetually counterproductive edits ... but nothing's been proved yet, and we'd prefer not to point a finger at anyone. In my admin work, the golden standard has always been setting up self-selection: a combination of tools and talk-page messages that have the magical effect that the people who would otherwise continue to act badly will leave, but people who are just being difficult from time to time (and who isn't?), or have a different opinion, or don't have all the facts yet, won't be put off. (Achieving "self-selection" sounds hard and is hard, but sometimes it's doable ... it's at least worth a shot.) I want to do this with PC2 for three reasons:

• The RfC on PC2 that closed in September said we needed to have another one within nine months, and the clock is about to run ... with no new useful data yet. (That RfC and a subsequent related RfC gave a little over 50% support ... I opposed, and my opinions haven't changed about the likely effect of unleashing PC2 all over Wikipedia, particularly if we don't have strict and enforceable guidelines.)
• There's been what I regard as a very bad trend over the last ten years on Wikipedia of drawing greater and greater distinctions between the roles of admins and non-admins. There's a lot of ways this can get us into trouble, but just to pick one, a big one: there were years of 300+ and 400+ promotions at RfA; last year we promoted 28. At the moment, we've got the best of both worlds: the "bad apples" who were promoted back then have left or were demoted, and we're still left with a lot of very active, very good admins from those days, plus the few admins we're promoting these days. The problem is that, although a lot of good article writers seem to keep writing forever, admin work is not generally considered as rewarding as that, and we lose a significant chunk of the active admins every year. When we get to the point where promotions are replacing losses, which has to happen eventually, we won't have enough people doing the bulk of the admin work unless something changes ... and we've tried pretty much everything at this point. To clarify, it's not my opinion (and I wouldn't say if it were, since I'm active as a closer on these questions) that we need to promote a certain number of admins or need to hand out tools to non-admins. It definitely is my opinion that we need to be involving and educating more Wikipedians in the work that needs to be done ... that's the only way the work will get done, and the only way we'll get a steady supply of future admins.
• The Foundation Jimmy Wales thinks we need more of ... something; he wouldn't have been making noises about intervening in the RfA process in December if he didn't. The next time he talks about intervening, I think it would be a very good idea if we had a track record of training people with tool use, and a series of RfCs and experiments we can point to, to indicate what the community does and doesn't want, and what will and won't work. Right now, all we've got is a long string of "no-consensus" RfCs. I'm in favor of any kind of experimentation likely to help ... but most of the RfCs have shown that a lot of Wikipedians regard the actual final decisions on deletion and blocking as "nuclear" options, best left to people who can pass RfAs. If I had any other tool besides PC2 to experiment with, I would, but it's the only suitable "non-nuclear" tool currently active, even if it's not a very popular one. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oops, should probably say what it does :) Level 2 protection on an article (usually) allows anyone to edit the article, but only people either logged in or editing the article will see the current version of the article ... all other readers see the old version of the article until a "reviewer" okay's all the recent edits (and it's easy to become a reviewer, see WP:RFPERM). This leaves a lot of unanswered questions, obviously, but let's see whether people are on board first. - Dank (push to talk) 20:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

  W/ regards to Jimmy Wales, Jimmy frequently does things independent of the Foundation. His only official role there is of a board member. I wouldn't take his opinions and actions as indicative of a Foundation mandate. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  As editor of the Signpost, Ed has a good feel for these things, so I've substituted "Jimmy" for "the Foundation" above. - Dank (push to talk) 02:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

See here Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2013 -- PBS (talk) 15:23, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. Dank, I followed this discussion previously, and I am in favor of using PC2 as a method of halting certain "cyclical edits". For instance, look at the history of Seven Years War. About once a day, but most times more than that, an IP editor will change the start date from 1756 to 1754 or to another year of their choosing (of course compounded by the fact that the 7YW is a very confusing grouping of marginally-related conflicts). This has resulted in extensive discussion on the talk page, where some editors are attempting to reach a consensus, but of course IP users don't read talk pages. Anyways, just one example of where I think PC2 would give the consensus-building process room to breathe. Cdtew (talk) 20:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
2. Support If the concept's going to be tested, it makes sense to test it in one of the more stable projects with articles that can be easily identified as needing that sort of protection. Intothatdarkness 20:15, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
3. Self-support. :) I just want to be clear, even though I'm being kind of negative above and have been critical in the past, that I'm not just floating this so we can cross it off the list ... I actually want it to succeed, and I'm willing to give it a fair chance to meet a limited set of goals. - Dank (push to talk) 20:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
4. Support: I am all for Pending Changes to prevent unhelpful or incorrect drive-by edits that have to be reverted. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:15, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
5. Support. I think this is a good way to go in order to prevent seemingly incessant disruptions. Also, here's a link to the table that includes PC L2 since it is not displayed in the table on WP:PC, template:Pending changes table. — -dainomite   00:20, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
6. Strong Support I've been up close and personal with disruptive edits recently. And in the same situation, learned that posting at ANI can die a quiet death of apathy, rather than any kind of decisive attention. Looking at the template Dainomite provided right above, I'd strongly support level 2 with Semi-protection. The more muscle we can get over here to cut out disruptive editing, the better. — Maile (talk) 01:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
7. Support – Can think of a few examples where daily vandalism and fly-by sub-standard editing is frequent and no page protection exists to aid editors in having to exhaustively double-check every anonymous edit in case it's another bad edit. Have requested (and been approved) reviewer rights also, if it helps increase productivity, as am already a rollbacker and file mover. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 03:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

   Comment – With regards Pending Changes, is it applied only after consideration of the edit history by a sysop, with admins and Reviewers then being responsible for performing review checks, or are there other user groups who are able to apply PC without having to go through an admin to apply it? Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 04:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

   I would assume the former. Only administrators can add pending changes to an article. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

8. Support Where I edit this really is needed. I am a reviewer and rollbacker and would be glad to help out. I am regularly requesting semi on articles that are subject to ongoing disruption. Even outside the Balkans MILHIST articles, there is a permanent level of disruption and vandalism on Anzac Day (for example) for various reasons, including the issue of ANZAC vs Anzac, among other things. Would this be supported by a project-level pending changes list to simplify reviewing? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

   Absolutely. There will be a project list, and "classes", and we'll stay vigilant. - Dank (push to talk) 04:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

9. Support J. Robert Oppenheimer had to be protected again today Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
10. Support A sensible move. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
11. Support with qualifications It is too easy for such protection to be implemented and then left in place when it is no longer needed. I would support this measure providing that it can be shown that there is a need for it. This is best done by limiting the length of time that such protection is in place (perhaps with an extension to the length each time it is reimposed). Also some articles may not need protection all year long because vandalism is annual (linked to the introduction of the study of an historical period in schools -- for example it seems to me that the article English Civil War is vandalised most often in the autumn). Also at a procedural level this solution should not be used if other users or members another project objects, the military history project does not own articles. Before implementation, agreement should be sought on the talk page, and all the projects listed at the top of the talk page should be informed of the discussion. -- PBS (talk) 11:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
12. Support I've applied pending changes to a few articles on the militaries of developing countries which attract a high volume of vandalism from IP accounts (typically fiddling with various numbers, especially in relation to military hardware), and this is working well. I'd encourage other admins to use this tool in similar circumstances. Nick-D (talk) 05:27, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
13. Support. I am firmly in the camp of making Wikipedia more of a work of experts than a playground for vandals or a battlefield for activists. Any program that moves toward that goal is a good step. Binksternet (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
14. Support. I don't watch that many pages in on this project, but I amazed at how often the Battles of Saratoga page is vandalized, mostly it seems by students. Some things just need to be protected for the long term, especially when there are unlikely to be any new discoveries of source data.Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 16:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
15. Support. I am getting tired of drive-by edits. Hamish59 (talk) 11:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
16. Strong Support. I am tired of spending my time that I could be using writing articles just keeping up with the vandalism on articles that I have contributed to in the past. Cuprum17 (talk) 18:57, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Bowing out

At this point, I'm afraid I have to bow out ... because we have so few volunteers to close RfA-related RfCs, I need to remain eligible for closing RfCs that concern the relevance of Level 2 to RfA and tool use generally, which means I can't be involved in implementation. There have been extensive discussions on possible upsides and downsides, which you can find at WP:PC2012 and WT:PC2012 (along with discussions of Level 1), WP:Administrators' noticeboard/PC2 for Mangoeater targets, and recently at WT:Protected Page Editor (but for an unrelated purpose). Reviewers don't have to read all of that, of course; hopefully you can come up with short guidelines on proper use. I think I can give you the bottom line: given the drama-fest at WP:RFA, and because Level 1 reviewing was intended to be a fairly easy job, there was no support for a formal vetting process for reviewers ... and if you check the history of the "Reviewer" subsection at WP:RFPERM, you'll see that (at least in the early days, and probably still) it was easy to become a reviewer. The main problem (for the opposers in those discussions) is that Level 2 is a serious tool, and if we've learned one thing from the 10 years of RfA, it's that Wikipedians regard inconsistent, untrained or biased use of a tool ... or even use of a tool in a subject in which you're involved ... as a very big deal. It's likely that some reviewers won't get this, and those that don't should have the userright removed (with as little drama as possible), even though it's just a trial. I'm glad you guys have decided (so far) to give this a shot; I think it's worth a try. - Dank (push to talk) 20:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so progress seems to have come to a halt. There's one more RfC I want to close ... I'll see what we can do in a week on that one, then if help is still needed here, I'll come back and help. - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

New RfC on PC Level 2

Note that there's a new RfC on Level 2. It's got a watchlist notice, so it will probably be a big RfC, and that means it will to some degree supersede opinions here, so that's the best place to discuss it and vote. - Dank (push to talk) 13:33, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Asensio Nebot "The Friar"

This probably needs some serious copyediting. It has phrases like "he has not received the recognition that he deserves". 76.7.238.180 (talk) 15:35, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, anyone? 76.7.238.180 (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

German military technology during World War II article

I just stumbled across the German military technology during World War II article, and if anyone is looking for an opportunity to develop an article on an important topic from scratch it would be a great opportunity - the current material is not at all useful, and lacks references. Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

There's also American Military Technology During WWII which at the moment is a complete dog's breakfast ranging from gas masks to the atomic bomb. NtheP (talk) 10:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Trouble at Claude Eatherly, B-29 pilot

Objective eyes would be useful at Claude Eatherly. An IP editor from Denver is bringing in text which emphasizes Eatherly's later troubles. Binksternet (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:WW2InfoBox

There is a request for some input on dates that are to be seen/or not seen at Template talk:WW2InfoBox#Moving forward. Thank you for your time. Moxy (talk) 00:27, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Dispute at Talk:Battle of Passchendaele

Some fresh eyes would be welcome at the subject talkpage. Dispute has focused on whether or not the article infobox list of combatants should include an enumeration of the dominions involved or whether they should be shown only as generic "British". By extension, the same arguments could be said to apply at World War I and many individual battle articles. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:20, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

In remembrance

RightCowLeftCoast (talk) is wishing you a Happy Memorial Day! On this day, we recognize our fellow countrymen who have fought our nation's battles for the past several hundred years, protecting our freedom and safety. We remember those who paid the ultimate price and we support those who continue to willingly sacrifice their safety for the sake of their country. Happy Memorial Day!

Share this message by adding {{subst:Memorial Day}} to a fellow American's talk page.

For all those whom have served and fallen in that service, especially for Sergeant Robert P Lemiszki Jr. whom no longer graces us with their presence in our Wikiproject. I ask others to join me in remembering Lemiszki and others today.

For love of country they accepted death...

— James A. Garfield

Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden.

— Ronald Reagan

To honor, we must remember.

— William J. Clinton

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

MOS: Discussion regarding the use of "she" to refer to ships

There is a new Manual of Style talk page discussion that questions the practice of referring to commercial and naval vessels as "she" and "her" taking place here. One or more editors have proposed a change to the Manual of Style which would require the use of the gender-neutral pronoun "it" when referring to vessels. Please take the time to express your opinion on this matter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

New Article

Can someone cast an eye over American Military Technology During WWII please? Its a new unreviewed article. Surely its a duplicate? Should it stay or should it go? Gbawden (talk) 11:11, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Bad grammar, references to forums, Plethora Of Capitalization - it starts off with problems, don't know if forking is one of them. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:28, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

It's an important topic, but the current article is not at all useful (though it's obviously been written in good faith). It would be a fascinating topic to develop if anyone is interested. Nick-D (talk) 11:51, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I did a bit of tidying and moved the article to "American military technology during World War II". There is plenty of scope for expansion, though, if anyone is keen. Not really a topic in which I have much expertise though, sorry. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:44, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This article could be a book. It's way too broad of a subject to be encompassed in a single Wikipedia article. Bwmoll3 (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Help request: started Donovan Berlin article

Can a registered user here do me a favor? I started an article about Donovan Berlin, designer of the P-36 and P-40. Since I'm not registered, I need someone to move it from the Donovan Berlin talk page to its article page. Thanks for your help. --108.45.72.196 (talk) 22:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, this has been taken care of by member Malke. --108.45.72.196 (talk) 02:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Country X in War Y infobox ?

Belgium in World War II

Fundamentals
Start of belligerency	10 May 1940
End of belligerency	3 September 1945
Allegiance	Neutral 1939-40 Allies 1940-45
Casualties and losses
1939 Population	8,387,000
Civilian losses	75,900
Military losses	12,100
Total losses	88,000
Per capita loss	1.05%
Cost of war	8% of 1940 GDP

There are infoboxes for articles about wars themselves, but I haven't seen one for the style of article that describes a country's experience in a particular war (such as Belgium in World War II). I've put together this one as a basic example. Two things: Is anyone aware of an infobox of this kind that already exists; and, what would be useful information to have in such an infobox to summarize a national experience during a particular war? Thanks, W. B. Wilson (talk) 06:40, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Something like this would be a useful infobox. Infobox:operational plan has been successfully used for this purpose at Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War, but it's a bit of a kludge. Nick-D (talk) 23:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd just say that I think the "Allegiance" field is unhelpful. Just using the example of Belgium, between 1940 and 1944, it was both Axis and Allied, making it both confusing and POV to chose between them. Even for a non-officially aligned country with citizens fighting on a different side of the conflict becomes confusing and risks oversimplifying at first glance. That said, I'd certainly support an infobox to be used within the appropriate section of an article (though not at the top as usual) along the lines of this one here, but just with the casualties presented... I believe the rest is just too difficult to present clearly.Brigade Piron (talk) 14:17, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I could see where "allegiance" could get complicated; but in Belgium's case I'd say the allegiance of the legitimate government was firmly in the Allied camp from 10 May 1940 forward. The SS volunteers hardly represented the intent of any government other than that of Nazi Germany. The day to day activities of the bureaucrats in occupied Belgium didn't make the country a member of the Axis camp any more than the laissez-faire attitude of the Danish authorities made Denmark a member of the Axis during the first half of the war. (Although some indication in the infobox of a country having been defeated and occupied would be key information about its experience in a war.) Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 18:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I think having the basic facts of a country's participation in a war would be useful. I know the dates for the U.S. in World War II, but for other countries like Romania, I'd have to take a wild guess. I think more complicated aspects like allegiance could be handled, although the infobox would have to be more sophisticated. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 18:54, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I've made a massive edit to an American template. Thoughts?

I've recently edited the US enlisted ranks template to include all insignias and the seals of each branch. This was an addition of 3,934 characters. A before and after comparison can be found here. Soffredo (talk) 01:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

(I originally posted this to WikiProject USA. Kumioko suggested that I posted it here.)

Not bad IMHO, but I can see the argument of adding the images now by those who support their decreased usage, or removal altogether outside of the article specifically about the rank.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:56, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

New WWI photo collection

Some of you may have deduced this from the questions about identifying mortars etc. above, but I've recently put a moderately large (350 image) collection of quasi-official WWI photographs onto Commons:

• details
• category

They mostly cover the Indian Expeditionary Force in July-September 1915, with some additional shots of British units (mostly those serving in the Indian divisions). There are some rear-area photos, some staged "combat" photography, and some authentic front-line images (though these are tricky to identify). A large number can be identified down to regimental level. Hope they're of some use! Andrew Gray (talk) 21:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

File:20th Intelligence Squadron.png

This image is nominated for deletion. The image is listed as

, but Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1982) [1969]. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-405-12194-6. LCCN 70605402. OCLC 72556. indicates the government does not hold the copyright and it is published there with permission of Warner Brothers. If anyone can contribute to keeping this, it would be appreciated.--Lineagegeek (talk) 21:38, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

June backlog reduction drive is about to begin

Hello all. Just a reminder that the June 2013 backlog reduction drive is about to start. For those mbrs of the project looking for a way of contributing to the encyclopaedia pls consider signing up. Anotherclown (talk) 12:32, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to clear this up: That's in less than nine about ten hours hours time, right?--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought it began on June 1? In 10 hours' time (UTC) it will only be May 31. Cdtew (talk) 15:00, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, the project page says "The drive starts at 00:00 UTC on 31 May..." and I have no definite idea if that's midnight tonight or tomorrow night. Not really significant, just wondering.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:52, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, well I guess I need clarification too...so the June backlog drive begins in May? Must be to give an unfair competitive advantage to all these Aussies...(kidding!) Cdtew (talk) 20:36, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Quick question: If I improve a stub to B-class, would it count in the contest? (Or does this only cover start and C-class articles?) Wild Wolf (talk) 15:41, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that it only covers start and C-class articles. You could list the others in the monthly contest. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:21, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Another question, I just improved HMS Woolwich (F80) to B-class, but I failed to notice that it wasn't even tagged for MilHist, only WP:Ships. So I presume that it's not eligible for the contest?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry gents, I agree that timing is confusing ("0:00" isn't used in many militaries for this very reason). I copied and pasted from the last drive without checking - self administering upper cut. Will amend immediately. Anotherclown (talk) 03:28, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Benghazi attack

Benghazi attack is currently being discussed at talk: 2012 Benghazi attack. It occurs to me, that we are missing a disambiguation page, considering the various attacks concerning Benghazi over the decades. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:09, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Operation Normandy in the Signpost

Hi all, just a reminder that WP:OPNORMANDY is going to be featured in the Signpost next week. The questions are here, and I encourage members to go answer them! Thanks, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

SGT Hollie Chapman

Found a unreferenced article on what doesn't appear to be a notable US soldier. So I've AFD'd it (discussion here) GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:03, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak‎;

I have been slowly working on the article Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak‎, but have reached a point where I need some advice. The article is now becoming rather lengthy and I would like to split it into two, one titled Japanese occupation of Malaya and the other titled Japanese occupation of northern Borneo. The reason for doing so is to keep the article manageable and readable.

As to the title of the second article, the Japanese occupied and managed Sarawak, Brunei, Labuan, and British North Borneo under a single IJA command. The southern portion of Borneo, formerly Dutch, was administered seperately by the IJN. From the perspective of writing about the occupation much of the information overlaps the national boundaries and combining it into a discussion of the area a whole would be both more logical and easier to write about.

Do any of you have any thoughts or guidance for me on the above. NealeFamily (talk) 03:03, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Was there anything very important that more relates the administration of two territories, say Malaya and North Borneo, that does not apply to others? If not, information that overlaps fits in an overview of Japanese occupation. That said, there's no problem with it duplicating somewhat on more specific articles, which must after all stand-alone. The split makes sense to me. CMD (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Apart from both area's falling within present day Malaysia (Brunei excluded) and both being occupied by the Japanese, there is sufficient to differentiate them. Northern Borneo was important to Japan's war effort particularly because of oil. The military units occupying the country were different and nature of the occupation - while similar in some aspects is different in others. Allied prisoners were kept in camps in northern Borneo, while those from the Malayan peninsula were kept at Singapore. Liberation of northern Borneo began with an Allied invasion, whereas the peninsula was only liberated on the Japanese surrender. NealeFamily (talk) 05:46, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Even if you split them, it wouldn't be hard to recreate the overview article if it becomes desirable at any point. CMD (talk) 10:39, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks CMD - I'll wait a few days before doing so, in case anyone else wishes to comment. NealeFamily (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion is continuing on the articles talk page.NealeFamily (talk) 00:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Rape during the liberation of France

I've raised concerns over the neutrality of this article and the relevance of some of its content, but the editor responsible for writing it appears to prefer to edit war than discuss these issues. Views from other editors would be appreciated. Nick-D (talk) 02:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

There are significant copyvio/plagiarism issues with the article as well - much of it is copied from the news articles it cites. It'll probably need to be nuked and recreated. Parsecboy (talk) 03:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for bring this to my intention. I am concerned regarding the article's creator, as he appears to be engaged in advocacy, as he/she stated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prostitutes in South Korea for the U.S. military:

I want public and medias to know from the article, what only their voice could turn the bureaucrats cold hearts.

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

As the AfD has failed, I am staring a discussion how to fix POV issues in the article, please see Talk:Prostitutes in South Korea for the U.S. military#POV issue.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a shame it can't be pulled from mainspace and relegated to a sandbox until it's in something close to reasonable shape. Intothatdarkness 19:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Urban warfare

The article urban warfare is in need of an overhaul. There is currently a section called Close-quarters battle which does not have one citation despite requests for them being present for months. I have placed links to a third party article on the talk page in a section called Second Battle of Fallujah that could be used to create an section similar to the others in the article such as the section called First Chechen War, but I would prefer it if someone who knows more about Second Fallujah and or urban warfare and has more interest than I were to write it. -- PBS (talk) 14:04, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Peer review: Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin

I am seeking assistance from members of the project in reviewing the GA "Hungarian conquest of the Carpathians Basin". I think this article could be further developed with your involvement. Thank you for assistance. Borsoka (talk) 03:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

WWI event - British Library, London

Following on from last year's WWI editathon at the British Library, we've organised another one for 29 June. We're aiming to make some of the newly-scanned (and public-domain!) Europeana books available on the day - this is several thousand volumes of history, contemporary politics, official documents, etc. They're going to be published online, but not until either late 2013 or early 2014, so this is a chance to work with them early.

(The exact list of material that will be available is still in flux - I'm trying to nail it down - but should include a significant number of unit histories, among other things.)

There'll be a public talk introducing the collection in the morning, followed by an afternoon session where people will be able to get copies of some of the material and work with it - writing articles, datamining, cropping images for Commons, or anything else. All welcome - Wikipedians or not. Please sign up if you're interested! Andrew Gray (talk) 23:12, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Looking for help citing the following

Hi,

I am working towards overall improvements to the Treaty of Versailles article. The following is from the territorial changes section. I have not been able to find any information that backs it up, yet it does not seem prudent to just delete it since it does add some background context. Can anyone confirm if the overall points are correct and at the same time provide some inline citations to support the paragraph?

"Germany′s borders in 1919 had been established nearly 50 years earlier, at the country′s official establishment in 1871. Territory and cities in the region had changed hands repeatedly for centuries, including at various times being owned by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Poland, and Kingdom of Lithuania. However, Germany laid claim to lands and cities that it viewed as historically "Germanic" centuries before Germany′s establishment as a country in 1871. Other countries disputed Germany′s claim to this territory. In the peace treaty, Germany agreed to return disputed lands and cities to various countries."

Regards,EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 21:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I would think that any history of the Thirty Years' War would give support to Sweden (Pomerania) and Poland (Silesia). For other Polish holdings incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, the same would apply to a history of the Seven Years' War.

I have concerns about "owned" in this statement, as well as using the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1848 to 1871 would be the applicable dates) rather than Austria (being wishy washy to include the period before 1801 when Austria upgraded from archduchy to empire). You can see, too by the redirect that there really wasn't an "Austro-Hungarian Empire". The nation was comprised of the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary). I have similar concerns in using Lithuania as opposed to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. My understanding is that East Prussia was held in fief from Poland, not Lithuania, and the Baltic Lands held by the Teutonic Knights were not within the 1919 German borders. There also seem to be omissions associated with border adjustments in the upper and lower Rhine areas. The grammar's bad, too and the scare quotes around Germanic strike me as POV.--Lineagegeek (talk) 22:09, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips in regards in ways to tweak the text, there are numerous problems like that throughout the article. Although I think I have removed most as I have worked my way through the my draft of the article. I shall see what I can find in the next few days regarding your research tips. EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 04:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the day

Can someone help me write a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_dos_de_mayo_de_1808_en_Madrid.jpg caption for a picture of the day blurb? Reiftyr (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

That image (File:El dos de mayo de 1808 en Madrid.jpg) is used in several articles. I suggest either use the Lead from The Second of May 1808 or the caption with that image in The Third of May 1808. Maybe some text from both if you can fit it together. -Fnlayson (talk) 01:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Just creat it in Template:POTD/2013-06-23. Any suggestion and enhancement are welcome. And I'm in doubt to primary link it to The Second of May 1808 or Dos de Mayo Uprising. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reiftyr (talk • contribs) 07:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Notification of a TFA nomination

History of Gibraltar has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article on 13 July to mark the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. If you have any views, please comment at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. Prioryman (talk) 12:05, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Guild of Copy Editors June blitz

Hi everybody. I wanted to let you know that the GOCE is going to be running a copy editing blitz from June 16–22, during which we're going to try to {{copy edit}} as many tagged Military History articles as possible. If anyone here is interested, you're welcome to sign up and help us try to clear out all 85 such tagged articles. Thanks. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 12:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Cooperative WikiProject

WikiProject Globalization, with assistance from Outlines WikiProject, has drafted an Outline of globalization. We welcome your input, additions, and comments. Meclee (talk) 17:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

American Civil War Assessment in WikiProject United States

Recently, I've been in discussion with another user concerning the assessment of the "American Civil War" and it's assessment which is in WikiProject United States. Of course this user is not having the assessment included, he has been collaborating with other users which remain unknown to me. I am here to see if this assessment should be assessed since it involves WikiProject Military History and it's subgroup "American Civil War". This is up for discussion. Adamdaley (talk) 01:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I think I am the other user he is referring too so I just wanted to add a couple comments. I am in the process of removing the categories and the parameters for the ACW/ARW/USMIL importance so those won't be a problem in the next couple days (assuming someone with admin rights implements the changes to Template:WikiProject United States I have done in the sandbox since I certainly cannot be trusted with such an important tool).

With regards to the assessment cats my apologies for making extra work for your project. That was not my intent and the assessment shouldn't be needed for the WPUS project banner, just the WPMILHIST one. The WPUS banner doesn't have logic to support the b-class assessment so I don't know why that would even be an issue. If it would be better, I could change the importance categories for the WPUS template to something else so that it doesn't conflict with yours. I suppose we could also add functionality to the WPUS template for the B-class checklist as well but I would prefer not doing that just for one or 2 projects. Even if they are very active that still leaves a lot of others that aren't so active. As I mentioned to Adam, my intention was not to make more work for this project, I had the naive hopes that more would be interested in collaborating with the WPUS project but unfortunately that was a huge failed assumption on y part. Just let me know what you would like me to do. Kumioko (talk) 03:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess no one else has anything to add? I thought I would at least opening it up for discussion to get other people's opinion, thoughts and whatever else. Adamdaley (talk) 04:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm kinda surprised myself no one else had anything to add. Kumioko (talk) 16:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I read this thread sometime after it was posted, and it made absolutely no sense to me. Clearly there has been a discussion elsewhere, between you two, but Adam's OP did not really provide any background or context that helps make sense of the issue. If no one else has commented, perhaps they had similar trouble deciphering what kind of opinion is being asked for. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 18:36, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

What I was trying to say that articles that were related to the American Civil War, could also be assessed (importance, Low, etc) with within WikiProject United States, which back when was part of our subgroup "American Civil War". Something has clearly been done with this "importance" of American Civil War. (I don't know how many other users who were aware of this assessment, but I have known about it for a long time, a couple of years). Now it seems there has been a slight change with this importance assessment and the American Civil War Table that is assessed on our subpage, to not include the importance. Doesn't matter. Not many people understand or get what I mean anyway. Only matters that I understand what I mean. Adamdaley (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Robert Fry article should be deleted!

Is every general notable? Why this guy?!Da5id403 (talk) 23:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:MILPEOPLE gives guidance on the notability of military people. Dormskirk (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

They're all notable. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:08, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Just a thought, Mr. Da5id403's complaint may have something to do with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Ray Fry. See User talk:Da5id403#Request for Comment on Afd: Robert Fry (Serial killer). It's not apparent that there's anything illicit about the connection, just pointing it out. Cdtew (talk) 00:20, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I noticed the connection too. The title of this post certainly isn't neutral! - BilCat (talk) 03:37, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Help me name this article: Convergence pattern or the harmonization of fighter guns

I started the article Convergence pattern but it could be named any one of a handful of terms such as convergence zone, convergence point, boresight point or gun harmonization. The topic is the practice of aiming a fighter's wing guns to converge some several hundred yards ahead of the airplane. What do you think it should be called?

Note that Convergence zone is about weather, but the term is used more widely, notably sonar and aerial gunnery. Perhaps there should be a disambiguation page there, with the reader directed to one of several topics.

Please feel free to improve this new article. Binksternet (talk) 07:48, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Since you're talking about the process, & not (strictly) the point of aim, I'd say "harmonization". Good idea for a page, whatever it's called. :D Rupert Giles ^{oh, Jack...} 09:03, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Would suggest trying to stay away from 'convergence zone' in addition, as it is also used in regard to the acoustics of submarine sonars (cf Hunt for Red October and others are examples). Buckshot06 (talk) 23:10, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

"Harmonising" (or "harmonization", that's fine) is the term I've seen most often in connection with this subject. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like harmonizing/harmonising has the most support. Does anyone know which group was the first to consider this problem? Perhaps the article should change from its US English style to UK English, if the first 'harmonisers' were European. Binksternet (talk) 04:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Given Flight was still using "harmonization" (though not without also using "harmonisation") into the 1960s, I hav no problem with the older (British) English spelling being used. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• I have moved the article to Gun harmonisation; now it will be in UK English. Thanks for all of your feedback! Binksternet (talk) 15:19, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Oceanian Theatre or Australian Theatre?

I am planning on creating a new page about the WW2 Oceanian Theatre which is largely ignored, but should it instead be named as the Australian Theatre similiar to the American Theatre?--Collingwood26 (talk) 11:44, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't the South West Pacific theatre of World War II already exist as an over-article for what happened in the Oceania region during WWII? If not, what articles and events would potentially be covered under such an article? As far as I'm aware, there is no "Oceanian" or "Australian" theatre detailed by sources that is distinct from the South West Pacific theatre, or its contained campaigns (such as the Phillipines or New Guinea campaigns): the closest I've seen is the modern linking of fairly unrelated events into a "battle for Australia". -- saberwyn 12:18, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I've not heard of such terms being used either. Are there references in WP:RS that cover the events of this period in such a manner? If not IMO the current articles in this area are probably sufficient. Anotherclown (talk) 12:24, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for my revert of your edit to South-East Asian theatre of World War II it was a mistake. I was thinking of the theatre under South East Asia Command not earlier under the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command.

There are a number of articles about the region during World War II most of them in the following category:

• Category:Pacific theatre of World War II

See specifically:

• South-East Asian theatre of World War II, American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, South East Asia Command
• Indian Ocean raid
• South West Pacific theatre of World War II South West Pacific Area
• There are also lots of individual battle articles.

What exactly do you mean by "WW2 Oceanian Theatre" and under which command did it come? -- PBS (talk) 12:29, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Collingwood26 has created this article at Australian Theater (1940-45). I've read very extensively on Australian military history during World War II, and have never seen the term 'Australian theatre', not 'Oceanian Theatre' or anything similar. From memory, the modern Australian Defence Force had an 'Australian Theatre' headquarters at some stage of the 1980s and/or 1990s, but this was a new formation based on the modern concept of 'joint' operations. Historians generally emphasis the fairly complicated Allied chain of command in the region during World War II, with MacArthur's South West Pacific Command being the most important headquarters (the fighting in the region of Australia from 1942 onwards is normally covered in this context). There were also major discontinuities between the various attacks on ships in Australian waters and bombing raids on airfields and towns in the north of the country, and care needs to be taken when lumping them together (for instance, the first, and largest, Japanese air raid on Darwin was actually an extension of the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, and not part of a campaign against Australia per-se, and the submarine campaign against the Australian east coast in 1942 and 1943 was an extension of the New Guinea Campaign). It seems better to expand the existing Attacks on Australia during World War II article rather than create an article with a questionable title, and most content should probably be in either the underdeveloped Air raids on Australia, 1942–43 or FA-level Axis naval activity in Australian waters article. Nick-D (talk) 01:09, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't want people promoting the idea that there was a de jure Australian Theatre except in 1996-2004 (and why is it using American spelling?) Do you want to create an AfD or should I? Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:56, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok here is my problem with what you are saying, if there was no Australian Theater of war then HOW ON EARTH can there be justification for the similarly named article American Theater???? As far as I'm concerned there were no real attacks made against America in WW2, Australia on the other hand has well documented naval and aerial battles that took place in Australia. So tell me if yoou want to get rid of my article than you are a hypocrite unless you remove the American one as well!!!--Collingwood26 (talk) 02:59, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Um, Collingwood, no need to get defensive here -- I'm pretty sure both Nick and Hawkeye are Aussies themselves. Regardless, the existence of an article similar to the one you'd like to make isn't dispositive as to whether a new article should be created. There are articles created every day on Wikipedia that likely shouldn't be standalone articles, and instead should be redirects, combined with other articles, or just plain deleted. Cdtew (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The US military established an actual 'American Theater' during the war, and this continues to be used to classify the region by historians when discussing military deployments and operations (see [6] and [7], for instance). There was not an equivalent 'theater' around Australia (which formed part of the South West Pacific Area once it was established in 1942, with there being no single command structure before this time - the RAN, Army and RAAF each had their own military districts, with the Navy's Australia Station forming part of the British system of command zones), and post-war historians have not used the term 'Australian Theatre' as far as I'm aware. Nick-D (talk) 03:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

And the battles in this "American Theater" were what??? The Great LA Raid?? No one even died in that.. The Fire Balloon attacks?? Merely started a forest fire... My point is that you are making it seem like the American Theater was of more importance than what was going on in Australia, "The Australian Theater". I remember when I tried to add information to the Battle for Australia page and you refused citing the fact that it is a historiographical term. BY THAT LOGIC SO THE AMERICAN THEATER WAS A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL TERM AS WELL AS NO BATTLES TOOK PLACE THERE.--Collingwood26 (talk) 03:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

No answer huh??--Collingwood26 (talk) 05:22, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

To quote Sgt. Hulka from the movie Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis". People have real life things to do that may prevent a response within two hours. Besides what you're trying to do is WP:OR, whereas the US military has an official "American Theater" for World War II with a battle honor and everything. Whatever your opinion of that, it's an established fact whereas your proposed Australian Theater exists nowhere outside your head. If I'm wrong about that, please provide links to reliable sources that say otherwise.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Given that last time I was in a discussion with you on a topic related to this you also abused me and were blocked, I don't propose to continue this discussion - I was hopeful that you'd calmed down on the basis of your recent editing, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Nick-D (talk) 06:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

As an Australian, I've also never heard of an "Australian Theatre". I always thought the "South-West Pacific Theatre" covered the lot, as it is synonymous with the South West Pacific Area command of MacArthur, with the Allied sea, land and air commands below him. The "American Theatre" comparison is, with respect, an WP:OTHERSTUFF argument. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:00, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Nick I apologised for that already??? Are you still going on about that??? Now answer my question--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:01, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Rather than go on about Nick seemingly not wanting to answer you, how about you address Sturm's request to "please provide links to reliable sources that say [Oceanian Theatre or Australian Theatre]"? That would finish this even quicker. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:09, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I will as soon as you give me references that talk of an American Theater, then we can discuss--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:11, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• 1, 2, or most anything here. Your turn. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Collingwood26 your comments above really aren't helping your cause. Clearly there are refs to support the fact that the term "American Theater" is valid but of course that is largely irrelevant anyway. You proposed, and then created, an article against consensus about a topic that is already covered in other articles, using a name that no other editor has heard of (including quite a few fairly experienced Australian editors). You need to provide sources to support this or accept the fact that this article's lifespan is limited. Anotherclown (talk) 07:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Great to see another member who actually WANTS to debate this. Thankyou! Regarding those two links, both do reference the "American Theater" HOWEVER, no recorded battles took place in America, nor any major attacks. The Atlantic war wasn't aimed at America but more to stop the shipping lines to Britain to starve them out. And on the West coast of America the only real attack was a bunch of fire balloons which caused little to no damage. What does this mean??

• It means that the so called "American Theater" is a HISTORIOGRAPHICAL term. (Meaning they percieved a threat but no threat eventuated)

--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:26, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

And the term you are promoting? Sources, please? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Collingwood26. Why do you keep raising the issue of the American Theater when this discussion is about the supposed existence of an Australian Theatre? Again pls provide refs to show this term has been used in reliable sources (this is the third time I have asked this now). Has any historian used this term? It doesn't seem that way at the moment . Anotherclown (talk) 07:36, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Australian Theater nominated for deletion here. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't swear at me again Crisco, I am not promoting any term. If the "Battle for Australia" is considered historiographical (Battle for Australia is the basis for "Australian Theater")

• Even though recorded attacks occurred and aerial battles

• And if my article is flagged for deletion because it means it is HYPOCRITICAL to also not delete the "American Theater" Because no attacks or battles occurred in the American Theater and attacks and battles occurred in the Australian Theater.
• See my point?--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:38, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Collingwood, just where has Crisco sworn at you? You made the same accusation at your talk page and I saw no evidence of it there either -- please enlighten us. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:47, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Anotherclown do you not understand what I'm saying?? If the Australian Theater is considered historiographical even though battles and attacks occurred there then it is hypocritical for the American theater to also not be considered historiographical because NO attacks or battles were fought there!!--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

To be honest no I do not. As has already been explained this argument is not a valid one. You have basically admitted that the term "Australian Theatre" is OR. No one is disputing that fighting occurred in Australian airspace and territorial waters during this period (and these events are already covered elsewhere), what is being disputed is the use of the term "Australian Theatre" to describe these events. Unless this term was used officially at the time or has been used since by historians in reliable sources (as "American Theater" clearly was and is) this has to go. We can't make terms up just because there is a similar name used for another article. Its really that simple. Anotherclown (talk) 07:54, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep completely agree with that statement anotherclown, and understand what you are saying. BUT would it not be hypocritical to not delete the American Theater too?--Collingwood26 (talk) 08:06, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

No, because the existence of an "American Theater" is supported by RS and an "Australian Theatre" is not (it is irrelevant how much fighting actually occurred, the only thing that matters is that the term is used in RS). That is the basis of Wikipedia. Anotherclown (talk) 08:12, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

But without any evidence of real conflict in America means that the so called "American Theater" is histriographical, is it not?--Collingwood26 (talk) 08:15, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm not going to discuss this any further. I have tried to help you understand but I'm not going to keep going around in circles. I've said everything I want to say. Pls re-read the discussion above if its still not clear. Anotherclown (talk) 08:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Based on how Collingwood keeps going back to the American Theater without actually responding to other concerns, it feels as if this who dispute is just to get the American Theater article deleted. Which, as is abundantly clear from the discussion here, is not happening. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:40, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• That and a clear misunderstanding of the possible notability of a "purely historiographical" term. WP:N does not say theaters need battles to be notable, but it does say that they need reporting in multiple reliable sources. That a term is "historiographical" or a neologism is not, in and of itself, indicative of no chance of notability. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Crisco what Im saying is if the Battle for Australia is considered historiographical, then how come the american theater isnt considered the same?--Collingwood26 (talk) 09:20, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Your question is not related to the notability of an article/term, nor its use or discussion in reliable sources. Those are the two major components of establishing whether an article is worth having, and may not be the same for every topic (both here may be historiographical, but that does not automatically mean that neither is notable enough for an article; just as both myself and Shakespeare are writers, but we aren't necessarily both notable). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Collingwood, you seem to think American in this context=United States of America when there are two big continents that are named "Amrerica". The theater's geographical area extended from Newfoundland (which probably called it a theatre) to Brazil. Theaters are not normally named for nations and the American Theater wasn't. There is no parallel to your desire for a national name for a theater. As for your insistance there was no action in this theater, I'd debunk it based on personal experience, but that would be OR.--Lineagegeek (talk) 00:11, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I know theaters aren't named for nations, and the American theater deals from North America to South America. The Australian Theater deals with the continent of Australia, not a nation. Perhaps you need to improve your geography...--Collingwood26 (talk) 03:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

With respect, I think you need to consider dropping the WP:STICK and moving on. There has been clear consensus against your arguments from early on, and the AfD is heading one way fast. There is plenty of work that needs to be done on the articles listed above, especially Attacks on Australia during World War II. Perhaps your energy would be best directed there? Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:24, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Rape during the liberation of France

Talk:Rape_during_the_liberation_of_France#Until the article meets basic quality standards… CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 17:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Leave and Pass

I found the stub Pass (U.S. military) which I converted into the more generic and fractionally less stubby Pass (military) by the addition of a mention of Form 557. And I invite additions to it -especially references - or something else to do with the article.

I also found the moderately sized Leave (U.S. military) which reads like a section of a soldiers handbook and the stub leave (military). If the minutinae of the former was removed there would barely be a few lines left. How do editors feel about merging the one into the other? GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:38, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Dagger symbol, confused with cross symbol, alternate symbols, and default settings for template:KIA

Background

The current default output of {{KIA}} is † which looks like a Christian cross in some fonts, which has caused much confusion, and quite a few threads, over many years:

• Threads at Template talk:KIA: Template talk:KIA#Origin of symbol, Template talk:KIA#Alternate symbol, Template talk:KIA#Change to KIA, Template talk:KIA#A non-religious symbol should replace the Christian cross currently used for the KIA., Template talk:KIA#RELIGIOUS INSENSITIVITY?
• Threads elsewhere: Talk:Killed in action#Why the cross?, (Semi-related Talk:Dagger (typography)#Christian Cross)
• A talk-namespace search for kia dagger brings up a few likely results of article talkpage disputes. More are mentioned in the threads linked above.
• A wider namespace search for kia dagger brings up a few more discussions.
• Searching for "kia cross" leads to many results, but quite a few are on unrelated topics.

The symbol is called a Dagger (typography), and is typically produced via the HTML † (which creates: † ).

The stylised version (as used in various typefaces) is more clearly meant to symbolise a Dagger (fighting weapon), as seen in the image File:Daggers.svg :

The usage of the symbol – both historically, and in modern times – as a marker for people Killed in action, is not currently mentioned in that (very short) article. There's a citation-request at Dagger (typography)#Modern usage (and repeated by me, years ago, at Template talk:KIA#Clarify usage in general).

Options

Which options are available, and which we prefer, will depend partially on technical implementation, and partially on the citable references. (I'm not an expert in either. Just a mediating editor.) I think these are all the viable options that have been suggested before:

1. Change the default symbol to use a particular font that has a more stylised dagger (Needs testing, as many fonts aren't universally installed)
2. Change the default symbol to use an image file, instead of a typographic glyph, e.g. File:Dagger symbol.svg:
3. Change the default output to: "(KIA)" - and only use the alternate "dagger symbol" when historically-accurate, or when references dictate.

That's all I can find, to summarize. Experts: Please feel free to alter my concise overview above, as needed, so that anyone coming to the thread later on, can get the most accurate overview.

Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Just had a look at its use in the infobox for Second Alamein. Can hardly spot it - but does it matter?. My opinion is, if its important that X was killed during the battle, it'll be mentioned in text, and if its really important it'll be mentioned in the lead. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The most recent article mentioned in the template's talkpage, is Battle of the Camel, a battle in 656 A.D. between two Muslim groups. The user who commented stated that it came across as offensive to Muslims. Other users have previously commented on the same issue, but also commented on the issue of whether it's historically accurate to use this "KIA" symbol in all wars/infoboxes across the centuries, or not. Again, I'm not familiar with any of the related topics, I'm just summarizing, and pointing towards further information. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 06:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

My first question is what is the most common style of the dagger used in reliable sources? If it is the one that Wikipedia presently has as a default, we should continue to use that symbol. If not, why isn't Wikipedia using that most common style? If it is the most common style, then why change it? If it is because someone finds it intolerant or objectionable, would the argument for change fall under WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:48, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I would question why we need the symbol at all particularly in the infobox, if the individual was that important then the fact he died in action would be in the article, so perhaps just deprecate the use of the symbol rather than mess about with it. MilborneOne (talk) 12:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for centralising all these discussions Quiddity. If we can reach consensus here it might be handy to have a banner at the template page linking here. It probably won't stop drive by comments though...

Anyway, I would prefer to see the symbol remain. It's a well known symbol that I often come across in my line of work and I think it adds to the infobox. The infobox's job is to summarise important information from within the article, and the death of a commander is often very pertinent (consider the Battle of Hastings, Battle of Bosworth Field and the Battle of Trafalgar). I don't think that KIA is a suitable alternative as it's a relatively modern term and would look out of place on the above article infoboxes. It might often be inappropriate as well. The symbol is used (appropriately in my opinion) in the Battle of the River Plate article, but Langsdorff wasn't killed in action, so using KIA would be wrong.

However, I can accept that it looks like a cross. Although I would rather not see us cleansing wikipedia of well known symbology just because it might offend people (should we remove the swastika from every article it appears in?), changing the font may be an idea. I'd prefer to stick to a font than use a manufactured icon - numbers 2 and 5 above look quite good.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, but I'm happy to go along with a consensus. I'm away for a few days now though, so won't be able to comment again till Monday. Regards, Ranger Steve ^Talk 13:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Only non-secular Muslims, the extreme nutters that is, oppose the cross. As a "peaceful" religion, everyone else should be tolerant. But why do we only ever hear mention of Muslims? What about Sikhs or Buddhists? Or beyond that, what about atheists or other non-religious people? The fact is that the cross is symbolic of "is dead" not "died a Christian" or anything similar. We use little crosses with a poppy attached during the UK Remembrance Day services.. there is no religious implication. I think when you've got an infobox detailing a battle with a lot of officers, having (KIA) after each killed becomes cumbersome, whereas a superimposed cross is less evasive and is immediately known to mean "was killed" without any religious sentiment. I'm not a religious person, I despise organised religion, but I despise political correctness almost as much, and I see doing away with an "icon" not a "religious symbol" as yet another contrived PC motion. Islamic objections have no place on Wiki, because the icon is not being enforced for Christian reasons, it is not a headstone, rather it is used traditionally by historians. What next, do we stop wishing each other "Merry Christmas" each year because other religions don't celebrate it? Please... On an added note, I would support wrapping the html &dagger; entity with a css style tag to fix a font present on PC and Mac: Arial or Verdana, are both available and are plain. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 14:03, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

+1 to that Marcus said. I'm not a fan of the symbol in infoboxes, but I see no problem with it in principle. Intothatdarkness 14:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Test of Fonts:

1. †
2. †

Both of these improve the display, for me. I'm not sure if they work for everyone else? Please reply, if either of them still looks like the current †

Also, I've requested at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting that someone help advise on technical implementation, so someone might fix my examples, or provide new ones, soon. –Quiddity (talk) 20:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Well to me they look like daggers and not an underlined "t" which is definite progress in the presentation. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Both look the same to me, though the use of span is the better markup, font is deprecated and not supported by HTML5. I think the template:KIA needs updating to apply an inline style such as this. I think we also need to consider making it superimposed. e.g.

1. General Smith †
2. General Brown†
3. General Jones^†

I prefer the superimposed cross as it slightly removes the icon from the main text, making it clearer that it is an aside to the name. The current practice of having it the same font size as the name is a little forceful. A superimposed icon would probably be better for people printing out Wiki pages also, as in black/white a cross the same size may appear as a "t", as styles can be overwritten. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 23:09, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• The problem is a consequence of using sans-serif fonts; practically all of them have a plain, cross-like dagger. In serif fonts there is much more variety in the details, but they’re all pretty dagger-like, the stem usually tapering to a point at the foot, with serifs or similar terminations to the other strokes making the ‘pommel’ and ‘guard’. (My CSS specifies a serif text font, so I’ve never noticed the problematic daggers. I will refrain from ranting about the unsuitability of sans-serif type for body text here.) Anyway for a font specification, whether done with CSS or HTML tags, “serif” ought to suffice. For something more specific, Times Roman (in its many variants) is probably the most common serif font family; Georgia and some others have been included with both Mac and Windows systems for quite a few years now, so are likely available to most readers.—Odysseus1479 05:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I don’t much care for the superscript version, #3 just above: it‘s so small that the details that would distinguish it from a plain cross tend to vanish. Even when it’s normally sized, I expect some readers won’t notice the difference on-screen.—Odysseus1479 08:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think the added "detail" serif provides makes any major difference anyway, at higher resolutions. A superimposed dagger or cross is no bigger or smaller than a reference number. Serif or sans-serifs, it's still going to look like a cross shaped icon, it doesn't really matter if it tapers at the bottom. Personally I'm more in favour of ^† than ^† because it is more defined and means we don't have to be concerned about resolution issues, for the best part of the range, as serifs are more likely to pose an issue at extremely high resolutions, superimposed or not. Better safe than sorry. We should be making this sans-serif to keep in mind that resolutions keep getting more extreme.. I don't see how anyone copes with reading text beyond 1080p anyway, what with technology pushing monitor resolutions to 4K (even 8K?) scales, people will end up with monitors the size of a whole wall before we know it (and bad squints). We can't be expected to cover every resolution easily, from handheld mobile/tablet devices to 1080p+ screens, but at least with sans-serif you know it will more-or-less look the same across the range, where serif fonts could pose issues at lower and higher settings, because fine detail renders differently. Probably explains why most web safe fonts in use are of the plainer sans-serif varieties. The KISS principle applies here. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: If, for whatever reason, the above options don't work and you want a specific style of dagger, you could make or use a free/open font with the appropriate symbol, and add a request for it to be added as a WebFont, thus overcoming the question of which fonts a system may have. --xensyria^T 11:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

KIA Dagger symbol - Update

1. I've updated the template based on the feedback, for which much thanks to all. If any further changes are needed, hopefully we can discuss them briefly here or there, and keep moving forward.
2. The article killed in action could really use some work, and ought to include a mention of this symbol and its modern and historic usages. If anyone can find info, that'd be awesome. It has over 3,500 incoming links.

Hope that all works, thanks again. –Quiddity (talk) 03:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm opposed to the application of "serif" fonts, for the technical reasons stated in my last comment, which seem to have been ignored. I think a greater level of consensus is required before applying changes to such a widely-used template, given that only 3 or 4 people actually responded to this 5-day old thread, the change was too hastily applied. Also, please see WP:FONTFAMILY, which, had I known this MOS guideline existed earlier, I would have mentioned. Also, WP:SUPSCRIPT shows that sup/sub are directly supported and even recommended over various html entities by the MOS, despite earlier concerns. I think we need to look at other options here. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:31, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I personally agree with the use of serif fonts to make the dagger symbol clearer: WP:FONTFAMILY seems to be talking about using CSS directly in an article's code, and this would be an example of one of the "special templates" mentioned at the end of the second paragraph; even if the computer has no serif fonts at all, this will default back to how it has been until now (i.e. not the end of the world). Superscript seems like a reasonable compromise to me, but bold (currently on by default) for some reason actually makes it much less clear, at least on my display (is it the other way round for anyone else?):

• Normal, bold: †, non-bold: †
• Superscript, bold: ^†, non-bold: ^†

So under the new changes we should now have bold switched off by default. Also, the code should surely have the serif <span style="..."> around the entire {{#ifeq:{{{bold|}}}|||}}, though for some reason span is still being applied to the unspanned † at the moment. --xensyria^T 13:09, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, point by point:

Nobody had commented in 3 days, so my code update was an attempt to prevent further umbrage at other articles in the meantime.

I was taking into account the numerous comments in the threads I linked at the thread-top, so the change is based on more than just the commenters here.

The bold-normal versions and the bold-superscript versions are equally clear for me, but the non-bold-normal version is slightly less clear, and the non-bold-superscript version is the least clear.

I added the span to the unbolded dagger in the following edit, hence that is serif.

I didn't implement superscript because (a) it can negatively effect the leading in some cases and I'm not familiar with where this template is used outside of infoboxes (which would need testing), and (b) it is less clear because it is smaller.

Specific changes could be suggested at Template:KIA/sandbox if anyone wants to?

I think that's everything. Feedback welcome. –Quiddity (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

@Xensyria – WP:FONTFAMILY: "Articles used to explicitly define font families for special characters, because older browsers could not automatically select an appropriate font. This is no longer dealt with by using explicit font definitions in the articles." Clearly states that use of in-line font-family is a past practice and is no longer used, it gives no exceptions. Help:Special characters#Viewing says that in-line font styling "may" works and does not encourage it. Using styling in a templates carries it forward into articles, so it is used in articles either way, because it ends up in the html source. MILHIST prides itself on being careful with regards meeting MOS standards, in order to meet higher quality, and this form of in-line serif styling is not a good practice, it doesn't give consideration to different user configurations, various screen resolutions, or printed media. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 13:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

@Quiddity – You've stated that the serif styling is "clear for me". That only applies to you, on your machine, with your chosen browser. It does not give respect to the dozens of other configurations on different platforms. There is too much design preference being implied here, and not enough consideration for the technical limitations. Serif fonts can lose detail at different resolutions, this is a known fact. Non-serif fonts generally don't have such issues being slightly bolder. 3 days does not grant enough time for reasonable discussion to take place. It's fair enough inviting other people to comment, but discussions should be centralised so that everyone can be on the same page. Taking the majority views from one old/past discussions and ignoring another new opinions is generally considered similar to WP:FORUMSHOP, especially when there's a conflict of interest and you make changes based on comments that only support your initial view: consensus just doesn't work that way. As much as I assume good faith in this case, I consider the change to serif potentially unstable, and one that has wide-spread effects. Again, I request you take the template back to its original state and seek further opinions and approval on this matter. The leading is a pre-set matter in Wiki's CSS, and applies to all instances of sub/sup, a couple of pixels are added to the line-spacing to prevent overlap, which is not destructive to the prose. Superimposed, it is no smaller than a reference number, and without serifs still looks like a cross, rather than a twiggy thing, bold or not. It doesn't look like a "t" and it is also friendlier for printing. I think there's too much emphasis on the "dagger" image and not on the fact that it's a notation symbol. And not enough emphasis on it being placed more suitably. Books tend to notation icons superimposed, whether it be stars, crosses, or numbers, in my experience. Why is Wiki any different? Sorry, but I think we need to refocus our efforts here, on what we're trying to achieve with this template, as it is a lost cause. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 13:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

@MarcusBritish:

• Serif: Serif fonts are supported by xensyria, Odysseus1479, GraemeLeggett, and myself, directly above. Serif fonts are the only way to achieve a non-cross-like symbol, unless we use an image-file.
• Superscript: Superscript was objected to by Odysseus1479 and myself (implicitly), and xensyria stated that non-bold superscript was less clear than bold superscript. (Note that Superimpose means something unrelated). Given that it is inherently smaller, it's safe to assume that superscript is less legible in general. Also, Superscript links usually (always?) lead to a reference on the same page, whereas the {{KIA}} symbol links to a completely different page.
• Spacing: The template currently (and historically) has a " " (non-breaking space) before the symbol, so your comment that "I prefer the superimposed cross as it slightly removes the icon from the main text" (as it pertains to the 2nd example you gave) isn't accurately based on the template as it stands.
• Sizing: I'd support a very minor size increase (via CSS styling), if anyone else feels that is warranted/needed, to further increase legibility/clarity.
• References regarding the contemporary and historical usage of the symbol would be great, as I requested a few times above. Partly for this discussion, but especially for the articles Killed in action and Dagger (typography)#Modern usage. If you can find any, great!
• Minor point: the discussion lasted 2 days, and then there was 3 days of silence. My apologies for not waiting the full week for the thread to be archived; I'm not familiar with this WikiProject's standard speed of action - all parts of Wikipedia move at different speeds, and I believe 3 days of silence to be sufficient to conclude that no new comments were forthcoming, and that preventing further insults to various cultures is important. Hence I updated the template.

If you'd like to {{ping}} various users so that they can contribute more thoughts to this thread, then feel free. If anyone else has objections (or support) to my update, then please chime in. –Quiddity (talk) 22:43, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

• Firstly, I see no logic behind the need for a "non-cross-like" symbol, except from the anti-religious-icon people. Before it was a plain cross, now it's a cross with serifs.. there's no difference in the shape, just the quality of how it appears.
• Sizing is not easily implemented without fixing the font-size. This can present accessibility issues, and so is not a good idea as scaling is not always predictable. We don't need to make things any worse than they already are. I don't see why one small icon needs to have a ton of non-standard html/css wrapped round it either.. it simply adds bulk to the template, which is inefficient.
• The spacing matter isn't an issue, whether it be historical or not. Browsers change day-by-day, as can how we use html. There is no strength in using historic methods.. otherwise we could do many things "the old way" and never advance.
• Which brings me to the point that my concern this change completely ignores MOS recommendations was completely ignored, again. Funny how my strongest point on the Wiki guidelines keeps being skipped over and other irrelevant matters raised or created.
• Wikipedia:False consensus#List of 'opponents' might be worth mentioning. As the proponent of the motion to change this template you are still cherry picking views that favour your preference, whilst ignoring objections of valid technical concern. I object to the disrespectful methods being employed here.
• Your point that the KIA icon links to a different page is unsupported by any policy or guideline that implicitly requires superscripted wikilinks to be anchored is invalid. I don't intend to listen to you make rules up as you go along about how the icon should follow some unaddressed form of standardisation whilst completely ignoring the non-use of inline "font-family" CSS already covered and dissuaded by MOS. You can't pick and choose, especially when one guideline is real and the other is fantasy.
• I don't intend to jump through hoops pinging or canvassing anyone on my time, we have plenty of regulars, several coords, and a few admins at MILHIST, who visit this page, with sufficient time logged on Wiki to comment on the matter if given the chance, three days isn't adequate; the preferred process here is that you revert your edits and seek further approval, following WP:CONSENSUS methods. I'm well under rights to revert under WP:BRD given the ignorance for Help:Special characters#Viewing concerns, but I'm giving you that option. You seem hesitant to take it. Consensus isn't based on strength of numbers, but strength of argument. Seeing as my point on the change using in-line CSS, contrary to standard, as well as serif, a potential visual issues (which affects accessibility), it would seem that there are no answers to my points, of merit.
• This way this template appears needs addressing, yes, but this enforced manner is not the right way to go about it. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 01:38, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'll state again, that I'm interested in finding references for how this symbol has been used in the past, and in the present - and specifically whether a serif or sans-serif version is ever preferred. Also whether there are alternative symbols that we ought to be including, for historical or foreign figures -

Eg. Talk:Warsaw Ghetto Uprising#ק mentions a ק. But that seems to be a user's invention? It's usage isn't mentioned at ק

Eg.2. Talk:Battle of Thermopylae#Symbol for .22killed.22 mentions the thanatos symbol, which leads to this book reference.

I think we'd all very much like to find military-history style guides, which comment on this directly. Does anyone know of anything?

• The only typographical reference I can find is APS style manual (though of course we don't obey external style manuals, we simply keep them in mind whilst writing our own). All other style guides that I can find are referring to the dagger in its usage as a footnote indicator, not in its usage as the "death dagger". Most examples place the dagger on the baseline (not superscript) though you didn't mention superscript in your latest reply, so perhaps you are no longer seeking that change.
• At Talk:Great American Interchange#Little crosses.3F, @Bob the Wikipedian: comments on the symbol's pre-Christian usage as a symbol for death. Maybe he can provide insight or sources for that?
• See examples of talkpage disputes: Talk:Battle of the Teutoburg Forest#Death dagger, Talk:Warsaw Ghetto Uprising#ק, Talk:Battle of Kosovo/Archive 2#KIA-sign, Talk:Battle of the Camel#GET RID OF THE .27CROSS.27 SYMBOL.21, Talk:Battle of Mu'tah#Outlining, Talk:Operation Entebbe#KIA.3B all or nothing, Talk:Libyan civil war (2011)/Archive 8#Removed KIA for Khamis Gaddaffi, Talk:Libyan civil war (2011)/Archive 10#Again with the dagger.3F, Talk:Osama bin Laden/Archive 18#KIA symbols, Talk:Iraq War/Archive 8#KIA symbol for Zarqawi.2C others, Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–present)/Archive 9#KIA in Infobox, etc etc etc. If the default is going to keep being a cross-like symbol, and it continually causes problems, then we have to think of ways to solve that. Ideally, we will use ways that match the external world's common usage of the symbol, particularly in the fields of history and military history. It's not just Muslims that are concerned, it's also ancient greek historians, and Jewish editors, and others.
• I do not believe font-family specification will have any negative effects on accessibility, which is why I have not needlessly reverted the change to the template, which would be based solely on your hypothetical concern. We already use font-family extensively in MediaWiki:Common.css. If sizing/scaling is the only problem, then our CSS experts will be able to advise us on the best use of percentages or ems, to fit in with the current site CSS sets - we already use that extensively for various aspects of our formatting, and percentages or ems are specifically designed to provide good accessibility. (Note: I'm been active at the WP:ACCESS pages for many years, and do have a good understanding of both CSS and accessibility issues). However, I have asked for others to give input:

I've asked again at WT:MOS/Text formatting for feedback on technical issues, and repeated the request at WT:ACCESS, and I see you've asked at WT:MHCOORD, so hopefully some other editors will chime in, soon. –Quiddity (talk) 19:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I still suggest a KIA icon be superscript, or even subscript. Font-family recommendations apply to in-line styling. CSS files can be over-written with custom CSS, but in-line css is harder to over-write, especially in terms of accessibility. You may well have worked on WP:ACCESS, I studied web design and web development at University some years ago, and am more than familiar with various HTML/XHTML/CSS practices, as well as WAI initiatives, which I think are very important on a website aimed to be available to anyone whose government doesn't block access. This site is designed to be read by a huge audience, not tinkered with by choosy editors. Not sure why Jews would object to the cross.. they use it too in their religion, or at least some do.. I think anyone placing religious emphasis on the icon should be ignored, pure and simple. Wiki is not a platform for religious ideology, and no one is suggesting this icon only has Christian meaning or applications. The only other option is to revert back to the (KIA) formal. I also think, at this point, I should not the lack of consistency between {{KIA}}, {{Executed}}, {{DOW}}, {{Surrendered}} and {{POW}}. I think the Executed "skull and crossbones" icon is particularly disrespectful, not of religion, but of the condemned men.. some of those may have been victims of cruel circumstances. Usage of an icon better known to mean "pirate" is rather low-brow. Given that DOW and POW are (DOW) and (POW), perhaps returning to (KIA) would be better. I think this set of templates is unprofessional, given the number of debates raised. If a generic icon cannot suffice, an indisputable acronym would be better, to suit everyone, no picky designers, no pretentious religious editors, no room for questioning the ambiguous nature of an icon vs letters. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:22, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• If your main technical concern is the inline-styling aspect, then we can possibly add a CSS class to the template and in our stylesheets. You said above "[...]the use of span is the better markup [...]" and "I think the template:KIA needs updating to apply an inline style such as this", hence I didn't understand you were objecting to this aspect. Note however, we do use inline-styling of spans extensively within broadly used templates elsewhere, eg. Template:Sidebar, Template:Small, etc. Adding classes to the main site stylesheets that are loaded for every single page, is only encouraged when it is required by a large percentage of pages. This template is only used in 3500+ instances, currently.
• The symbol does have a long history of use; but again, accurately referenced details (any references at all!) would be helpful for this discussion, and for those other templates, and for the articles about the symbol(s). In past discussions (linked at top) some editors objected to making the default display (KIA) because it is still not historically accurate, eg. @Ranger Steve:'s comments here and within this thread above.
• The other templates ({{Executed}}, {{DOW}}, {{Surrendered}} and {{POW}}) do warrant discussion, but a separate or subthread would be helpful, for other editors trying to keep up, or coming to the discussion fresh. And again in these cases, RS references for current and historical practices, would be incredibly helpful in bringing us to an informed decision. –Quiddity (talk) 21:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

My support for span or an inline style was negated and ended when I later said, "Also, please see WP:FONTFAMILY, which, had I known this MOS guideline existed earlier, I would have mentioned." I prefer to follow the MOS very closely, for the better of articles, of MILHIST, and of Wiki itself.. it if safer in the long-run and is the only way to maintain quality standards. I'd personally mark down any article up for assessment which uses any method that contravenes the MOS or ignores WAI blatantly. I do not think Wikimedia will add unique style to the common.css for the sake of a one-character icon which sees so little use (out of all Wiki articles), and also because the cross is not used uniquely for KIA, so it wouldn't be efficient. As you say.. ~3500 is not worth the effort. Ranger Steve's comments are all generally WP:IJDLI with very little, if any, logical reasoning behind not reverting to KIA. I see no reason why one editor should stand in the way of progress. Clearly there are substantial issues with using an icon.. design and religious riff-raff. With (KIA) there are no such issues of merit. Steve simply needs to get off his high-horse and see that the icon causes more trouble than it's worth. "KIA" is a term well known, and poses less issues. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure where all that comes from, but I'd appreciate it if those comments were retracted or apologised for. I have no high horse - opinions have been requested and I gave mine. This is a style issue more than anything, so opinions are perfectly valid. I'm not trying to stand in the way of change - I've already pointed out on several occasions that I'm happy to go with a majority decision. I'd appreciate you not trying to besmirch other editor's views; at present your own stance could very easily be characterised in the same way you have described mine. Ranger Steve ^Talk 09:02, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to characterise, or offer constrictive criticism, I am not, however, in the habit of redacting or apologising, as what is said is said. There are plenty of opinions and alternatives discussed above if you care to expand on them, or offer alternative solutions. Clearly there is a long-running set of issues with this template, specifically: religious context. Changes to the style introduce design issues. I see no reason not to switch to (KIA), given that † and "KIA" both mean "Killed in Action", the acronym is clearly the only method needed to diffuse the debate. There doesn't need to be historical references to the use of the term "KIA" to support using it in a template. We're in the 21st century now, we use contemporary terms, because people speak the current form of English. Everyone can understand the meaning of "killed in action", it has 2 parts.. "killed" dead, and "in action" in the battle which the article covers. It's a no-brainer, I fail to see the logic of any argument to the contrary. The use of † is apparently posing issues with over-sensitive religious types who fail to accept it as a notational icon and see it as some biased symbolic Christian cross. The only way to deal with that is to remove the controversial icon from the template and use a less ambiguous method. "KIA" may have other meanings in the world, as was suggested, but few are as commonplace as "killed in action", and there is going to be no reason why any other use of KIA will be confused with this in a military history article. A reader would have to be pretty dumb to think KIA meant any of the alternatives given at http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/KIA, so I think it's a moot point to suggest otherwise, and a weak argument to raise to resist the change from what seems to be a much-hated "Christian" icon to a more practical small text format, which can be wikilinked, and in the end is probably more professional. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 09:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, you have your thoughts, I've already given mine. But I see no need to demean other editors in the way you have. You say I should offer constructive criticism, but your comments about me were clearly not and added nothing to the debate. I expect better of co-ordinators. Ranger Steve ^Talk 09:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Nothing was demeaning about it, whatsoever. Across almost every thread on the KIA talkpage, since 2010, you have stood as the sole opponent against change to the template, contradicting all points regarding the use of the icon, resisting all options. Furthermore, you have not taken part in this lengthy discussion, which suggests that you still have no interest in seeing it changed. And all of a sudden you're here stirring up a fuss over a slight remark. For someone who claims not to have a high horse, your behaviour suggests otherwise, as this is a very defensive act. And my role as a coord is to assist the project as I see fit, so please don't invoke some kind of high order upon me and frown upon it, because it was never there to begin with. If you don't like my observation, that's your prerogative, but don't then live up to it. WP:BAIT Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:07, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

You clearly haven't fully read my comments above where I said I'd be away for a while. I'm far from the only opponent to change, I have never contradicted anything, and I've repeatedly said I'm happy to go with a consensus but one has never been forthcoming (doesn't really look like one is now either). You might consider it a slight remark, I consider it an unnecessary insult. As it stands though, I won't be commenting further. Whilst I have plenty of time for sensible discussion, I have no time for petty insults more suited to the comments page of tabloid newspapers. This thread is already in the gutter. Ranger Steve ^Talk 10:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hyperbolical and pretentious remarks hardly help further it either. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Calm down, both of you, but especially Marcus. It's a bloody website, and we're arguing over a text dagger. There are bigger problems to go ape about. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:39, 14 June 2013 (UTC)