Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 32

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Contents 1 Using operational names 1.1 Getting back on track 2 Project coordinators 2.1 Setting up elections 3 Tagging Articles 4 Medal of Honor 5 Japanese Military Coup during Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 6 Crew-served weapons 7 Stielhandgranate - images needed! 8 Trigger pull stubbed 9 Hiwi (volunteer) 10 Indian taskforce? 11 German taskforce? 12 Japanese task force 13 100th featured article 14 Help with peer reviews 15 Categorization of military people? 16 Dutch task force 17 Siege of Beirut (1982) 18 Reflecting on the importance ratings 19 Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Article requests...new section added

Using operational names

Seeing as there seems to be a growing conflict over the use of operational names in articles, I thought it might be productive to gauge general consensus on a few points:

1. When can operational names be used as the title of an article? When should they be avoided?
2. Can operational names be used in the text of an article to discuss a conflict whose own article is at a different title? When should this be avoided?

Any comments would be extremely welcome! Kirill Lokshin 03:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd say use the most common name for any such confliect. For example Dieppe Raid and Operation Jubilee are the same thing, I'd say the Operation name should redirect to the article. For example Operation BARBAROSSA should redirect to Eastern Front of WW II (or whatever the article is called). Overation OVERLORD redirects to Battle of Normandy. Operation VERITABLE redirects to Battle of the Rhineland.

Some operations were smaller in nature, Operation INFATUATE was only a part of Battle of the Scheldt, but it could still redirect there. I'd say in any case I can think of, Operation names are synonymous with a battle or part of a battle. Michael Dorosh 03:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that seems pretty consistent with the article naming guidelines (both the Wikipedia-wide ones and our own). What about the second issue, though? Can another article contain text like "Unit X took part in Operation INFATUATE", or must it read "Unit X took part in the Battle of the Scheldt"? And does the answer change depending on the operation? (For reference, the issue is closer to things like "Unit X took part in Operation Desert Storm" versus "Unit X took part in the Gulf War".) Kirill Lokshin 03:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The larger question should be, are operation names ok to be on Wikipedia? There is a user [1] who is attempting to remove them from every article in which they are located. I do not want the issue blurred, the whole situation is about mass edits to remove operation names from wikipedia. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 12:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I proposed this set of guidelines on User talk:Añoranza

• Operation codenames should only be used when:
  • the specific military action is being discussed from a military perspective
  • the article is describing a person or unit that participated in specific operations
• Codenames should not be used when:
  • the action is being discussed in general terms
  • a neutral name for the action would be more descriptive than an unneutral codename
  • when there is doubt as to how to refer to the operation Joshdboz 12:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Just as a note, this proposal is for use of operation names in text. I agree with the above that article titles should take the most common name. If no common name is apparent, I think it should take a neutral geographic/time specific name. This should probably be left for a case by case basis. Joshdboz 14:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I would slightly modify the above to point out that preference should be given to operational names during the planning stages (e.g. the OKH planned Operation Zitadelle) versus battle names for the actual combat stages (the 6th Army was destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad). Kirill Lokshin 14:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Operational names are "fact", in that a particular entity (coalition/government/military branch) uses them as the name for their particular "operation" (naturally). In the case of an active operation, it does not make sense to avoid using the operational terminology in that context. In the case that some time has passed (for example, WWII, Korea, Vietnam), history will have settled on a common name. It is POV for Wikipedia editors to decide in advance how history will name a conflict/operation/war. In the case of an article that is on a particular entity (usage meant as above), it is correct to use the operational name and then, if appropriate, have a footnote to direct to the general article/discuss the terminology ^[1] — but only if needed to clarify the article, not as a section-sized addition. See example below. —ERcheck (talk) @ 14:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Notes

^[1] Operation Bar is the name used by Army of Foo for the ongoing conflict in YYY. For main article see [[Invasion of YYY]].

Would we even need a footnote if the operational name links to the actual article? Most (combat) operations don't (shouldn't?) have articles of their own, but get merged into whatever the actual battle/war article is. Kirill Lokshin 14:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree that a footnote is not necessary if the operational name links to the actual article. Note, my phrasing ..."if appropriate". In most case, I don't think it would be necessary. —ERcheck (talk) @ 15:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess one huge point is that Operation names are POV - ony one side in any battle used them....so an article using it as a title is probably off to a rocky start! Michael Dorosh 14:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

True (although sometimes they're the only thing available, or eventually become the most common name for the conflict). Kirill Lokshin 14:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, here's our current guideline on the issue:

“

Operational codenames generally make poor titles, as the codename gives no indication of when or where the battle took place and only represents one side's planning (potentially causing the article to focus on that side's point of view to the detriment of the other). It is better to use an appropriate geographical name for the article, creating a redirect from the operational name. This can be ignored for the most well-known operations (e.g. Operation Barbarossa), but note that even Operation Overlord redirects to Battle of Normandy.

”

Kirill Lokshin 14:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

If an article is specifically written about a particular entity's operation, it would be appropriate to use the operational name as a title. A hatnote could be added to direct to the more general article. —ERcheck (talk) @ 15:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Some points:

• Sometimes operations are planned but not carried out. In which case the planning name is all that is available.
• Sometimes the operation name is the only thing there is to describe the operation e.g. Operation Hurricane (1944)
  • But as this last example shows there are disambiguation problems with operational names as the military tends to repeat certain names. e.g. Operation Matador.
• It would look odd to remove all mention of Operation Market Garden from Wikipedia as that is the name this attack in usually known as.
• There was discussion under Talk:Prague Offensive over the name of that page. The reason for this is because the Soviets called their planned offensives "XXX Offensive Operation", where XXX is the target not a code name. This leads to several problems. If the articles are called "Prague Operation" it looks odd because the format is usually "Operation XXX". Further in the last year of the war the Soviets had such an overwhelming superiority in men and materiel that their operations succeed. This is an area that Anglo-Saxon historians have tended to ignore, so the only names available are the Soviet ones, and because they were successful and dictated the course of the war in that theatre, the names which tend to be used are those of the Soviets because by that time the Germans were largely reactive not proactive: e.g.:
  • Belorussian Offensive Operation (June-August 1944): 770,888 casualties; 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces, and 822 planes
  • Baltic Offensive Operation (September-November 1944): 280,090 casualties; 522 tanks, 2,593 artillery pieces, and 779 planes
  • Budapest Offensive Operation (October 1944-February 1945): 320,082 casualties; 1,766 tanks, 4,127 artillery pieces, and 293 planes
  • Vistula-Oder Offensive Operation (January-February 1945): 194,191 casualties; 1,267 tanks, 374 artillery pieces, and 343 planes
  • East Prussian Offensive Operation (January-April 1945): 584,778 casualties; 3,525 tanks, 1,644 artillery pieces, and 1,450 planes
  • Vienna Offensive Operation (March-April 1945): 177,745 casualties; 603 tanks, 764 artillery pieces, and 614 planes
  • Berlin Offensive Operation (April-May 1945): 361,367 casualties; 1,997 tanks, 2,108 artillery pieces, and 917 planes
  • Prague Offensive Operation (May 1945): 52,498 casualties; 373 tanks, 1,006 artillery pieces, and 80 planes

  (and the Yanks were worried about the casualties they might take landing in Japan!) So it seems to me the best thing to do with theses and the earlier Soviet operations is that unless there is another common name for one of the Operations, like the Battle of Berlin, that these Operations/Campaigns are titled: Vistula-Oder Offensive, Prague Offensive etc.

--Philip Baird Shearer 00:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

If the operation is so small that the operation name would be the only recognizable name or if it is almost always called by its operational name (Operation Market Garden), then using it would be the only logical thing to do. I think User:Añoranza was arguing, as well as I will, is that for well known operations, such as Operation Just Cause, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, etc., which are also readily recognizable in other forms, United States invasion of Panama, United States war in Afghanistan , Iraq War, etc., the neutral name based on participants/geography/time should take precedence when used in-text in most articles. Joshdboz 10:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This may seem US centric but since these are the names that really kicked the debate into high gear I am going to stay with them. I am of the belief that each article should be taken on its own individual merits with regards to topics like this where either side could be considered correct. Especially for terms like OIF and OEF that reference on going conflicts. If military pages say OIF and other pages say Iraq War I do not see this as the end of the world. In a few years we will be able to look back and come to a consensus. The history has not been written so let's not strangle it from the get go by demanding writ standardization. If someone goes to a page and sees OEF and does not know that it refers to the War in Afghanistan then they will learn something new when they click on the link. Just because a certain government came up with a name does not mean it should be disregarded. Their viewpoint is as valid as any other in this regard. I agree with the renaming of the Operation Just Cause to 1989 US invasion of Panama at the same time I see no problem leaving Operation Just Cause in the infoboxes of units that participated. After all military units take place in military operations.

The second point under taking each article on its own merits is that individual countries have different naming conventions. We should respect this as much as possible. If we sacrifice a little standardization to allow some freedom of manuever for individual pages I think we will be doing ourselves a favor in the long run. Anyway, these are just one user's opinions. Cheers--Looper5920 11:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Usually operational names are chosen so that even the name is intercepted it is not obvious what is being discussed. The well known example from World War II is the leaking of false information about Midway by Joseph J. Rochefort so he could confirm the Japanese code word for the island was AF. So with names like Operation Iraqi Freedom is that a post start of operation press release name, or is it the real operational planning name? --Philip Baird Shearer 13:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe its the actual operation name, considering medals are awarded for it directly and soldiers tend to refer to it as such as well. While there may be smaller operations within that operation, it seems the greater names are correct as Operation Iraqi Freedom etc. I think if we do as Anoranza is suggesting, and remove all operation names from titles and pages, we are gonig to see an encyclopedia that is generally lacking mass ammounts of information. It would be almost as if the "event" was never called Operation XYZ. Wikipedia has a policy on NPOV, however its not taking a point of view to say that General Z took part in Operation X. The fact of the matter is that general did take part in that operation.

There is also a larger issue, sometimes operations are not about the entire fight. By redirecting an article about an entire operation into a single war article is almost misleading. Two sides of clarity can be gained from this. First Operation Enduring Freedom is being asked to be redirected to Afghanistan War, however OEF is actually (3) seperate operations. Afghanistan was only (1) of them, and as such we would be losing information and accuracy. Another point to this is that its possible only the invasion portion of a conflict, may be the boundaries of the operation.

I want to assume good faith, but this user Anoranza is attempting to rename Operation Enduring Freedom, even after being informed the article is about (3) operations, not just Afghanistan. This same user has left sloppy edits, and told other people to clean them up after creating redundancy issues etc. I personally do not see a problem with using operation names when they are formatted to link to the articles with the more politically correct name. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 16:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Looper5920 that editors should have breathing room when writing an article, and also if an operation name is needed to clarify an article, by all means use it! But let me try to put this issue into the perspective of a quite politically charged debate now going on in the US. It came out a few months ago that the NSA was conducting warrantless wiretaps (NSA warrantless surveillance controversy). Now, government officials soon came out and described the program as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Since it's classified, this might as well be taken as the official government name for the program when discussed in public. But I think many people would strongly disagree with the use of that phrase, claiming that it puts an undeniable spin on program, its reach, and its goals. If well known military actions like Operation Just Cause are referred to as such all the time, there would definitely be a POV issue. As I said above, editors should have the lattitude to decide how to refer to the action, but as a general guideline, the neutral name should be used. --Joshdboz 16:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should be a bit more permissive than that; I would offer something like this for a guideline:

In articles on general topics, general or geographical names for conflicts should be used where available. In more technical military articles, the use of operational names may often appropriate even when a corresponding general name exists. Care should be taken, however, not to introduce undue bias; while the vast majority of operational names are quite innocuous, there are a handful of cases where the name was chosen for the purpose of propaganda, and should be avoided outside of the article on the operation itself.

This warns editors away from truly propagandistic names while at the same time stressing that most operational names are not propaganda for any meaningful definition of the term. (Do we need some examples to make things clear?) Comments? Kirill Lokshin 18:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, sounds reasonable.--Joshdboz 23:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway I could get the above amended to say In more technical military articles, the use of operational names is appropriate even when a corresponding general name exists. I believe that it is appropriate to have Operational names on military pages and I also agree that many terms are propaganda and do not belong in the majority of Wiki pages as other than a side note. If individual militaries refer to operations than they should be listed on unit pages, just because they are a government entity does not mean their View should be outright discounted.--Looper5920 23:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

True, but I don't want to get into a position where editors feel obligated to use operational names even when the general ones are far better known. In other words, if an article discusses the Battle of Iwo Jima, we don't want to force it to be changed to Operation Detachment based on a literal reading of the guideline. Any ideas how to deal with cases like that? Kirill Lokshin 00:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. This is an encyclopedia based on the neutral point of view. The neutral point of view does not need to be violated anywhere. If we decide articles about the military are allowed to have more propaganda names than other articles, by using the same standards we should also allow articles about Venezuela to have more of Chavezspeak, articles about Nazis replacing holocaust with "final solution of the Jewish question" and so on. To the contrary, articles about any given topics should be especially taken care of not to overrepresent the "viewpoint" of the subject described or the people most related to it. Of course, if specifically a military operation is described, the name should be allowed, provided the reader gets what it is about. If a military action is described and not an operation as itself, a neutral title needs to be chosen. Añoranza 01:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Calling an operational name POV is in itself POV. An operational name is just that — the name that the particular entity gave to their operation. As in Wikipedia's description of POV:..."opinions from people (POV's). Inherently, because of this, most articles on Wikipedia are full of POVs. An article which clearly, accurately, and fairly describes all the major points of view will, by definition, be in accordance with Wikipedia's official "Neutral Point of View" policy." (bold emphasis mine). And more from the same document:

"Some contributors to Wikipedia misuse the term POV, taking it to be the antithesis of "NPOV", implying that a particular article or passage is affected by an editor's point of view. This is not what the term POV means, and should be avoided. The term they are groping for is "biased".

Recall co-founder Larry Sanger's prescription that Wikipedia should describe all major points of view, when treating controversial subjects."

And from WP:NPOV:

"...articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly and without bias... As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject."

So, by my read, trying to eliminate the operational names, especially/in particular from military articles (not just "technical" articles) violates NPOV — trying to suppress the name of the operation. An editor's opinion that a name is "propaganda" does not mean that the name should be avoided. —ERcheck (talk) @ 01:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No one tries to suppress names of operations. What should not be done is naming a conflict by the tag of one side, e.g. the tank was used in "operation we make the world a better place" rather than "X vs. Z war". Añoranza 01:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

You've kept on making wild claims about "propaganda" for quite some time now. Please provide some concrete evidence that the majority—or indeed any substantial number—of operational names are "propaganda", rather than merely labels assigned to particular actions. Kirill Lokshin 01:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

As you have followed the discussion at other places, you know striking examples: "peace for galilee", "just cause", "iraqi freedom"... And I noted the most notorious one above, final solution of the Jewish question. Añoranza 02:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we quite agree on those, but it is my contention that such cases form a small minority of propagandistic names (which are explicitly discouraged by the proposed guideline above). My point is that run-of-the-mill operation names (e.g. "Operation Matador", "Operation Arc Light", "Operation Linebacker", "Operation Suvorov", "Operation Balaton", "Operation Sea Lion", and so forth) are not propaganda in any real sense of the term, and need not be avoided. Kirill Lokshin 02:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Note that in all of the examples by Añoranza above, the mention of the operational names is NOT eliminated. But, handled in a neutral way. In the "most notorious", there is in fact a full article using that name. As I quoted above from NPOV and POV, the policy does NOT dictate the use of the names is prohibited. In the context of a military entity's article, NOT using the name violates neutrality. —ERcheck (talk) @ 02:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin, of course there are more subtle cases. Often, the powers of nature are alluded to, e.g. desert storm/fox/anaconda... This is at best euphemist, it only represents one side, and most readers will have no idea what these names stand for. There needs to be a reason why you use an operation name.

ERcheck, of course notable propanda terms can have their own article. However, you would not want to move "holocaust" to "final solution of the Jewish question" just because the official side preferred that term. Likewise, you would not want to link to holocaust from articles about Nazis or there equipment writing "He/it participated in the final solution". Añoranza 02:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• I take great umbrage, and in fact consider it a WP:Personal attack, that you suggest that my comments in any way imply/say that I would move "holocaust" to "final solution...". Please be more respectful. —ERcheck (talk) @ 02:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

As we discussed before, euphemisms are neither propaganda nor forbidden by WP:NPOV. I don't really think that a claim that "powers of nature are alluded to" makes the name unacceptable in any sense.

In general, though, I think that when the names are clearly propagandistic, we should be very considered in how we use them. Possibly we could avoid having this issue come up by making it clear in-text what the names refer to; rather than "X took part in Operation Just Cause", rewording it as "X took part in Operation Just Cause (the US invasion of Panama)" would eliminate the complaint of favoring propaganda (and, on the practical side, make it clearer for someone reading a printed version of the article). Would that be altogether unacceptable? Kirill Lokshin 02:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Before settling on any guidelines, we should consider all aspects of the WP:NPOV policy, including Undue weight. We need to do what makes sense, without violating neutrality. —ERcheck (talk) @ 02:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I did in no way make a personal attack or imply that anyone would move "holocaust" to "final solution...". To the contrary, I wrote you (note: meant as a general you, not anyone personally) would not (stress added) want to link to holocaust from articles about Nazis or there equipment writing "He/it participated in the final solution".

• You prefaced the remark with my name, so it is logical to conclude the "you" was directed at me. Likewise the rhetorical nature of your comments does suggest that my statements in this thread imply that I might want to make those edits. My comment stands. Please do not preface a statement of that sort with an editor's name. —ERcheck (talk) @ 03:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

You did see the not, did you? Añoranza 03:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, I did read your statement and see the not. However, it is quite apparent that you were addressing a statement to me to refute something I had said earlier. The rhetorical nature of your words belie your notion that you were not directing something negative to me. (Likewise asking me if I saw the "not" — implies that my reading abilities are deficient.) Again, my statement stands. —ERcheck (talk) @ 04:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Euphemisms are not neutral. Please note that the techniques of propaganda are well explained in our article, and operation names fall under slogan, in many cases also Virtue words (Freedom, Justice), Appeal to authority, Bandwagon effect, etc.

I object to wordings like "X took part in operation y (conflict z)" unless there is a specific reason to note the operation name, e.g. someone participated in only part of a number of operations that are known to the general public only under a combined neutral name and there is some need to point this out. Using slogans made by one side of a conflict exclusively is not neutral. It disturbs me that some people here do not even see what propaganda is or that it is a problem or even say "it is official, thus it must be ok". The Nazis also once were official. Añoranza 02:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking through our propaganda article, I can find no mention of "euphemism". Ditto for the NPOV policy. You're going to need to actually provide some evidence for your assertion that a substantial portion of operational names (yes, we know about the handful of examples you found already) are propaganda, not merely insist that they are without providing better reasoning. Kirill Lokshin 02:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I did not say euphemism was in the propaganda article. Please take a look at Euphemism#Doublespeak: What distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions. Doublespeak is in turn distinguished from jargon in that doublespeak attempts to confuse and conceal the truth, while jargon often provides greater precision to those that understand it (while inadvertently confusing those who do not). An example of the distinction is the use by the military of the word casualties instead of deaths — what may appear to be an attempt to hide the fact that people have been killed is actually a precise way of saying "personnel who have been rendered incapable of fighting, whether by being killed, being badly wounded, captured in battle, psychologically damaged, incapacitated by disease, rendered ineffective by having essential equipment destroyed, or disabled in any other way." "Casualties" is used instead of "deaths," not for propagandistic or squeamish reasons, but because most casualties are not dead, but nevertheless useless for waging war.

Proper examples of doublespeak included taking friendly fire as a euphemism for being attacked by your own troops. As slogan is listed in our propaganda article, as is doublespeak, and as "neutral point of view" is not the same as "military leaders of one side's point of view" please just leave it. Añoranza 03:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

And what does all that have to do with operational names?

• Slogan = "Uncle Sam Wants You!"
• Name = "Operation Desert Storm"

How exactly are you conflating the two? And are you basing this classification of operational names as propaganda on anything more substantial than your own opinions? Kirill Lokshin 03:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Operation Desert Storm is a good example of a propaganda term as it clearly qualifies for several characteristics: doublespeak, appeal to fear, bandwagon effect. As I had already listed these, I am disturbed by your failure to see it, too. Also note that a slogan is a brief, striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. Desert Storm perfectly fits. Añoranza 03:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Evidence that it qualifies under any of those, please? (Bandwagon effect?!) Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, a couple of paragraphs where the Nazis or the Holocaust were not invoked. The sure fire way to determine if an argument is being lost is when one side goes to that old well that is the Nazis. When in doubt, whip them out to keep sanity from entering an argument.--Looper5920 03:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly, Anoranza is quoting the above Wikiproject guideline as policy when it hasn't even been agreed to as a Wikiproject guideline.[2] --Habap 04:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not the guideline we're discussing above, though ;-) It's our existing guideline for article titles (which has been basically uncontested for a few years now); I haven't the faintest idea why Añoranza keeps citing it (and as policy, no less!). Kirill Lokshin 04:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Añoranza has decided to open up another Front. see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Military conflicts and operational names --Philip Baird Shearer 12:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should just ignore that and refer the user here. There is no point in discussion this in another location when the user still has questions asked of them above that they have no answered. I see you have already pointed them here, thank you. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 12:15, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

First you tell me this here is only a project guideline and it is only about article titles, not text in article, and then you complain when I go to the correct page. Añoranza 12:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding. The quotation you keep using is from a WP Project Guideline specifically about article titles. A new guideline is in the process of being created related to operation names in article bodies. You started participating in it, however it seems after being asked to prove your above claims, you have instead decided to start a new discussion elsewhere. Can yuo please continue to participate in this discussion. Kirill Lokshin has asked you to elaborate on your claims above. Thank you. Starting the same discussion in numerous places is counterproductive. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 12:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention that the "Naming conventions" page is also intended for discussion about article titles. Kirill Lokshin 12:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi i've just read all of the above and would like to add my two pence as a trained hypnotist and student of propaganda warfare. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is a name clearly selected for its propaganda value, it is not a code name like "operation market garden" and they are not comparable. This conflation of namings has not helped this discusion in my view. "Desert Storm" could be either but it was a good soundbite as does fit the linguistic catagories that Añoranza says it does.Hypnosadist 13:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. In your opinion, what proportion of operational names is selected for propaganda value? In other words, are they exceptions to a general policy of codenames that can be dealt with individually, or is this a pervasive issue? Also, does your answer change depending on the period or conflict in question? Kirill Lokshin 13:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

They are exceptions at the moment, in fact i only think Operation Enduring Freedom and operation Iraqi freedom are true propaganda products as indicated by the use of Freedom in the name (and you would have to be mad not to want freedom). Compare this to the internal names of operations in OIF such as Operation Ivy Lightning and Operation Bulldog Mammoth which are your standard generated names and i don't think you need the language training to see the difference (Freedom is a Value).Hypnosadist 19:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that seems pretty consistent with what everyone else (with the obvious exception) is saying. As a general philosophy for a guideline on this, then, I would suggest the following:

• The overwhelming majority of operational names have no significant neutrality issues, and can be freely used as appropriate.

• Operational names should be used if there's no better name for the event (i.e. if the article is located at the operational name).
• If there is a better name for the event, operational names can still be used:

• When referring to specific elements of operational planning or components of larger engagements
• In sufficiently technical articles.
• With enough context that the casual reader can figure out what broader conflict is being referred to without having to read the individual operation articles (to avoid strings of operational names without mentioning that they're referring to actions in Iraq, for example).

• But should be avoided if the operational name is highly obscure, and is not the normal way of referring to the conflict (e.g. Operation Detachment).

• A few operational names (it seems primarily those concerning freedom and justice, if we want to give examples) are commonly viewed as propaganda terms, and should be...?

• What do we want here? A general enjoinder to follow NPOV seems rather weak, and will just lead to per-article edit wars. Some advice to avoid them? Or to give the more general names as well?

Comments? Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

To make a comment on what Hypnosadist has said. The problem is that the military tends to like marshal names, Operation Hurricane rather than Operation Light Breeze, Operation Barbarossa rather than Operation Swan King (see Barbarossa, and Swan King). So the difference you are making is not quite that clear cut.

Kirill, I think the current naming guideline in this WikiProject covers this subject adequately. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Considering that we're talking about names in text rather than the titles of articles, I don't really think it adresses the issue (as we've had to explain at some length above). Whether a separate guideline is necessary is a valid question; but let's not confuse the two issues here. Kirill Lokshin 20:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If it is not the title, then I think it has to be decided on a case by case basis and I think the the MOS and NPOV etc cover this adequately and there is no need for yet another guideline. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the original idea of having a guideline was to avoid a massive edit war on dozens of individual pages regarding this; at the time, having a general consensus that could be referred to seemed like a good idea. (You may be right, however, in that it's likely that the outcome of the current ArbCom case will affect the necessity of having a distinct guideline on this point.) Kirill Lokshin 20:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the general rule here should be to avoid operation code names unless there is a general consensus that there is no better name to use. The arguments made in support of keeping Operation Just Cause as the title were ridiculous. If there is a perfectly good neutral name and there is a significant degree of objection to the use of the operation name then the neutral name should be used. In the case of Just Cause it is highly unlikely that the name would be known to any non-US english speaker or that many US citizens would know what it refers to. Just Cause was not the actual operation name in any case, it was Whitehouse PR. Genuine operation code names are purposefully chosen to avoid disclosing the actual target of a military operation. The only case where using them makes any sense is in the rare case where the name chosen is neutral and widely used to refer to the operation by both sides. That is true in the case of Operation Barbarossa and Operation Ajax. It is not true in the case of Just Cause, precisely because it is a propaganda term intended to frame the debate. --Gorgonzilla 04:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

How do we define "better" here? It's certainly possible to create a geographic name for almost anything (e.g. "United States inderdiction operations 14 miles north of Fallujah (October 13-14, 2005)"); how contrived does this need to become before using the operational name is the more favorable option? And what about references to particular operations in articles that discuss things like a military's campaign awards (which would generally carry the associated operational name) or unit histories?

I'm hesitant to leave things entirely up to a per article discussion on these points without offering some guidance (even if it's only general advice), since we'll wind up with the same fight on dozens of different pages that we had to begin with. Kirill Lokshin 05:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• Having read the various views here, I see no problem with using operational names in the title or body of articles. Pro Life and Pro Choice are blatant examples of framing by the two sides in an attempt to win support for their view, yet we keep those articles. Operational names are not a POV issue at all in comparison. Johntex\^talk 20:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is why the terms in favor of abortion or opposes abortion should be used instead. Pro-Life may mean something to a US citizen, it means nothing to the average English speaker who is not familiar with US political new-speak. Same for Pro-Choice. The terms should have articles precisely because they are examples of propaganda speak. But the articles should describe the introduction of the terms into the political vocabulary, they should not contain POV arguments for or against abortion which should be covered under the abortion article. --Gorgonzilla 04:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree the should be disambiguation pages with the titles of the operation for both encyclopedic reasons and in cases like OEF discuss the political/propaganda nature of the names. Also operation names will be apropriate to pages that are purely historical tactical reports.But they should not be used as the name for the conflict as a whole even if it means boring between A and B at location X at Y time titles.Hypnosadist 11:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

My focus has never been on the periods in which conflicts have modern-day Military Operations titles, and so I'm sure most of you have more meaningful input here. Nevertheless, I shall offer my two cents. One: I think having the Operation name as an article title is fine if it's the most common, most recognizable, simplest, or only name we have for a particular conflict. In my personal experience, I have rarely heard Operation Barbarossa called by any name other than that or some sort of empty title like "World War II battles of the Eastern Front," which is more a description than a name. I think that we should use Operation names when the only other alternative is a descriptive title, like in this case. I do not know how many Pacific War people we have here, but I think Operation Downfall is a perfect title for that article. The alternative would be a descriptive, like "World War II American planned invasion of Japanese home islands," which is horrendous. So, that's all. If anyone needs me, I'll be hiding out in the late Heian era again. LordAmeth 15:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Getting back on track

I think that there's some confusion resulting from the fact that we're discussing two separate issues above without always making clear which one is being referred to. Let's try to sort this out:

Operational names as titles

We already have a guideline discouraging the use of operational names as the titles of articles:

Operational codenames generally make poor titles, as the codename gives no indication of when or where the battle took place and only represents one side's planning (potentially causing the article to focus on that side's point of view to the detriment of the other). It is better to use an appropriate geographical name for the article, creating a redirect from the operational name. This can be ignored for the most well-known operations (e.g. Operation Barbarossa), but note that even Operation Overlord redirects to Battle of Normandy.

This has generally been interpreted quite loosely, though, and with deference to the use of most common English names for events. It seems, from the discussion above, that some people would like to see this guideline changed (or not changed, as the case may be); if they could please make it explicit in their comments that they're discussing article titles, it would make it a lot easier to follow. Kirill Lokshin 13:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In some cases, e.g. Operation Blue, it is simply impossible to come up with another name for the article, in my view. This shows also the danger of re-directing. Before I worked on the article, it was a simple re-direct to Battle of Stalingrad, which is a subset of Fall Blau, so many other battles could not be discussed in a coherent manner. As a guideline the one we have is fine, but it has to be kept clear in any revision that it will be impossible to follow it all the time, just as it states now. Andreas 15:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that an 'operation' and a 'battle' are related, but not the same thing. In many cases, the operation is a subset of the battle, as it is one side's planing and administration of the battle. So, I can see four (rare) cases where an Operation article should exist: 1) The widely-known name for the battle is "Operation X". 2) There is no corresponding battle, or other article (Operation Sealion). 3) The operation is, instead a super-set of any one battle (or article, really; the Italian Campaign is also a super-set of battles). 4) The battle is important enough that it has a separate page(s) on the planning for it that was done ahead of time ('operation' isn't in the title, but the general case is typified by the Schlieffen Plan). --Rindis 19:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Operational names in other articles

The second issue is whether the names of operations can be used to refer to events in other articles. This is complicated by the fact that many operations have no articles of their own—being only parts of larger conflicts—so it's not clear what, if not them, could be used to refer to such components in other articles. Views on this point seem to run the gamut from always permitting their use to never permitting their use, so we obviously need more discussion if we're to come to any meaningful consensus. Kirill Lokshin 13:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The way I see it, maybe the policy should be something along the lines of "Try not to use operation names, especially propagandic operation names, in circumstances where they are avoidable. However, sometimes a given military operation may be known only by its code name and not have a generic name, in which case the operational name is acceptable. Also, if the planning part of the operation is being discussed, the code name may make the most sense." Or something; that's just what I could come up with at the spur of the moment, and it seems compromise-y. UnDeadGoat 19:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Some military events are more easily referred to by their operational names such as Operation Ten-Go which otherwise would be called by a long and somewhat awkward title such as "Last Mission of the Combined Fleet" or "Suicide Mission of Battleship Yamato." Another example is a stub article I just started, called "Operation Tan No. 2." I couldn't think of what else to call it except for a literal, long title like "Long-range Kamikaze attack on the US fleet at Ulithi" or something like that. It seemed to be easier to call it by it's Japanese operational name. Except for those few events where the operational name is much more concise or more commonly used, then the more historical term is better, like Battle of Guadalcanal instead of "Operation Cactus." Cla68 16:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Another consideration are searches. It may be that a person having read about "Operation Ten-Go" in some other publication searches the net for more information on it. The more commonly known the operational name is the more likely this is to happen. If Wikipedia were to wipe operational names from articles then they may not show up in searches. When I need to access one of the WWII Allied conferences, if the codename is missing and I know what it is I add it, because it is not uncommon when reading other sources for the conference to be referred to by the code name. EG Chapter X: Quadrant - Shaping the Patterns: August 1943 (Every campaign in the first paragraph of that chapter is referred to by its codename!). Indeed if anyone can help with the codename for the other conferences without them in List of World War II conferences so much the better. --Philip Baird Shearer 01:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Project coordinators

Since we're approaching the six-month mark from the time we initially put together the project coordinator system, I think this might be an opportunity to discuss a few points:

1. Do we need more/more active coordinators? (This is actually why the question has come up; in the discussion of A-Class assessments, it has been proposed to have one of the coordinators review and close each article's discussion. This—along with other parts of the assessment program—have increased the amount of housekeeping that needs to be done.)
2. Regardless of the answer to the first question, would it be useful to have coordinator (re)elections on a regular schedule?
3. If the answer to either of the above suggests that we should have another election, what form should it take, and are there people who would be interested in running?
4. Finally, are there any other changes to the coordinator setup that people would like to see?

Obviously, I'm hoping to have as much feedback on these points as possible, so everyone is very welcome to comment! Kirill Lokshin 15:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

OK Kirill, here is my answer:

First, in my (not so) humble opinion, we do need more active coordinators. Managing such a huge project with just a lead coordinator and 2 assistants is just silly. When I see the work you have to do to get this project running, I really think that you should get some help.

As for regular schedule, I have no preset opinion.

As for the form, I think that we should proceed as follows (these are just ideas, I can come up with a detailed process should the need arise):

• The event will be announced in a WPMILHIST newsletter (regular or even special issue)
• Each candidate makes a statement, where he describes himself, his current and futur work on Wikipedia (is he already admin and so on), his motivations and his vision of the project.
• Based on this, a vote will take place during a relatively long period of time (2 to 3 weeks, perhaps even a month). The first X coordinators that get the most support votes are promoted.
• The tricky part is obviously to select admins that will (ideally) complement each other in their works.

As for question 4) : Ideally, I think we should have a coordinator for most active taskforces too. However, I don't insist further on this particular point.

Cheers, -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as task force coordinators are concerned, it might be more practical to have some of the assistant coordinators "adopt" some of the larger/more active task forces (that they're already active in, ideally). That way, we make sure that the task force coordinators are people who are already known to have the approval of the project as a whole. Kirill Lokshin 17:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely fine by me. I did not insist on that particular point? What about the other ones, though?? :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Nothing jumps out at me as being a bad idea; but as I assume that existing coordinators will also be part of this election, it's probably not very appropriate for me to be authoritarian about the election process ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A sound proposal. Here are a few auxiliary questions: How many coordinators are we looking to instate? What length of terms and what authority will be invested?Dryzen 19:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The number of coordinators... That's an interesting question.

I would say a minimum of 4 to 6 coordinators (including the two we already have and excluding Kirill - so it makes a lead coordinator and 4 to 6 assistants).

Regarding the length of the term, I think we should proceed like that: Today (meaning soon :) we elect some coordinators for 1 year. Six months later, we evaluate whether their number is sufficient or not. If not, we organize a new election six months laters, therefore creating a second "tranche". Obviously this is just an off-the-ceiling idea, and if someone has better ones, I'll gladly accept :) . -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That would probably work. We could use the six-month evaluation both to (a) determine if we need more coordinators and (b) replace any coordinators that wanted to step down (or had left, although I hope that won't happen).

One interesting problem that comes up if we create tranches, however, is whether the lead coordinator position is tied to a particular tranche. No idea what people want in this regard, though. Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"Who will separate us from you, Kirill?" :) <-- that sums up my thoughts pretty well. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Lead Coordinator for Life? Should I start stocking up on cigars and green uniforms? ;-)

(Slightly more seriously, though, this isn't really an issue that I should be making the call on, for obvious reasons; so, regardless of what the final decision is, it's something that should be considered by the project as a whole.) Kirill Lokshin 19:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, we have several possible options:

• The lead coordinator is permanent (as is the secretary of some Academies for instance). Honestly, given the fact that there are no authority issues and given the fact that MILHIST is more an academy than a government, such a situation would not bother me at all.
• Direct suffrage, option 1: Candidates stipulate in their case whether they want to apply to the post of lead coordinator. The lead coordinator is the one to have most support votes.
• Direct suffrage, option 2: The lead coordinator is de facto the candidate who totalized most votes during the election.
• Indirect suffrage: Coordinators are elected by everyone and coordinators elect the lead coordinator.

Possibilities are quite various, as one can see... :)

But honestly, I would rather see this procedure to be close to RFA than to some kind of election. The main goal of such a process would be to recruit new people to do the housekeeping -- not to oust the old ones from their posts, far from it. The reelection of existing coordinators would have the role of making sure they're still alive and kicking, nothing more than that. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Authority? We have authority? Why didn't somebody tell me?! ;-)

Quite honestly, aside from some vaguely defined moral authority, I don't think there's much at present. The only thing that comes to mind is that, under the new A-Class assessment proposal, coordinators would be the ones to close discussions; but, aside from that, it's mostly extra work rather than extra power. Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

FAC works fine with one guy having final authority over quality-rating. I don't see why the same model won't work here - even if they end up with idiosyncratic ideas, at least it'll be consistent. Shimgray | talk | 19:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

FAC also doesn't need to worry about people getting upset and leaving, though. I think we should avoid making this an authoritarian system.

(Having said that, it really doesn't affect the issue of how we set up the coordinators too much; as I pointed out, it's more about extra work than extra power.) Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I might suggest also having a list of "reserve" coordinators i.e. people who are willing to jump-in and do coordinator work for a short time if one of the full-time coordinators is temporarily busy (on vacation, moving, family emergency, etc). Cla68 15:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I rather like that idea in principle. On times when the workload becomes simply to much, these volunteers could be assigned to do particular tasks by the full-time coordinators.

As for the number of coordinators, I think we should definitely go for expansion. Being that six months are up, we should have a fairly good indication of any particular users involvement with the project and military history in general.

I think the stickier situation is the process of coordinator dismissal/replacement. While I think the ones we have now are great, there's always the chance of getting a lemon in the future. Oberiko 18:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I would assume that if we do have terms of some defined length, any coordinators who do a poor job would simply not get any support from the project members if they stood for re-election.

(In the quite unlikely case where a coordinator's behavior became an urgent issue, they would likely fall afoul of the normal Wikipedia-wide disciplinary process; and even if they didn't, we could presumably remove people on an ad-hoc basis if there was a consensus within the project that their actions were really harmful.) Kirill Lokshin 18:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, a (hopefully pretty simple) proposal:

• Coordinators would be selected for six-month terms, all running simultaneously. All coordinators would take part in each election. This allows us to (a) re-evaluate the project's needs and the number of coordinators every six months and (b) provides a way to retire coordinators who might prove to be unsuited to the job (or who don't feel like continuing for their own reasons) on a fairly regular schedule, and without instituting a separate removal process.
• In the immediate future, aim to select seven coordinators; one lead and six assistants. I think we should be able to get away with a three-week period (one week of signups and a two-week election). Perhaps a minimum requirement (e.g. ten endorsements from members) could be applied if the number of candidates were so small as to prevent a real choice; but I doubt that this will come up in practice.
• Still not really answered: how to determine the lead coordinator?

Comments would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 17:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking good.Dryzen 19:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Concur with your proposal with no suggested changes. Cla68 21:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, we can elect the lead coordinator among selected coordinators for instance. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean an indirect election by the "pool" of coordinators? Or (another) full election by the entire project. The second option would be equivalent to simply having the one with the highest support take the position, I think. Kirill Lokshin 21:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I gave four possible options higher in this very thread. I have a particular preference for leaving the lead coordinator as he is :) , but if some people would like a different option... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I entirely share your preference on this point ;-) I'm sort of hoping to get some feedback on this from other people, though. Kirill Lokshin 21:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the general proposal posted by Kirill above, but I think the matter of choosing a Lead Coordinator is a trifle complex. Grafikm's suggestions all have their own merits, but I think the first direct suffrage option seems the best - it worked last time, didn't it? --Loopy ^e 02:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a workable idea, then. Kirill Lokshin 04:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with any of Grafikm_fr's proposals....-plange 15:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Setting up elections

Okay, let's assume, provided nobody comes up with some significant issues with this, that we'll go ahead with electing 7 coordinators for six-month terms, and that the one with the highest support will be the lead.

This brings us to a number of practical questions:

• When should we hold the elections?
• How long should they last? One week? Two weeks?
• Do we want a separate signup period for candidates before the start of the election? For how long? If so, do we want to allow candidates to come in mid-election as well?

All suggestions are very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 03:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest by the end of August. That would allow Kirill to get some assistance. I am leaning to keeping the elections open for at least to weeks. As for the signup period it should be at the minimum of two weeks to four weeks I would think. (I was not around for the last one so I do not know how that went). Just my thoughts.--Oldwildbill 10:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Mid-August seems like a good idea. A signup period of one week (assuming everyone will know one or two weeks before) and a voting one of two to three weeks would be pretty OK I think. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

A week's notice with a week for candidate sign ups and then two weeks of voting out to be enough. Tell me if I've deduced this correctly: each member will have 7 votes, one for each coordinator they think should hold office? The candidates with the most votes are in, lead by the highest totalling candidate?Dryzen 17:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

A bit simpler than that (broadly following both how ArbCom and Esperanza elections work, and our own previous election): each member can support as many—or as few—candidates as he chooses. The rest is correct; the top 7 (in terms of number of endorsements) become coordinators, and the top one is the lead. Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you mean "one or two weeks before" the start of voting, or the start of the signup period itself? The second option would be a little strange, since it would make sense to open signups at the same time as informing the membership, so they have an immediate place to put their names if they're interested. Kirill Lokshin 17:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I mean that during week W we announce elections, during week W+1 and W+2 people sign up, and then vote during W+3 through W+5. Or something like that. :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

We could probably simplify things by stretching the signup period forward, then. In other words, make the announcement and simultaneously open up the signup, even if that takes the signup period a few days over the number of weeks. In practical terms, if we could get things set up by the end of this week, we could run the signup until August 12, and then have the election itself from August 12 to August 26. Would that work? Kirill Lokshin 17:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Having our coordinators by september would definitly be nice.Dryzen 19:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

OK for me too :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've started work on an election page; comments would be quite appreciated.

Another question: can we use Grafikbot to send out an election message to project members? Or will you need to request permission for that separately? Kirill Lokshin 20:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Make that a special issue newsletter. ;) The only problem is one of timing: I won't have access to AWB from 29 July through something like 5th or 6th August. So if you want a bot to diffuse the newsletter, you better prepare it now (don't think it has to be very long though :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Assuming nobody has issues with what's on the election page, we could be ready send a (very brief!) message out as early as tomorrow. Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Shoot, I'll heat the bot by tomorrow :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I made one copyedit I noticed-- hopefully I didn't change the original intention. Should we also allow other members to nominate someone else? -plange

Well, then we'd have to go through the whole acceptance of nomination part. I would think it would be easier to simply suggest that someone run privately rather than going through a formal third-party nomination. Kirill Lokshin 20:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good and sensible! -plange 21:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, how about this for a message:

The Military history WikiProject project coordinator selection process is starting. We are looking to elect seven coordinators for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by August 11!

Comments are very welcome, as I suspect there might be a better way of wording this. Kirill Lokshin 22:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Another thought -- Was wondering if you could put in the attributes/traits to look for when voting on the election page? I've only had experience with you, Kirill, as you're the only one who has done any of my peer review requests, so not sure what to look for in others who nominate themselves.... This may seem self-evident to most, but being a newbie to Wikipedia, I have no clue. Thanks! -plange 23:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Might be a little unfair for me to do that, considering that I'll be among the nominees, no? ;-)

(Actually, I'm not sure that there's any answer more detailed than "willingness and ability to carry out the needed work", so it might not be too much help anyways.) Kirill Lokshin 23:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

One way I will be deciding will be overall engagement in project afairs.Dryzen 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

• starts coup de project and makes Kirill Coordinator-For-Life* (and he can appoint the rest.) -- Миборовский 05:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Joins coup*(Party members will vote the rest ;o) )Dryzen 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Joins coup de project with Miborovsky :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• joining the coup plange 14:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

  Mmm, thank you; this is quite flattering ;-)

  On a slightly more serious point, can I assume that everyone responding has no problems with the election page or the wording of the announcement? If people are okay with it, we can probably get Grafikbot started on it sometime soon. Kirill Lokshin 15:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem, it even clear up a few things.Dryzen 17:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support as proposed. Cla68 17:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

How can you assume we're not serious? Anyway, Support... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tagging Articles

I haven't been keeping real good tabs on talk over here, but someone said ya'll are still haveing trouble tagging talk page articles. If so, check out User:WatchlistBot. I've been told anyone with alittle Python experience can run it. Contact me or User:Mom2jandk for more info. Thnx Joe I 21:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the issues have been pretty much resolved at this point; all we need are some people to do more tagging (I think the preliminary test for doing this with AWB have been successful, but I'll need to check to see if that's something likely to happen in the near future). Kirill Lokshin 21:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The idea is to NOT use a bot (or to feed a bot a presorted list). I'm up still up to it btw, I was just slowed down by that discussion at WP:AN... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, cool. :) Joe I 21:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, because you can get weird pages otherwise. For instance, I run into some paintball guns pages in Category:Military Equipment Little to do with military history :)) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 23:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been in the announcement box for some time now ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

My only comment is that the article should clarify two, related, matters: 1) The date when the MOH was expanded to all ranks; 2) The fact that there were numerous, retroactive awards made of the MOH. For instance, many people are aware of the fact that Joshua L. Chamberlin received the MOH for his actions at Gettysburg, but few realize that the MOH was actually awarded to Chamberlin in the 1890's. --Paco Palomo 13:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Since there has been little edit activity, the article has now been pushed from minor review to major review. I hope our military award experts will step up. It would be a shame to see it lose its Featured Article status. — ERcheck (talk) 01:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Military Coup during Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Does anyone know of this? I seen it in a documentary programme on the History Channel last year?--SGCommand (talk • contribs) 19:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, certain elements of the Japanese military attempted to keep the Emperor from announcing the surrender of Japan. They invaded the Imperial Palace, killed at least one, perhaps several of the Imperial Household guards, and tried to locate the recording of the Emperor's surrender proclamation. However, they deigned to invade the Emperor's private quarters, where the record was hidden, which allowed it to be broadcast the next day. The Wikipedia article "Surrender of Japan" touches a little on this event, but not in great detail. Cla68 00:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The event is described in further detail at Kenji Hatanaka, as Maj. Hatanaka was one of the lead conspirators. </self-plug> LordAmeth 04:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There should be link to this article in the Surrender of Japan article (perhaps there is already and I missed it). One thing, the article should state where the Emperor's recording of the surrender proclamation was hidden, as that's one of the most interesting pieces of the story. The Emperor's staff hid the surrender proclamation recording very ingeniously, if I remember right. Cla68 04:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Crew-served weapons

I'd appreciate it if someone could take a look at Talk:List of crew-served weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces and address my concerns. Thanks. --Cyde↔Weys 20:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Briefly replied on the talk page. One thing that might be an interesting project—if we can avoid having it deleted—would be to create a unified Glossary of military terms or something of the sort. We already have a few separate glossaries for specific branches or conflicts; a combined one might provide a better resource (as well as allowing us to merge together some of the smaller stubs that seem to infest Category:Military terminology and its children). Kirill Lokshin 20:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Start writing it in Wikipedia space, it'll still be useful even if it isn't an article. --Cyde↔Weys 17:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

See also List of established military terms —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mzajac (talk • contribs).

That one doesn't offer any definitions, though; my idea of a glossary would be to provide a one- or two-sentence definition even for those terms that had their own articles. Kirill Lokshin 00:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Stielhandgranate - images needed!

It's really a shame that Model 24 grenade (as well as all of the other stielhandgranate articles) don't have any pictures on them. This really is an iconic, archetypal hand grenade style that will be instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever seen a WWII film, and it's a travesty we don't have any images on the articles. I hope I'm coming to the right place to find someone who can get the images somehow! --Cyde↔Weys 17:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

A quick search suggests that the U.S. Army's German Infantry Weapons (May 1943) had both photos and diagrams of the grenades. Unfortunately, the images I've found online seem to be watermarked in fairly nasty ways by the hosting sites; if anyone can find clean copies, we could probably use them. Kirill Lokshin 18:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There's a famous close-up picture of a German soldier rearing up to throw one of those grenades. It seems like that picture is in at least half of the books published about the European theater of World War II and I think it's a public domain image. Perhaps someone can scan it out of a book and post to the Commons. I'm not sure if I have it in my book collection. Cla68 20:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This shows contemporary (Chinese-made) stick grenades being laid out for disposal, artfully placed next to a couple of "pineapples", etc. It's not a picture of the German grenade per se, but a cropped version of the larger image might do well on Grenade generally - we have no pictures illustrating that form of grenade at all just now. Shimgray | talk | 09:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

how about this and this? Mike McGregor (Can) 17:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like if we need an image for an article we can look at Wikipedia in the other languages. Cla68 18:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Trigger pull stubbed

Somehow an article hadn't been created on trigger pull until just now (when I went ahead and did it). It's still a very small stub, so there's significant room for expansion if anyone wants to add a notch to their "Articles I mostly wrote from scratch" belt. --Cyde↔Weys 13:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hiwi (volunteer)

I need some help: either support or rebuttal so long as its objective and informed. I'm getting drawn into an argument with mikkalai in the talk page on Hiwi (volunteer) and I would appreciate a consensus instead. I'm relying on a single source by a respected author, which Mikkalai rejects, so far without his own source. He may be right, I'd appreciate other contributions. Help! Folks at 137 06:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Indian taskforce?

I don't recall there having been a discussion about this, but apparently one was set up, and it probably needs more people than it currently has, so it's time to get recruiting, who here (besides User:Dangerous-Boy, of course) has the expertise/interest to contribute to this task force? -- Миборовский 07:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

No, there wasn't a discussion. Apparently, the note telling people to discuss these things before setting them up isn't getting through. Maybe we should convert it to a giant flashing banner? Kirill Lokshin 12:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

On a more practical level, this task force (like the proposed German one below) needs to define its scope. What is considered "Indian" pre-India? Does it include the Mughals? How about the Sultanate of Delhi? Or the Vijayanagara Empire? Kirill Lokshin 12:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, this was a fast creation. The Muslem states... Looks like a new task force to build up. Dryzen 15:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I was just directed to this page through a link on the talk page of Indian taskforce project after I signed up there. This is my first visit to this project. Please pardon my ignorance about military history. The reason I had signed up was because I am interested in anything 'Indian'. I also just saw that the task force should have been discussed before being set up. I dont know what happens now, but there is definitely lots of military history that India has to offer. Talking about just the recent history: After India became independent in 1947, it has been involved in atleast three major wars with Pakistan and one with China. Most of those, I just checked, have already been tagged. There are however many others such as Pokhran-II, various awardees of the Param Vir Chakra, Simla Treaty and other relatively little known articles which should probably be a part of the project. You are right about defining the scope of course. I can request some other Indian users who are more interested in the Indian Military history to do that. As for me, I am probably only good at tagging the right articles with the right template. In fact thats what I mentioned as I joined the task force. -- Lost 16:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Thoreaulylazy contacted me a while ago about starting it up. I finally decided to do it since there are a lot of Indian battles over the centuries. It's scope is probably like the chinese one. It should cover pre-independent India to present. Plus, there's also a big military weapons section that needs organization.--D-Boy 16:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the question is this: which of the various pre-independence states that occupied the territory currently known as India would be included? In particular, would it include the Mughal Empire (which has a lot of military history topics)? Kirill Lokshin 17:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course.--D-Boy 17:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thought I'd point you to a related discussion about the usage of 'India' pre independence. Maybe we can take some inputs from there -- Lost 17:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Somebody should write up a little "Scope" section on the task force page (similar to the ones on the British or Classical warfare ones) to explain the issue for arriving editors. Kirill Lokshin 17:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I wrote something up. Improve if you want.--D-Boy 03:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

German taskforce?

Is there a German taskforce? Or even an Axis one? Seems a bit of a gap in our expertise. And no, I don't know enough, which is why I'd value a source of expertise. Folks at 137 09:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We have WWII, and that should cover the Axis. A specifically German one, no. Oberiko 10:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Pity. Despite the WWII taskforce, we also have ones for UK, US, Canada, France, Poland, maybe others. Folks at 137 10:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We could probably create a German one if somebody would come up with a working definition of "German". (In other words, do we want the task force to cover pre-1871 material, and, if so, what do we consider to be "German"?) Kirill Lokshin 12:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Never said it was easy! Would we limit to within German national boundaries (impermament as they were) or include ethnic Germans, eg, the Volga Germans? It does illustrate, however, the need for expert moderation. I presume that there were similar problems for the Polish task force. Maybe use a restrictive definition and expand it as confidence grows? Just a thought - not intending to cause problems. I'll back off, FTTB. Folks at 137 12:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Some more thoughts: would we consider the Holy Roman Empire to be German? How about Prussia and the Teutonic/Livonian Orders? Kirill Lokshin 12:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats a tough call, we should probobly get the peopel that are interested in working of this to speak up there own thoughts since they will be working on the project. For exemple, we could have only post-1871 members, therefore our task force's range will be easily pegged. In my opinion I would try to encompass the area of modern germany as well as the german tribes throught to the Holy Roman Empire and onwards to the modern german state, passing through Prussia's hegemony and the Teutonic Orders. This though does spring up a challange with the Austrian Hegemony and break away states of the Holy Roman Empire; Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lietchtenstein, Netherlands, Czech, etc .Dryzen 15:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, my own interest is primarily in the Holy Roman Empire, so I would be for including that. The question is whether we can define it in a way that won't step on too many national toes.  ;-) Kirill Lokshin 15:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, since we are talking about new task forces; I've been mulling over trying to get a Japanese history task force started. Considering the scope of Japanese military history (samurai to JSDF), I'm surprised one hasn't been set up yet. Given that my major was Japanese history, with an emphasis on sengoku jidai, I would love to start a task force for that. Could possibly do some collaboration with the Wikiproject Japan, too. Anyone interested?--Nobunaga24 00:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, there was a discussion way up at the top of the page about a general "Far East" one that went nowhere. LordAmeth has been the main proponent of a Japanese military history task force; I would suggest talking to him, and if he's still interested, we can probably set one up with the two of you to start with. Kirill Lokshin 00:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I'm familiar with his work from the Japan Wikiproject, didn't know he was part of this too. Given the nature of Japanese military history compared to the rest of Asia, I wouldn't lump Japan into a Far East task force anymore than I would lump the U.S. into a "Western Hemisphere" task force. I'll either contact him, or give him a while to reply here. Thanks--Nobunaga24 01:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

How about, so as to include pre-Germany German warfare we call in the Germanic warfare taskforce? Staxringold _talk^contribs 19:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The German-Austrian task force? Of course, then there's the question of Hungarian-Austrian.... I'm all for going back to the very beginning of German/Germanic historical warfare. I don't think it has to only include the exact geographic location of Germany that we know today to include it. Countries and peoples shift (largely through war, naturally) and if it influenced German warfare today, it should be included. However, I think once its history breaks away from other countries around it and becomes the Germany we all know and love now, we should stick with that. Otherwise, I fear the Germanic TF will become bloated and unmanageable. Just because Germany and several other countries in Europe share a common history doesn't mean they should all be in the same task force--what a headache.

While we're on the subject, how about an Italian TF? Surely they influenced enough of several countries' histories through the Roman Empire, nevermind involvement in two World Wars, to justify its inclusion.--ScreaminEagle 21:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

If we were to have an Italian task force, I would think it would be better as a post-Roman Empire one, since otherwise it would include too much of what the Classical warfare one covers (and become horribly bloated due to the scope of Roman warfare). It would still have quite a lot of interesting material to deal with, though, so I suspect it would be doable (depending on editor interest, of course).

As far as the German one: I suppose we must try to figure out exactly what we want to include. Some obvious things that we might look at:

• Ancient tribes in Germany (Teutons, Goths, etc.)
• Carolignians?
• Medieval German states (HRE + friends)

• Bohemia?
• Austria?
• Hungary after absorption by Austria?

• Teutonic Knights
• Prussia
• Post-HRE Austria + Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Post-unification Germany

Depending on which of these we want to grab, we can probably come up with a usable name. Kirill Lokshin 22:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Didn't Germanic tribes migrate to and/or conquer other areas outside of the present-day location of Germany/Austria such as Rome/Italy, England, Scandinavia, France, Spain, and even North Africa? That's why it seems much more difficult to define the scope of a Germanic task force in comparison with a Japanese task force. Is there an identifier for all the events concerning the Germanic tribes that's more generic than German or Germanic? Even that's problematic, if I understand European history correctly, since other major nations/tribes and languages are (arguably) direct descendents of the Germanic tribes including modern day England (and modern English), Scandinavia, and even the United States. Cla68 22:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm the Italien task force has shed some new light on this predicament. Many of the original task forces where set up with a time frame in mind rather than a location or nation of origin. (Classical, Middle ages, etc...) with our newer nationnal prone task force we seem to be sharing quite a few scopes. Such as the French task force, wich should in my mind includes all the way to the Merovingian dynasty spans a few of our task forces' scopes... Dryzen 16:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think overlaps are a problem so long as they don't constitute an overwhelming portion of a task force's scope. The French task force, for example, overlaps most of the period-based ones, but none of the overlaps are particularly massive; while a full Italian task force could concievably cover more than half of the scope of the Classical task force. This would be somewhat problematic, in my opinion, because of the substantial confusion over where issues relating to Ancient Rome would be best discussed; neither of the task forces would be obviously more appropriate in such a case. Kirill Lokshin 16:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, thinking on this some more: so long as task forces are not entirely subsets of each other, are overlaps—even significant ones—a problem at all? Could we get away with having a lot of Ancient Rome articles tagged both as Classical and Italian, based on the assumption that both of those task forces would (a) include substantial other elements in their scope and (b) bring a possibly different perspective to articles?

And, as an extension, if we don't need to worry about overlaps, can we define task forces quite broadly, and thus avoid the exact issues of quibbling whether a particular period fits in one versus the other? In more practical terms, create German and Italian task forces under the assumption that anything which a reasonable person might consider to be "German" or "Italian" could potentially be included, even if those elements were also in other task forces? Kirill Lokshin 16:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kirill Lokshin and besides the current Collaboration of the Fortnight, Battles of Narvik, is tagged by no less than 5 task forces. --Carl Logan 16:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I also agree that not trying too hard to set firm scope boundries is probably the way to go with regards to different task forces. It could mean that an article could have an extremely long list of task forces on its talk page, but I don't think that's a problem. Cla68 17:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then, how about a quick show of hands. If anyone interested in the following task forces could list themselves, we'll be able to see where we stand in regard to setting them up. Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

German 

Kirill Lokshin

Laserbeamcrossfire

Carl Logan

Oldwildbill

Italian 

Kirill Lokshin

Oldwildbill

Okay, the German military history task force has been created; please sign up there now! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Japanese task force

Thanks to Nobunaga24 for reviving the idea of starting a Japanese task force. The only reason I suggested a Far East task force to begin with was (a) I wasn't sure we'd find enough editors by doing just Japan, and (b) I personally have begun to be interested in Southeast Asia of late, and was hoping to subsume that into it therefore. But if we have enough support (how many is enough?) to do just Japan, I am more than up for starting that up. LordAmeth 06:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Can we please get a formal hand-raising of potential members?

• Count me in. Happy to serve, and to lead. LordAmeth 06:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
• Hai Megapixie 07:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ehh, just sign up here and save some time ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks, Kirill. I had planned to wait and see how much support there was before I asked you to formally create it, but I guess we're off and running. Arigatou! LordAmeth 13:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Congrats on a new task force but maybe I am wrong here but I do wonder have the following categories help this project To serve as the central point of discussion for issues related to military history in Wikipedia

• Category:Fictional ninja
• Category:Daredevil
• Category:Daredevil supporting characters
• Category:Daredevil villains
• Category:Naruto characters
• Category:Ninja parody
• Category:Ninjutsu

They would seem to fall under WikiProject Japan but not a serious historical section and seem to detract from that.--Oldwildbill 14:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, none of those should have anything to do with the project, as we don't generally deal with fictional depictions of military matters. Have they been tagged or something? Kirill Lokshin 14:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

When you go to the Task force project page here then go to the section named Categories, then category:Military History of Japan,then category:Japanese warriors,then category:Ninja. I checked a few articles but so far they haven't been tag with the project banner yet.--Oldwildbill 15:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a flaw in the category system, really. (See also Category:Fictional battles, for example.) As a general rule, we just ignore the presence of fictional categories in the tree. Kirill Lokshin 15:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Aren't ninjas more assassins and spies than warriors... -- Миборовский 20:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

But they were used as a weapon of war in medieval Japan. I think they qualify. --Woogums 20:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

100th featured article

It's been brought to my attention that Aleksandr Vasilevsky, which was promoted to featured article status today, is our one hundredth featured article. Congratulations are in order to everyone who has contributed to the various FAs under our purview (and, more specifically, to Grafikm fr for his tireless efforts with this article in particular). Cheers! Kirill Lokshin 00:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice one! --Loopy ^e 02:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

So we have 1/10 the FAs in WP... Nice. -- Миборовский 22:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Help with peer reviews

If anyone has a bit of free time, we've got a bunch of new peer review requests that could use more attention; having me being the only one to answer is probably limiting the feedback there somewhat ;-) Kirill Lokshin 15:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to help out by emulating the approach you take to doing effective peer reviews. However, it may be a couple of days before I can do one. Cla68 21:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Categorization of military people?

A few weeks ago we had an interesting debate about this issue. If I am not mistaken, we came up with a couple of interesting ideas. Still, things are pretty much the same. Any thoughts on how we can help to put those ideas into practice? Back then, my attempt to create cat: Military people of France, as per our discussions, came to nothing when another editor sent it to CFD. --Andrés C. 05:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion about why we need more coordinators up above. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Dutch task force

I was wondering if a Dutch military task force could be created?

I don't really know which way to go though; although the Netherlands have more than enough military history of their own, the concept of "Dutch", as in people of the Netherlands, could also be used in the context of "people who speak Dutch" which in that way would also include the military history of Flanders or even the Low Countries, this context is already used to some extent in the Military history of the Netherlands article:

The Dutch-speaking people have a long history, the Netherlands as a nation-state dates from 1568. Belgium (a country with a Dutch speaking majority) became an independent state in 1830 when it seceded from the Netherlands.

Generally I'd say the Dutch task force could cover anything fought on Dutch territory (or the low countries) and anything fought by Dutch troops (or Dutch speakers) around the entire world. This would/could provide the taskforce with about 2000 years to cover, from the battles of Germanic tribes to Operation Enduring Freedom.

Could such a task force be created?  Rex  15:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No reason why not in principle, but do we have enough editors interested in working on it? Kirill Lokshin 15:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I know about 5 editors who almost certainly would join the project.  Rex  16:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, ask them first. (Or better yet, have them drop by and join the conversation here.)  ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I've send out some invitations, I've received one responds (a positive one) so far:

• Daanschr
• (Rex)
• old windy bear

 Rex  18:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Good enough for me; here is your new task force. Enjoy! :-) Kirill Lokshin 12:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, happy to contribute to 'Dutch military task force'. I'll add myself as a participant - Chwyatt 11:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi I am in too (away on holiday so no sooner response) Arnoutf 19:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Siege of Beirut (1982)

I originally created the article Siege of Beirut using a single source, Paul Davis' "100 Great Sieges." As many of you probably already know, this is by no means my field of expertise. Some changes have been made recently that seem quite plausible, but also biased, and my knowledge of the details of these events is, admittedly, lacking. I have no desire to get into an edit war or flamewar with someone (particularly an IP editor), and so I am asking the wider community to take a look at the changes, and to keep an eye on the article. It is a touchy subject, but that is all the more reason that it should be as accurate and NPOV as we seek all articles to be. Thanks for any help anyone might provide. LordAmeth 01:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Reflecting on the importance ratings

Now that we have about two months worth of using the importance ratings, I think it might be a good time to evaluate their benefits. We have ~1700 articles with such ratings at the moment; looking at the ratings reveals two things:

• The ratings are very subjective and generally inconsistent among very similar articles.
• We are beginning to see conflicts over how particular articles should be rated.

The two questions which I think we must ask ourselves are these:

1. Can we ever get the ratings to a level of accuracy and consistency that would make them meaningful?
2. Even if we can, do the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs?

I'm, quite frankly, beginning to lean towards a negative answer on both counts. It's becoming increasingly unclear that these ratings will play into the projected 1.0 project in any significant way, or that those tasks cannot be accomplished at the time, using better-defined selection sizes to hand-pick a needed number of articles. Conversely, the ratings and the resulting categories seem ill-suited towards internal use (for prioritizing to-do lists, for example) as they don't take quality into account, and result in lists too massive to be used by hand.

Hence, some ideas:

• Abandon the tag-driven importance ratings.
• For internal project use, focus on (a) having task forces set up to-do lists with high-priority items and (b) using the "Attention needed" flag together with a higher-volume and higher-turnover general task list to present a greater number of articles in need of substantial assistance to the project members.
• Look into compiling small, limited-scope lists of "important" (here using the normal meaning, rather than "well-known") topics for use in various publication exercises. Things like "100 key battles in world history" might be easier to work with than attempting to rank every battle (and could play into releasing WikiReaders based on the lists).

If I am correct in viewing the ratings as causing conflict and not particularly useful, it would be better, in my opinion, to simply scrap the idea rather than continuing with it, wasting more time and effort and causing deeper division within the project. Having said that, it's possible that I'm viewing this in too negative a light; thus, any comments and suggestions would be extremely welcome! Kirill Lokshin 18:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you're saying and I think your ideas for an alternate "priority" system are good ones. Cla68 18:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I never really liked importance ratings anyway, primarily because of their subjectivity. I'm in support of scrapping them. --Loopy ^e 19:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I also support dropping them. They cause too much difficulty compared to the amount of value they provide, which I agree is limited. They're just not worth the hassle. I like the idea of tagging articles that need more attention. Top 100 lists are nice and fun, but even then you'll get arguments about it: "How can you possibly leave off the Battle of Bob's Army, especially when you've seen fit to include something as trivial as the Retreat of Billy's Regiment??" You get the idea. I've done Top 100 lists before and there is always bickering/nitpicking. But flagging is a great idea I think. --ScreaminEagle 20:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Support, drop them. Hey, your ideas about getting the TFs work on lists of high priority items sound interesting. The more active the TFs, the less workload for the Project coordinators...which brings me to this question: why not having at least one coordinator within each Task Force? We can profit from the current selection process to select also TF coordinators. That way, the lead coordinator will have not six but twenty-seven(!) assistants :) --Andrés C. 22:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

A top-down variation on this (having the regular assistant coordinators "adopt" particular task forces) might work. I'm not so sure about a bottom-up version (having each task force select its own coordinator) because this would mean that there might be coordinators selected that the project as a whole might not be comfortable with, particularly in the case of very small task forces. Kirill Lokshin 22:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Andrés C. 23:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So, anyone else? Shall we remove the ratings? Kirill Lokshin 12:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If it continues to be this much bother, then, yeah, drop 'em. But I do think they serve a good purpose, however subjective and difficult they may be. I vote that we reorganize them, maybe add a ranking or two, rather than just dropping it. The main problem with the importance ratings right now, as I see it, is that we are trying to reconcile both overall global importance and importance within a given field of interest in one ranking. I think if we add a ranking or two, it can help to fix this.

My suggestion-

1. Global Importance - articles on subjects known by the average reader and /or those of great importance in the overall sphere of military history. E.g. World War II, William the Conqueror, Battle of Marathon, American Civil War
2. Top Importance - articles of the greatest importance within a given field of interest, particularly those not well-known or of great interest to the average reader outside that field. E.g. Tokugawa Ieyasu, Genpei War, Boudica, Battle of Crecy, William Tecumseh Sherman.
3. High Importance - articles of some import either within a given field or in general, which are not likely to be widely known or of great interest to the average reader. E.g. Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Siege of Beirut, Battle of Stamford Bridge
4. Mid Importance - Those subjects which are of enough importance to warrant an article, but which are likely of little import or interest outside their field, or in general. e.g. Military Division of the Mississippi, Tostig Godwinson, Tuscarora War, Oda Nobuhide

Quite obviously, my suggested arrangement has some issues too, and nothing we do can ever be truly objective and solid. But I think it important to give editors the space to rank things within their field without impinging upon the ranks reserved for those things of a wider, more general importance. LordAmeth 15:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but I don't really believe it would significantly help from a practical perspective. I don't think the issue is so much that we cannot reconcile topical rankings versus global ones; rather, the subjectivity inherent in any such ranking—combined, perhaps, with the selection bias that occurs from trying to rank such a wide range of topics—is producing data that appears to be meaningful but isn't actually useful for anything. Adding more levels, or more complicated criteria, will produce different data; but I'm not sure it would be any more useful than what we have now. Kirill Lokshin 16:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

In the current form, yes. I agree it's pretty much impossible for everyone to agree on the importance of various events / objects; that said, I think there is still some merit to having an importance scale in place, though in a modified form.

I think the best way to run it would be to have each task force give an importance rating to the various articles so as to show how important an event is within their given scope. For example, the French task force might rate the Battle of France as Top and World War II as High, while the World War II task force would do the opposite. This way, we'd have our "experts" doing the ranking within their field of knowledge and present a more accurate (if that word applies) picture of an articles actual importance (ie. If most task forces involved rate an article as "top", it's probably pretty important).

I would recommend implementation by allowing placing a new field for each task force on the wpmilhist template which would let them put the importance rating (ie: German-task-force=yes, high). Either that or each task force could have lists placed on their pages dividing up articles in terms of importance. Oberiko 16:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the practical issues (there's no way to parse template parameters like that, and maintaining lists by hand for anything more than a few hundred articles isn't workable), this brings up an interesting question: what is the ultimate purpose of this ranking?

If it's to focus task forces' efforts on highly visible articles, I see no reason why we would need a comprehensive system; for the purposes of a to-do list, it should be sufficient to select a (small) set of important but low-quality articles on an ad-hoc basis. Certainly a 10,000-entry (or even a 1,000-entry) list doesn't seem particlarly useful from a practical standpoint, as nobody would ever bother going through it all.

Conversely, if we want to institute "canonical" rating of the importance of particular topics, we're still faced with the same issues even on the task force level; and I really don't see how we can combat them without reducing the scope of each task force to something miniscule. Kirill Lokshin 16:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If it is to be a list maintained by each task-force, then I was thinking more in terms of dozens rather then thousands. The top articles would be essentially on a high-priority to be completed properly. Oberiko 17:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

That's basically a to-do list (with entries selected based on importance) then, if I'm understanding you correctly? I see no problem with doing that, but there's no need for an entire system of ratings if all we're looking for is a few dozen high-priority articles; each task force can presumably hand-pick the ones they think need the attention (possibly using the existing "attention" flag as a signal to look for). Kirill Lokshin 17:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on the comments so far, I would propose this as a (hopefully practical) course of action for the immediate future:

1. Remove the tag-based importance ratings.
2. Suggest that each task force compile, on an ad-hoc basis, a (reasonably short) list of high-priority articles to work on. These lists would be expected to change as the articles on them reached an acceptable level of quality.
3. Attempt a task listing system which will provide greater exposure for the lists in point 2. One idea I've come up with is discussed below, but other suggestions are welcome.

Would this be broadly acceptable? Kirill Lokshin 04:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

As an addendum to this, the announcement template has been updated to a form that can transclude (somewhat) arbitrary lists of open tasks from each task force. Assuming the new format sticks, we could easily feed each task force's list of high-priority articles directly into this. Kirill Lokshin 01:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Concur as proposed. Cla68 02:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've decided to be somewhat bold, and have gone ahead and removed the importance rating code from the project banner. As far as further discussion is concerned, if we could please try to keep things separate:

• Calls for my head on a platter should go in this section.
• Discussion about task force to-do/priority lists (and their inclusion in the main open task template) should go in the corresponding section below.

Other comments are welcome anywhere! Kirill Lokshin 04:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting, bold decision after a quick reflection. (And I was just settling into the new importance descriptions ;-) — ERcheck (talk) 05:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The question, though, is whether it's a good decision. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 05:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought that importance rating guidelines were sufficiently clear and I'd like to keep them, although I'd recommend that both quality and importance should be voted for on a kind of peer-review, the current problems with inconsistency raise from the fact that ratings are given by one person, not by community, thus somewhat bypassing the 'many eyes' principle of wiki error elimination. I'd suggest that we divide the ratings into proposed (given by a single editor) and project (after they have been reported on some subpage here and not contested for a week or so). The other problem I see is the increasing number of various WikiProjects giving ratings to the same article, resulting in the growing number of large templates with different importance ratings (difference in ratings themselves is not an issue, as the same thing can be of different importance to different fields). I'd suggest we create a template in which various WikiProjects would include their rating in one line (something like our current task force ratings, but a level higher). Of course this proposal is larger then just for this WikiProject, but I am not sure where to post this concern.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  14:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I doubt there would be much support for that, at least among the more active projects, as the projects' own templates usually contain more information than the ratings. In addition, not all of the projects assign ratings in the same way; the Tropical cyclones WikiProject, for example, does have a group review for (at least some) quality levels (which is something we're probably going to try for A-Class assessments, likely once the coordinator elections are done). Thus, a template would still need to show each project's rating, which wouldn't really gain anything in terms of space, and would just introduce an extra (very convoluted!) template that would need to be maintained. Kirill Lokshin 14:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Article requests...new section added

I added a Military equipment section to the list of article requests. Mike McGregor (Can) 22:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)