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News and announcements Tranche XXIV of the WikiProject coordinators has been elected. The October newsletter is now available. Editors are advised that Featured Articles promoted before 2016 are in need of review, if you had an article promoted to Featured status on or before 2016 please check and update your article before they are listed at FAR/C.	Current discussions No major discussions are open at the moment
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Casus belli in warbox

I noticed some inconsistency in casus belli (CB) listed across WP articles. Is CB: a) the initial act of war committed in the ensuing conflict, or b) the justification (as insolent as can be) for the initial act of war? In some warboxes CB field is empty: Invasion of Poland (1939), Operation Barbarossa (shouldn't they say Lebensraum?), Anglo-Iraqi War, Iran-Iraq War, etc. Some articles interpret CB as (a), e.g. the Falklands War lists "Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia" rather than Argentinian claims, while others as (b), e.g. Yom Kippur War's CB line was recently changed to "Israel's retention of territory taken from Egypt and Syria in Six-Day War". What do reliable sources say? TIA. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 11:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

casus belli is defined as "the justification for acts of war". It is not the "a) the initial act of war committed in the ensuing conflict" but it is "b) the justification (as insolent as can be) for the initial act of war". For example the the Gleiwitz incident was Germany's casus belli when starting the Invasion of Poland, but the unprovoked German attack on Poland's sovereignty was the reason for the war from the Polish perspective. Both are correct statements, but as you pointed out, only the justification for the initial act should be listed. In this case it is quite clear who attacked and who was forced to react, so casus belli is only the Gleiwitz incident. If it is not clear, list all relevant casi belli and do mention accordingly the respective parties of the conflict. For example: Germany: Gleiwitz incident / Poland: German attack Wandalstouring 12:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep. (And each of the other countries entering the war typically has its own casus belli; e.g. the invasion of Poland for the UK and France; the attack on Pearl Harbor for the US; and so forth.)

(Of course, the field is optional; if the casus belli is too complex to be properly documented in the infobox, or is not of particular interest with regards to that war, it may be better off being omitted.) Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much for clarification. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, having a casus belli in a warbox, which should be reserved for only the most indisputable things amenable to brief description, is a terrible idea, and hardly ever appropriate. It should be removed practically everywhere. It is intrinsically POV. Serious, reputable sources do not usually simplify matters this way, because few wars are amenable to such simplification. Listing each country's casi belli would be better than the implicit and incoherent taking of one side's viewpoint that is done now, but this would make the line far too long and is what should be in the article on the causes of the particular war. In practice, this, the only NPOV solution, is never done, and is in fact contrary to the instructions for how to use the line!: "This field should not be used . . . in cases where the casus belli is disputed and requires a lengthy explanation. " The Six day war is an example. The article and line sort of takes the Israeli POV for the very complicated and still disputed causation of this war. But Israel claimed that Nasser's blockade was illegal, an act of war. If so the Israeli air attack was not the initial act of war and according to the Wiki definition we should put Nasser's justification. On the other hand, Jordan claimed that the attack on Samu, which killed people, unlike the blockade, was an act of war justifying a response. The Syrians could and did claim the Damascus airbattle and what they claimed were illegal Israeli actions in the DMZs were a cause. There is no reason to put such a line in, and any article with a casus belli line has an amateurish feel because of it. It makes about as much sense as having a good guy / bad guy line. It is asking for POVpushing, and that is how it is used. States always claim that their actions are just responses to the other guy's dirty rotten acts of war. If we were seriously NPOV, we would get into infinite regresses. Looking at earlier discussion, it appears that some of the objection to Kirill Lokshin's earlier removal of this field, which should have stayed removed, was due to the case of this 6 day war which is exactly the kind of war which should not have a casus belli line. 4.231.212.223 20:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It is, admittedly, a somewhat peculiar field. I vaguely recall that when it was originally added (around October 2005, when we were redesigning the old battlebox), the idea was primarily to use it for Early Modern warfare, which took the concept rather more seriously (e.g. the various wars of Louis XIV, etc.). In some sense, it's not a field that works particularly well past that point; after Napoleonic times, the casus belli became less of a practical issue and more of a legal fiction, in many cases.

But the practical question has always been whether the fact that the field is a bad fit for some set X of articles warrants not making it available for the set Y of articles where it is useful. It is, in general, more difficult to remove features from templates than it is to add them; and we've never really had any consensus that it should be removed, in any case. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO, casus belli is an excellent example of what shouldn't be in an infobox. I suspect that the number of cases where a single, pithy, NPOV statement of a casus belli to which all of the participants would have agreed to is in the extreme minority. A summary of each's "official" position certainly should be summarized in the introduction, but it probably shouldn't be further "reduced". Askari Mark (Talk) 23:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I must disagree. Wars, like any other event in history, are not fought in a vacuum, and must be understood within the relevant context. Yes, it can be complicated, and it can create POV problems if people are feeling sensitive about the issue, but that's no reason to avoid it entirely. Lengthy complex discussions of the causes (within the article text) are wonderful, and important, but can often be too lengthy and complex for the casual reader. The causes of any given conflict are too important an element to omit completely from the infobox, the one place the casual reader will look to quickly learn all the crucial facts about a war or conflict. Again, there are situations where the causes are simply far too numerous and complex, such as WWII, and there are others which are too sensitive an issue to say boldly the true causes, such as many more recent regional struggles, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict. But there are countless other examples of wars where the causes can be summarized, are widely agreed upon, and are largely uncontroversial. Quite often, the two words "succession dispute" covers it completely. The causes of a number of the articles on pre-modern wars within Japan can be easily summarized as "clan disputes over control of X province" or as "X party seeks to topple Y regime". Even in far more modern wars, more often than not there are widely accepted, or at least acknowledged, reasons cited for given military actions. One of the important things to keep in mind, I think, in order to help avoid POV issues, is to focus on the direct causes or justifications of the aggression, and to not accuse countries or other parties of deeper agendas. The Vietnam War is likely among the most controversial wars of the 20th century, yet the infobox on its article states, succinctly, accurately, and neutrally, "Cold War nation-building and escalation, civil conflicts of nationalism." Writing succinct, non-biased (NPOV) casus belli can be done, if we are professional about it and act like adults, drawing from professional scholarly analysis and not from our own personal beliefs. LordAmeth 23:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you have said, LordAmeth, except I disagree that what you are talking about is "casus belli". Wandalstouring provides the correct definition of it above, to wit, that it is what the participants each separately maintain their "justification" to have been. Furthermore, while your example is accurate and neutral, I'd argue that it's too wordy for an infobox and too vague and pedantic for the average reader without a scholarly background. Moreover, when you get to the many conflicts (from ancient to modern) where scholars disagree over the most proximate cause(s), it gets worse. IMO, what would be better than "casus belli" would be a brief statement of the general nature or type of war (which is more in line with what your example is about), which would be more intelligible to the general reader ... assuming we can come up with a generally acceptable NPOV categorization schema. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Yeah, I guess my examples don't really fit the proper definition of "the justification for the initial act of war." They are, as you say, more like summaries of the type of conflict, described by short summaries of the causes. Still, I think that no matter what we do, however we make it work, the casus belli should stay in the infobox. If it requires footnotes, or expanded explanation in the text, fine. And for those cases where it's too complex or too controversial, we could leave it out. LordAmeth 08:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Russian-Circassian War now open

The A-Class review for Russian-Circassian War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Holocaust & Genocide

I was hoping that wikipedia may be able to make a section for Holocaust & Genocide as either a project or portal. I thought that it might be part of the Military project of the History section. Looking for assistance with this. Thanks. I would appreciate comments & assistance to be left on my talk page [[1]]. I hope to hear from you soon. Eric Rodrigues.

Well, while there are certainly some military aspects involved, I don't think the broader topic of genocides is really a military one as a whole. This may be better off as a completely separate project. Kirill Lokshin 09:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

We currently have a Jewish history wikiproject that seems to include the Holocaust; you may want to bring up a task force proposal over there before firing up an independent project. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Try to set up your project as part of the larger Wikiproject History. We will certainly support you as far as possible, but quite a lot of killing during genocides is commited by "armed" civilians against unarmed, lesser armed or outnumbered civilians. A really big problem is that the project(under whatever umbrella) as such is in danger to boldly enter into some ongoing POV disputes (Pontic Greek Genocide, Armenian Genocide). Some guidelines might be helpful. Wandalstouring 09:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

British anti-invasion preparations of World War II

Article: British anti-invasion preparations of World War II, has been put forward as a featured article candidate. If you would like to comment on this article's nomination, please see here. All opinions will be most welcome. Gaius Cornelius 17:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Already noted on {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} and at WP:MHR#FAC. :-) Kirill Lokshin 17:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry now open

The A-Class review for Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Tupolev TB-3 now open

The A-Class review for Tupolev TB-3 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Para Commandos

Para Commandos currently goes to an article on India’s Para Commandos. As Belgium also has Para Commandos, should Para Commandos be a disambiguation page, with...

Para Commandos (Belgium)

Para Commandos (India)

If people agree, I'm happy to do this. Regards Chwyatt 08:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that seems like the easiest thing to do. Kirill Lokshin 11:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 12:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Cheers Fayssal Chwyatt 14:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Russian-Circassian War needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Russian-Circassian War; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 18:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Red Cliffs...

Hi,

I'm not a member of this wikiproject. Recently, due to the popularity of the movie 300 (movie), the Battle of Thermopylae rec'd a high number of visits...

John Woo is making or gonna make a movie about the Battle of Red Cliffs. I'm expecting a similar surge in popularity. I'm thinking it might be proactive if y'all started a collaboration to improve that article, and perhaps a few closely related ones.... just a thought. :-)

Later! --Ling.Nut 02:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Ling.Nut. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 13:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

1st Infantry Division (United States)

I expanded the nickname part of the infobox and added redirects and also dealed with the nagging "half the intro is the motto" problem a short while ago. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 19:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice of you to edit the page. Do you have any questions or is there a need to specifically discuss something here? Wandalstouring 14:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was going to request that User:RM Gillespie expand the Vietnam War section, but other than that nothing really.--Pupster21 Talk To Me 17:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Tupolev TB-3 needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Tupolev TB-3; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Benjamin Franklin Tilley now open

The A-Class review for Benjamin Franklin Tilley is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

List of invasions

Does anyone here have this page on their watchlist? Would appreciate help in looking out for bad edits --- there is some anon in Stockton, California with a variety of IPs who repeatedly reinserts Vietnam-related items to this page about immigrants or refugees, rather than instances of military incursions (e.g. Koreans in Vietnam). Made a request for semi-protection of the page but it was refused. Thanks, cab 07:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, you have to define on the page what an invasion is (to exclude for example: "Invasion of techno in New Orleans").

Secondly, you need a more elaborate structure. Grouping as WWx on the one hand and with dates on the other is no consequent system (Many ancient wars do have quite a lot of invasions compared to WWI/II). Furthermore you should split it according to regions/continents and this way point out that it is ot intended as an US/Eurocentric list.

Visit campaign history of the Roman military to see an example how things could be done in a more vandalproof manner. Wandalstouring 10:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you are giving too much credit to the anons by assuming that this is a good faith dispute over what the definition of "invasion" should be, rather than recognising it as some Vietnamese guy with an ethnic grudge --- I'm not the guy who wrote the page, and had never even seen it until three days ago, but it's quite clear to me that it refers to military invasions, given the entries that were already on the page before these anons started adding to it, the Military History template on it, the fact that it belongs to Category:Military lists, and the definition at invasion which states "An invasion is a military action consisting of armed forces of one geopolitical entity entering territory controlled by another such entity". Anyway, I also lack the necessary historical expertise to clean it up, I'm just trying to prevent it from declining in quality any further until you all here have some time to improve it (it is, after all, tagged as belonging to your WikiProject). Thanks, cab 12:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Find the one guilty of tagging this list. If s/he or someone else doesn't care about it, delete it. Our project is rather critical of any such lists. Wandalstouring 14:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Didn't we nominate it for deletion at some point? Or am I confusing it with another of these lists?

(Of the ones we have, this one probably among the more unmaintainable. Unlike, say, wars, "invasions" are typically not very rigorously defined, since a war going back-and-forth across a border can include many actions that meet the definition. What we really have at the moment is, in parts, more a "list of wars involving invasions" rather than a "list of invasions" per se.) Kirill Lokshin 15:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It certainly deserves to be deleted: I just removed claims that Japan invaded Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Ceylon during WW2 and an article which labels an incident in March 2007 in which 100 Swiss soldiers accidently crossed into Lichenstein for about an hour as being an 'invasion'. This article seems to be unmaintainable and not particularly informative. --Nick Dowling 10:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yesterday I removed a link to Pearl Harbor as an invasion of the U.S. by Japan! I'd vote for deletion. I can't imagine any purpose for which this list would be of any use. Kim dent brown 10:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I found the one guilty of tagging this list:

Revision as of 05:02, 12 February 2006

User:Kirill Lokshin

({{WikiProject Military history}})

Kirill, yoa wanna maintain this article, thou included within thy scope, or shalt we throw it into the electronic purgatory? Wandalstouring 17:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

{{WikiProject Military history}}? Wow, that brings back memories; that version hasn't been in use since February 2006. ;-)

More seriously: as I said above, I don't really see the list as either maintainable or particularly useful, so I would have nothing against deleting it. (We do have a Category:Invasions if it's really needed, anyways.) The practical question is whether we can make a coherent-enough argument for deletion that the thing would actually go away. Kirill Lokshin 17:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It is a redundant list within our project that was created because someone didn't know the issue was far better solved via categorization. Is this sufficient for termination? Wandalstouring 17:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the last time we tried a nomination like that (the various war lists), it didn't go over too well. I think we'll need, at a minimum, a fairly thorough explanation of why this particular list is unmaintainable/not useful/etc. Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

OK. Let's make it a redirect to the category. I think that's the easiest solution. Wandalstouring 20:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, redirects from the main namespace to the category namespace aren't permitted. We could redirect it to the invasion article itself, I suppose; but the redirect is likely to be reverted, and then we'd be back where we started. (On the other hand, if it's not reverted, we'll have saved ourselves a fair amount of time.) Kirill Lokshin 20:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the edit history makes it pretty clear just how unmaintainable this article is. It's also notable that there are no actual articles for many of the 'invasions', but just links to the 'history of x' article where x is whichever country may, or may not, have been invaded. --Nick Dowling 10:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Benjamin Franklin Tilley needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Benjamin Franklin Tilley; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comments: Mexican-American War vs. Mexican War

The current title for the page on the conflict between the United States and Mexico, 1846-1848, is the Mexican-American War. However, it is argued ("Talk Page: Misnomer" and "Talk Page: Name of War = Title of Article") that the "Mexican War" is actually the most common name used to refer to that event. Kraken7 19:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, because commonly US-Americans do write about that war in English. Likewise the Spanish-American War is the Spanish War. Wandalstouring 20:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oddly, that's not the case: "Spanish-American War" is standard in the U.S. —Kevin Myers 06:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Treaty of Craiova

The article Treaty of Craiova apparently is within the scope of this WikiProject, so I will bring this up here: according to the article (Treaty of Craiova), the Treaty was imposed on Romania by Nazi Germany. Why was this? What did Nazi Germany stand to gain with this Treaty? Were they interested in maintaining some sort of peace in the area, or was this in the interest of relations with Bulgaria? Is any information about this available? And if so, could someone with access to that information add it to the article? Aecis^Brievenbus 23:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Help is needed to monitor Bay of Pigs Invasion, which at present is in very poor shape, and seems to be in freefall due to numerous spurious anon edits over a long period. I have just restored the lead and infobox after they were absent for days due to anon removals.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 00:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Open Peer Review

Hi there. I've got a peer review request open at Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of the Plains of Abraham for an article that I feel has a pretty good shot at FA in the near future, but it's gotten no traffic from WP:PR. Might I ask that any folks here who might be interested drop by and offer some suggestions? Much appreciated. Cheers! Tony Fox (arf!) 04:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Macedonian Front of WWI - needs a review?]

The article is pretty bad, overall. It seems to be biased (example: hated Austro-Hungarians , hated Bulgarians ) and presents the entire front only through the Entante POV, without giving any detailed information on the Central Power's armies (unit number and strenght, morale, disposition, casualties) and their overall strategic situation and problems (etc. lack of resources, homefront anti-war opposition). The article stresses the importance of Greece entering the war, but doesn't give much info on its army's strenght and disposition, apart from being able to gather 9 divions. The fighting in Albania is also lacking in detail. The Battles of Doiran and Dobro pole seem to be mixed up, both being fought around the 18th of September. Dobro pole was major Allied victory, which led to the breaktrough of the Bulgarian front (and consequently to the Solder Rebellion, which should also be covered), while Doiran was decisive victory for the Bulgarians and was used in the diplomatic negotiations to protect the country from occupation. Hope the article will be revised with more datailed accounts from both sides. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.238.215.65 (talk) 07:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

Ist World War Aces

I’m fairly new to WP and to the Project; I’m interested in WW1 Aviation and feel that would be an area in which I could meaningfully contribute (I’ve had a go by starting the article on ‘Gotha Raids’). Specifically, I have reasonable access to materials on some of the WW1 flying aces, of all nationalities, but initially I’d like to focus on British aces, then move on to others. However, I’d like some help to identify the characteristics regarding ‘notability’, sufficient to make potential subjects ‘deserving’ of an article (I think personally all WW1 aces are deserving of articles – but that’s another matter! – unless there’s a wider agreement to this, in which case I’ll very happily proceed on that basis).

The accepted definition of an ace is an airman who has shot down 5 or more enemy aircraft. Of its own, that doesn’t appear to justify an article in terms of notability; I’m also bearing in mind the WP Military History guidance for biographies. Trying to put some of the elements together as a starting-point to guide whether or not an article is worthwhile, I’d suggest the following criteria (all required):

• Ace

• Mentioned in secondary source (non-trivial)

• Recipient of (at least) an intermediate decoration - in the case of British aces, the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross)

I’d also appreciate any thoughts on this and also regarding appropriate Categories etc. Scoop100 10:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As a practical matter, it may be easier to start with a list form (e.g. Aces of World War I) and then branch out particular individuals to their own articles once enough material is found on them to warrant it. This would allow a decent balance between comprehensiveness (we do, I think, want something on each of them) and not creating lots of small articles that are likely to draw deletion nominations. Kirill Lokshin 14:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kirill. I'm not an expert on aces, but I would imagine that the note-worthy content for each of them are likely to be very similar (X kills, flew with Squadron Y etc.). Certain ones who were, essentially, aces-among-aces (ie. Manfred von Richthofen, René Fonck) or those who achieved notoriety beyond being an excellent fighter pilot (ie. Hermann Göring) will of course merit full articles.

I would suggest drafting up a table for the article first (with columns such as confirmed kills, date of entry to combat, date of last combat mission, nationality, etc.) and fill it with the various aces. Once the table is created, see how much information about the aces remain. Oberiko 17:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I have found a list at 'List of World War 1 flying aces by nationality' which I am gradually populating further with just the type of minimum information you've suggested and as per the tabular form already existing in the list. The list is currently nominated for merger, which seems to be a good idea to me. Just working on the UK aces list at present, I've noticed that all the names are Wiki-linked; I'm not sure that's the right way to go, as clearly not everyone on the list will merit (in terms of notability) an article in their own right. For the entries, I'm making, I'll Wiki-link only if I think an article will be worthwhile producing in due course. If there's no objections (which I'll raise on the 'Talk' page), I propose to start breaking links in the case of other names on the list which similarly don't appear to justify their own articles. I'll just jog along on this basis, creating the odd article and see how it goes; although happy to hear other views.Scoop100 12:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Cristero War FAR

Cristero War has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Marskell 15:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Arras (1917) now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Arras (1917) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for your views

I've created Israel-United States military relations partly as a merge of an earlier article, partly as a content fork of Israel-United States relations (which it's intended to parallel) and partly as a chunk of new content sourced largely from Jane's. The format is intended to be usable as a standard framework for multiple articles of this type - see the explanation on Talk:Israel-United States military relations. I see it as a possible prototype for a series of articles on bilateral military relations. I'd be grateful if people could take a look and let me know what you think. -- ChrisO 23:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good so far. A fine start. It represents a pretty objective view, not focusing too much on an Israeli view of relations with the US nor on an American view of relations with Israel (I fixed a bit in the intro which had that issue, but the rest of the text is fine). It's pleasantly surprisingly clear of POV bias stuff, as inevitably comes up in Israel-related articles. The big deal now is just to make sure that as it expands, one keeps an eye on those considerations. As for the more general theme of creating bilateral military relation articles, go for it - as foreign relations articles (e.g. Israel-United States relations) tend to be far more political, economic, and even ideological, I think it might not be a bad idea to have a separate set of articles than can include these kinds of technical specs about exactly how much was spent on which types of technology. LordAmeth 00:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was my thought too. It's a bit too specialised for the general foreign relations articles, in any case. -- ChrisO 07:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Military-Insignia

Template:Military-Insignia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Megapixie 02:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal for Washington's crossing of the Delaware

Folks, there's currently a proposal to merge Washington's crossing of the Delaware with Battle of Trenton at Talk:Washington's crossing of the Delaware#Merge with Battle of Trenton. I personally oppose merger, but I'm soliciting more views from the Military History WikiProject. Wl219 21:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Heh, interesting stuff. The crossing is really part of the prelude to Trenton moreso than an entirely distinct action, but its iconic cultural impact may warrant a separate discussion. Do we have an article on the immediate surrounding campaign, incidentally? Merging it to something like New Jersey campaign of 1776-1777, together with summaries of the battle articles, may be another approach worth considering. Kirill Lokshin 22:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the overall campaign article is New York and New Jersey campaign. —Kevin Myers 00:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Scope and TV

I notice that you have added the following guideline since I was last here: "Depictions of military history in cultural art forms, such as painting, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and prose." I was wondering if this would extended to TV shows like Moder Marvels which cover the topic of the show from its orgins to the present, but do not nessicarily focus exclusively on Military Hardware. Would shows of this nature come under this projects umbrella? 129.108.204.3 22:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Insofar as they were involved with depicting actual military history, yes; the list of items is intended to provide examples, not set forth an exhaustive listing. (I should point out that truly historical—in the academic sense—shows have always been covered, as they are properly the area of historiography rather than cultural depiction.) Kirill Lokshin 22:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Pontiac's Rebellion now open

The A-Class review for Pontiac's Rebellion is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 22:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem Contributors

We have a young Wikipedia contributer named User:Shark kid, who has been adding a lot of material to many military articles. He means well, but he seems to have no idea what is appropriate and what is not. I have already deleted too much of his material, and I don't want to stalk him. If editors in this project see fit, please edit or delete his additions, and leave a note in his user page. He may grow up to be a good historian someday. —Aetheling 18:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Quite a lot of editors have expressed their concerns over his edits. Doing so many questionable edits(often rather obvious) on such a broad field within such a short time seems rather strange to me and is quite an unusual behaviour for a new editor. I suspect, it is a new style of vandalism.

The idea behind the vandalism is to add a personal expression that can easily be identified as different from the background text(wikipedia article). The great thing in vandalism is how long does my expression survive on a highly frequented spot. The problem was that RCpatrol, article watchers and other IP editors do a rather effective cleanup, especially concerning IP vandals and creating a login that soon gets blocked is almost too much work. The question for a vandal was now: How can I keep my expression much longer online? Well, one solution would be writing stuff that almost makes sense in an encyclopedia that, after an often repeated opinion, already does contain quite a lot of nonsense. Let's hope I'm totally wrong because otherwise this is the beginning of a new level of attacks which are substantially dangerous for this encyclopedia, unlike the good old vandalism that nowadays often gets removed by other IP editors. Wandalstouring 21:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you raised the issue at WP:AN? Askari Mark (Talk) 23:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Not yet, I'm not entirely convinced and will check this user more thoroughly in a few days. Wandalstouring 07:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

If it is unreferenced, remove it. If it is referenced, then check the references. If the references are false, report the editor and they should be blocked if they can't explain using false references (that is the really dangerous vandalism). Carcharoth 13:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

We had that issue in the crossbow article where one of our best editors summarized Needham's rather vague statement into a strong onesided opinion. Before the same source had been quoted as saying the opposite. All in all, if an issue is important the references get checked and everybody makes mistakes. Wandalstouring 22:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I read Shark kid's stuff carefully today. I think he does have a good education, but no manners. The admins are on his heels because of vandalism and he is likely to be blocked. I offered my help to him because, after careful consideration, I'm not entirely convinced that he had bad intentions. Wandalstouring 17:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Zveno project now open

The A-Class review for Zveno project is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 08:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Warsaw Uprising FAR

Warsaw Uprising has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 15:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons issue again

I would like to ask two questions about current policy about flag icons posted in articles and templates:

1. Are we using flag icons at all?

Infobox templates guideline is simple: In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended. In reality flag icons are quite popular and it seems that this guideline is not working at all.

2. If flags are allowed, what kind of flags are we using? Civil flags only or maybe civil flags and war flags when available?

Template:World War I have war flags standard and there is no edit wars but use of war flags in Template:World War II is subject of dispute.

For those who don't see issue - sometimes difference can be minor, like for Italy ( civil and war flag), but sometimes difference can be much more visible, like for Austria-Hungary ( vs. ) or Japan ( vs. ). IMHO this should be explained and common policy should be set for all editors.

I've looked on talk history but there was no detailed guidelines and it was last discussion about flag icons found by me. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 10:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, that they're "quite popular" doesn't mean they can't, simultaneously, be "not recommended". My impression of previous discussions, at least, has been that a substantial portion of project members dislike them, a substantial portion use them, and the majority doesn't really care either way; so the practical result is that the project takes a very vague stance on the issue, basically leaving it up to the editors of each individual article to decide what they want to do. (This dovetails into your second question rather neatly: trying to impose a one-size-fits-all rule on what flag to use is going to be as unproductive as trying to impose one on whether to use flags at all, given the extremely wide range of different scenarios we're covering.) Kirill Lokshin 10:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's main reason why I'm asking - we shouldn use any flag icons but we are using it for almost any article. I can't agree with leaving it up to the editors of each individual article to decide what they want to do. With such approach and without more or less official guidelines we'll see never ending edit wars. Someone can remove all flags from WWI and WWII templates, another one will add flag icons again, third will change them to civil or war flags. That's why I'm asking for some kind of agreement and guideline explaining that part. Personally I don't want to waste my time to explain that this or that flag is good and to revert someones edits, there is a lot of different things to do.

BTW - for one size we can use flag templates instead of fixed width images. Flag templates have 22px width and are quite uniform.

Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 12:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that we can do any better than that, unfortunately. There are certainly obvious cases where flag icons don't work (e.g. ancient & medieval warfare and such), so we can't require them across the board. Conversely, there are cases where the flag icons are quite legitimately used, so we can't very well forbid them. (And this doesn't even get into subtler issues, such as the consideration of whether other listed countries have available flag icons, and hence whether consistency is a problem.)

I suppose we could come up with some sort of recommendation on cases where they may or may not be a good fit, but I'm not sure that would really help matters in cases where there's a dispute over them. Kirill Lokshin 13:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Flags availability is quite good today and sometimes only template is needed. This is quick fix and I've made several templates myself and added older variants of national flags to several existing templates. IMHO set of recommendations can be good step to finish most edit wars. I guess that we can do such recomendations for articles since 19th century - at this time flags were in common use. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 13:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The crucial points are how the flag icons are being used. (1) Are they accurate or are they misleading? (2) Do they help readers visually distinguish items? (3) Do they distract from the text? (4) Does the accompanying text make it obvious to the reader what the flag is for? If they would learn more from clicking on the text link than the flag, then get rid of the flag and put the flag in the article about (say) the Regia Marina or the Imperial Japanese Navy. I suppose it all depends on whether you want to represent the participant in a conflict as the navy or the country. Carcharoth 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

In fact I thought about flags of countries in templates and operators of military equipment mainly. There are flags in Template:World War I and Template:World War II which IMHO can help readers. Aircraft articles has flags in their "Operators" section too and in both cases flags are with links to countries or their history during WWII. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 14:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed difficult to set hard-and-fast rules; just look at the debates in Wikipedia talk:Don't overuse flags. My personal approach is to ask two questions:

• Are flags directly relevant to the article?
• If not, do they help the reader – as opposed to serving only to decorate?

As for the use of civil vs. war flags, I think wherever identifying nationality is the point of the flag, then the civil flag should be used. In an article addressing a particular battle where they are being used to identify participants in that event, then the war flag might be substituted (as long as that particular banner was actually used during the incident). Does this help? Askari Mark (Talk) 17:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

For example, if (for some reason) you had an extensive article or list discussing different navies of different countries, then you could use the naval ensigns as an aid to helping the reader distinguish different navies in lists or infoboxes, but linking to the most informative article is still the most important thing. Carcharoth 17:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think flags are necessary and can even detract from the article. If someone places them in an article that I'm working on, however, I usually don't remove them, because it's obviously a good faith effort on someone's part to try to make the article more attractive to look at. If someone places flags in an article that you're working on, my advice to let them stay for awhile, and then quietly remove them a month or so later or before you nominate the article for FA. Cla68 23:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I can see where it might get more complicated for articles where the participants are not nations, but larger alliances or smaller units. For example, if we have a battle listing the Eighth United States Army as one of the combatants, am I to use the flag of the United States, or could I use the insignia of the unit? Would it also be possible to use the insignia of the United States Army?

Personally though, I think this is something that should probably be handled on a task force by task force basis. As mentioned above flags are likely not be useful for battles in antiquity, but could be helpful for some of the more modern conflicts. Oberiko

I think that Templates should stick to one type of flags. You either use war flags for all coutnries who have them or you do not use them at all on that template. Problem is, that not all war flags are very well known(like , or ) so I think that WW II template should stick to state flags.--Staberinde 14:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base now open

The A-Class review for B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 10:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Project banner help

WikiProject Japan is working on incorporating several smaller related wikiprojects as task forces, and since you guys are so very good at this, I'm wondering if one of you might be willing to help me incorporate that into our project banner. I've done a little bit, but I'm not that good at the coding in the banners, so I don't know how well I've done it. Any help would be appreciated. The banner is here: {{WikiProject Japan}}. Thanks! ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, unless you're trying to do something quite complex, the easiest thing to do would probably be to copy the sample code here, creating new parameters for each task force in the same manner as the peer review parameter is implemented in the example. Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That's an excellent resource. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

btw I like your site. The lists of articles with their status are nice. Wandalstouring 17:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I (and others) have been trying to make it easier for people to see what needs doing so they can jump right in and help where they wish to help. Hopefully the page isn't too overwhelming what with all the piles of information crammed into it I sometimes worry it may be getting too busy and full of things. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Zveno project needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Zveno project; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 12:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Cold War History project proposal

The editor who first created the proposal for the Cold War History project has not edited since early January. It has had roughly 8 members since March. I figured this project, given the amount of overlap, would probably be the best one to contact about possibly setting the project up. Thank you for your time. John Carter 18:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I recall that someone proposed a Cold War task force in the fairly recent past; that might be a viable option here, if anyone is interested. Kirill Lokshin 04:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

American Civil War: Battle of Lawrence to Lawrence Massacre

There's a survey over whether we should move Battle of Lawrence to Lawrence Massacre (or another name). Talk:Battle of Lawrence#Requested move. -Will Beback · † · 20:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Military personnel categories (by nation)

Since we don't seem to be particularly tied up with any other major discussions at the moment, this may be a good opportunity to return to a topic that we've (abortively) discussed, with little resolution, for more than a year now: military personnel categories. During the last round of discussion, we came up with the idea of considering each "branch" of the category tree more-or-less separately, rather than doing everything at once; the most obvious place to start is probably the by-nation/by-country schema.

The current category system provides, essentially, a single category for each country involved; e.g. Category:French generals, Category:British soldiers, etc. This roughly matches the approach taken by by-nation category schemes for other professions.

The immediate problem with this is that military personnel, moreso than most other professions, have a tendency to serve in the military of a country other than the one in which they were born. This causes an ambiguity in the scheme: should Eugene of Savoy be under Category:French generals (by birth) or Category:Austrian generals (by service)? Or perhaps both? Obviously, he could be under Category:Generals born in France and Category:Generals of Austria, but we don't currently make such a distinction with the category names.

So the question, then, is this: what, if anything, do we want to do to resolve this? Should we institute separate categories for nations of birth and service (and under what names)? Or take some other approach?

Comments and suggestions would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 23:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What if we categorize by country of service, and the overarching "people by nation" categories? Using your example, Eugene would be in Category:French people (or perhaps, somewhat more accurately, a subcategory like Category:French emigrants) and Category:Generals of Austria. I like the idea of double categorizing by country of birth and country of service, but I think creating a separate set of categories for "generals (etc.) by country of birth" is a case of overcategorization, particularly as some of them will have very, very few occupants. Carom 15:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with the prior comment and add two recommendations. For a start, I would suggest we disambiguate the potentially confusing example Kirill brings up in our naming conventions and change "Austrian generals" to "Generals of Austria" (or something to that effect). Second, I would suggest we create categories for people serving in foreign armed forces; probably nothing very specific (such as rank or for which foreign military), just something like "Germans who served in foreign military services". Oberiko 17:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please Expand...

Hello,

I just joined the American Civil War task force.

Before I joined this task force, I already made some articles about Civil War soldiers and the wives.

Here they are:

Soldiers

• Thomas Chamberlain

• TJ Goree

• Leonard A. Abercrombie

• Henry M. Elmore

Wives

• Elizabeth Goree

• Lavinia Chilton

Unfortunately, many of these articles are only stubs. Any additional information in these articles would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Psdubow 22:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. - Please leave replies on my talkpage.

A category for deletion

I nominated Category:Sixty Years' War for deletion. I could be wrong. Please visit the nomination page to determine if I have any idea what I'm talking about. Thanks! —Kevin Myers 18:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Naming a military disaster

Preliminary research for my overhaul of USS Iowa has turned up enough information to spin the 1989 turret 2 explosion into its own article, but I am not sure what to call it. I thought about 1989 Gun Turret Explosion aboard USS Iowa or 1989 Explosion in Turret #2, but figured I would ask here before doing anything definitive with this. Any other suggestions for a name? TomStar81 (Talk) 02:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Simply Turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa, perhaps? I don't really see a need to disambiguate here—no other explosion would have an article of its own—and I'm not a fan of starting the title with a year in any case. Kirill Lokshin 04:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Alexander George Arbuthnot

A Seminole War related article that you may have been involved in editing, Alexander George Arbuthnot, has been listed by me for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexander George Arbuthnot. Thank you. Kittybrewster (talk) 13:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)