Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

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Lack of focus on key articles

I am concerned that there is a lack of focus on the quality of the most important articles in scope of the project. Can we incentivise work on key (essentially high-hit rate) articles in the competitions? I see a lot of reviews of marginally notable topics and if I was cynical (ha!), I'd say it was because they are easy to get passed, exactly the opposite of the incentive we want. Getting something like WWII to FA is a truly Herculean task and should be acknowledged as such. Dhatfield (talk) 15:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your points, and I suspect anyone new to wiki would wonder why some obviously key articles aren't to the highest standard. Unfortunately I think they are also the hardest and most controversial subjects - minor disagreements can last for weeks or even months before a decision is made. Marginal articles allow editors to write about subjects they have a deep interest in (we are volunteers after all!) without getting involved in endless debates about which style of English is most appropriate or what to call Germany. I imagine there is probably a better balance of sources to fall back on for smaller subjects as well, whereas you'd need to hire an entire library for something like a World War. So yes, they probably are easier to get passed, because the breadth of knowledge is narrower and the facts easier to ascertain. Just some thoughts. Ranger Steve (talk) 16:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Ranger Steve as to the difficulties associated with elevating the quality of the most wide-ranging topics. But how to encourage people to do that? And exactly which articles should get the incentives, the most popular ones or those with the broadest scope like WWII? WWI already has a good incentive, but nobody's stepped forward. I suppose barnstars, or extra points could be awarded for the various contests, for such articles, but how would they be selected? Size, popularity, combination? And who does the selection? I suppose Eurocopter could decide those for the WWI contest, since he's running it, but that doesn't help much for the rest of the project.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
An anniversary seems like a good reason to focus on something in my opinion, and there are a lot of 70th Anniversaries approaching for individual WWII engagements... Ranger Steve (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm glad to see this debated. I've had the impression for some time that most of the project's effort is devoted to going into more and more detail (or more articles about less and less), rather than looking at the big picture. Obscure minor battles, vehicles, weapons and units get articles while big topics get neglected. Articles on "soft" subjects such as tactics are particularly poor. I'm trying to do my bit by (very slowly) improving Trench warfare! Cyclopaedic (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I echo the sentiments already formed in this post. In terms of the anniversary question we do have the WWI centennial project to bring the core topics of WWI up to scratch. I also agree that sometimes we divert our energies to subjects that perhaps aren't the traditional encyclopedic subjects, and as a project we can get caught up in a circle of endless drives. But, what we have to remember here is that this is a volunteer project, and as such, the volunteers will work on what interests them the most, be that ships or the VC in my case.
As a project, I think we do have to push these core articles a bit more through the review processes that we have set up. The trouble comes with the sheer amount of work needed to bring these articles up to scratch and the sheer number of interested parties who have to be placated. I remember the efforts to clean up WWII a while back that ended up discussing every paragraph in minute detail and become bogged down in discussions about POV. This will inevitably discourage editors from working on these types of articles. I have yet to come up with an idea to mitigate these issues, and I haven't seen one in action on Wikipedia yet. Take a look at the FAC history of Roman Catholic Church for an example of how not to do it. Regards, Woody (talk) 18:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
In addition to the long excruciating process of bringing a popular-topic article to FA is what happens to the FA articles after they are promoted: The became even bigger targets for the POVers! It makes all the time and effort seem worthless, and often the aricel becomes more of a mess than before. For me, the best incentive is one the project itself cannot provide at this time: Some form of protecton, flagged or traditional. Beyond that, I don't see the point of trying on the high-traffic articles. As long as anyone can edit anything, they certainly will! - BilCat (talk) 19:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
As others have said, the problems are twofold: first of all, the most popular articles are generally those with larger scope, and which therefore have more sources available to consult. In order to cover the topic fully, it would be necessary to invest a massive amount of time and energy into it. The other problem is the other people. Larger scope, more popular articles generally have more people watching them, and everyone wants the article to fit their vision, or just wants to make trouble, advocate their point of view, or sees bias in every innocuous statement. – Joe N 21:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Classes start here on Thursday, and for my students' research paper, I have assigned them to write a wikipedia article. The course is a 20th century world history course. Although I would be reluctant to thrust them into a controversial topic, there will be 40 articles coming up in the next 2-3 months that I will have some influence on. Any ideas? Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Just a thought, perhaps responses to Ruth's practical question re. topics for her students should be a new subsection so it doesn't confuse the overall thread here. For my own part, Ruth, do they have to be brand new articles or could your class upgrade some stubs as well? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Outdent A very valid point, but in addition to the responses above I think it's worth pointing out that by their nature, the 'popular' or 'big picture' topics will already have a great deal of coverage in other encyclopedias/books/etc. Of course that shouldn't prevent WP producing its own versions of them as best it can, so this becomes more of a 'one-stop-shop' for knowledge, but in the greater scheme of things it's not like people will have nowhere to look if WP isn't the best place. On the other hand, WP is sometimes the best or only place you find decent articles on the more obscure or less popular topics, and I think that's part of its great value. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ruth, do not forget to register your project with WP:SUP -MBK004 22:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I just did that. Didn't know about it, and was wondering how I was going to get this in front of various administrators. Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

As someone who's done a fair bit of work on 'big picture' topics, I agree that it can be a lot of hard work getting them to a reasonable standard. The pay off is pretty important though - for instance the World War II article, which was developed through several months of intensive discussion and editing, now does Wikipedia proud and should make a good impression on the 27,000 people who view it on the average day. It should also be noted that many of the most popular military history articles are at B or A class standard. From my experiance, once an article is developed to a reasonable standard it normally stays that way - unhelpful edits to the World War II article are lucky to survive for a few hours, for instance. The problem though is that the process of improving these articles attracts unproductive nationalist editors who want to push their views - something which largely explains why the World War I article is in a poor state. I'd also note that while it's harder to work on these articles than on more obscure topics, they do have the benefit of normally being covered by some books which are considered the standard works on the topic. Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The big articles take a huge amount of time and effort because of the amount of sources available, the number of people watching a page, and the fact that a lot of people will have their own opinion on how the subject should be dealt with and the confrontation (often exhausting and frequently frustrating) that can ensue. There are easier targets than the big subjects, and I can understand why they are avoided. It's not just a problem here, about six months ago there was a discussion at WP:FAC about how to motivate people to write core articles rather than small obscure ones.

In short, writing extraordinary articles requires extraordinary motivation. No amount of barnstars or points is enough. When I began my rewrite of the castle article, it was because it was in such poor shape; it had a handful of references and one particular vandal was pushing a pro-Spanish/anti-Italian agenda. This person was very persistent and I felt that the best way to stop them was to rewrite the article. Without that incentive the article would still look like this. Keeping vandals out wasn't the only reason for improving the article, it's a subject I find interesting and so do about 70,000 others a month. If you're not interested in something, you won't be able to write well about it. WP:MILHIST may suffer from recentism, but people write about what they're interested in and I wouldn't want that to change. If it did, Wikipedia would stop being a fun hobby and become a job. Interest alone should be enough reason to develop the most important articles. A side effect of working on the castle article was that smaller articles on individual castles don't seem so daunting anymore.

I understand fears that high-traffic articles may degrade over time, but for what it's worth, now castle is a Featured Article it feels like the amount of vandalism has decreased (although this is based on personal experience rather than an in depth study); people are more willing to defend well developed articles than rubbish ones (again, one of the reasons a lot of POV was allowed to creep into the castle article. For the most popular articles, they will change even after the main contributor has gone onto other articles; but a well written article on something like the Hundred Year's War is worth hundreds of articles on tiny unknown forts in the middle of nowhere. Think about how many more people would benefit from well sourced, accurate information.

There are a myriad of difficulties when dealing with the most important articles. The main thing WP:MILHIST can offer, aside from peer and A-class reviews, is support and protection. The busiest articles will attract POV pushers and the like. To prevent an editor from feeling overwhelmed, they need someone else who can step in on their behalf sometimes, or who can chip in and say "I think you're right".

What might help is a feature in the newsletter. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a short interview about a broad subject within our remit. People can't be forced to be interested in something, but if they're given the chance to learn more you never know what might happen. Nev1 (talk) 15:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Hear hear. Beautifully expressed. I would just add that one of the benefits of working on big articles should be that you are not alone, and the rewards of working in a successful team should be greater than those of the lonely artist in his garret; which may depend on whether one is motivated by barnstars, or by a desire to achieve some public benefit. One of the frustrations of working on small articles is the feeling that no-one else is reading your work, let alone helping. Big articles shouldn't be solo efforts, and the POVers should be shouted down by a number of interested editors. There just aren't enough of us looking over any given article at any time. Cyclopaedic (talk) 17:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

One of the things that would really help for big articles is getting a resource together for the sources. It was mentioned above that "WWI already has a good incentive", which may refer to the $250 bounty or the centennial project, but I looked at the number of sources, and for any one individual to check and use all the main sources, the outlay could be well in excess of $250 (not to mention the time invested). It would help if people put their hands up and said "I have this book, and can check stuff if needed", or for others to get other books out of libraries, and so on. And to take things slowly, step by step. Maybe try and get WWI featured by the end of this year, but set a smaller target for the next few months? 07:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC) For my part, I'm considering getting the new book on the First Battle of the Marne. Working on that, and then seeing how that translates into a paragraph or section in the WWI article. Though I see Western Front (World War I) is already featured. I think I saw someone say that it is the Eastern Front stuff that is difficult to cover to a high standard. Carcharoth (talk) 07:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Just a note about this, Western Front was featured in 2006, and just a cursory examination shows places where referencing could be improved. I think it would be better to also change the structure to break out the bits on Air and Gas warfare to another section instead of having nearly the whole article be chronological, so, even though it is FA, you could still help by working on it. – Joe N 18:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the $250 could be much of an incentive given how broad the topic is, and even if a person had a broad knowledge of everything the writing up would still be economical. As for the contests, they give equal weight to all articles and only look at the class, so writing a "comprehensive" 3 paragraph article on an enlisted man who is only notable for one even such as winning a Medal of Honor gets the same points as a general who did many coups and ruled for 20 years, let alone an article on a really big topic that may be controversial or the subject of many different analyses by historians as to the legacy of the event etc, or arguments over who planned and plotted what in a coup. So a contest with a flat all FAs/GAs/Bs are the same won't be an incentive. Even a 20X bonus for a major war compared to a non-complex biog or straighforward equipment probably wouldn't suffice if we are talking raw economic rationalism as means of altering people's habits. Mastering a very complex FA may earn respect from a few people, but if anyone wants a personal following or whatever, they would be better off playing politics and marketing themselves rather than trying to achieve excellence, I doubt any non-purist incentive can work. Also while some people see FAs as a means of getting 40,000 TFA hits and pushing their POV, the really big-hit articles wouldn't need an extra 40,000 and they would be better off spending 20 hours of cleanup/MOS time to write more nonsense POV articles. Any half-decent POV pusher knows this, and with rising standards, luckily, less POV pushers are willing to try and spend the extra time for presentation cleanups to get their propaganda on the front page (I can remember a few cases in the old days when some of these folks started their FAC noms with a soapboxing statement about how the subject of the article, an alleged massacre/injustice etc etc was so important and that the world needed to know about it) YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 08:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. There are a few semi-sophisticated POV pushers going around who focus on articles of lesser, but strategic, importance to the topic and then use cherry picked or unreliable references to push their view. Articles concerning war crimes in World War II are frequently troublesome, for example. Nick-D (talk) 09:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Speaking just for myself, I lost all interest in contributing to the key article on WW2 because of the endless debates on minor details. FFS, pages and pages on the name to call Germany! This also leads to the situation that minor edits are immediatly reverted, because there has been no discussion on them. This leads to an article frozen in time, where the current version is always considered the best over any change by the leading administrator of that particular article, even when a change is undoubtedly an improvement, and undisputed.JurSchagen (talk) 13:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I imagine we've all been there (or at least in a debate close to it). We should remember though that POV isn't a dirty word; everyone has a different point of view on a lot of things, and the more resources there are the more likely that support for a particular point of view can be found (and the harder it is to find the correct answer). A lot of debates take place with the best of intentions in an effort to make our articles as accurate as possible. Of course there are some editors who are trying to push their own fringe POV, but these are usually caught out fairly soon. It's the articles where everyone is working in good faith that are the most awkward! Anyway, the net result is the same, editors get bored of debating and give up on the article. To be honest I'm not sure its something that can be fixed - one of the (ahem) 'joys' of wikipedia is that everyone can edit, and lets face it - the consensus strategy for making modifications doesn't always get things right. Discussions can quickly flare up into debates and then straight into arguments, insults fly and rather than trying to share and explain a position, people just end up trying to... win (I'm not saying all discussions go this way). Partly that's a problem with text based conversation; it's not like sitting down in a room or even a pub, it's more akin to an online game.
I suspect that the only way to get articles into a better state is to get people to voluntarily bow out of them, or agree to let one or two editors who work well together to write an article in a way they see fit before others copy edit it for factual errors (and less so for prose). Too many cooks and all that..... Ranger Steve (talk) 17:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I think strong POV is more the norm in a lot of Asian countries, and other not-so-developed areas such as Eastern Europe. In many of these countries, history is still a bit comic-book like in that it depicts a struggle of a bunch of under-resourced innocent people (them) fighting the well-armed atrocity-committing bad guys (the neighbours) valiantly with bare fists. An us and them mentality is more prevalent in RL in those areas, and it shows on Wikipedia. I know one nation-based WikiProject including an admin where they all insist on using "freedom fighter" and "martyrs" to describe their military personnel and write articles describing "genocide"s of less than 100 dead. That WikiProject also had a few FAs, and I'm pretty sure if I researched the content of the history would be complete cherrypicked nonsense; those FACs always got 100% drive-by support from the members. Luckily a few of these FAs have dropped off the perch due to referencing, prose and presentation issues, saving the need to point out the POV, which would spark ethnic wiki-riots and accusations of racism from the members of that ethnic group. And generally, while in EE, there are a few folks (5-10) from each ethnic group at least, and therefore at least some resistance to anything controversial, in some parts of Asian topics some ethnic groups have no active representatives in certain areas, and 3-4 from one group can easily just monopolise an area in the absence of representation [or competent counter-attacking POV pushing] from the opposition race relating to the corresponding RL conflict/interaction; there's no way a person from a uninvolved race/religion would spend all their time stalking the ethnic chauvinist around full-time YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. A similar problem is where the nationalist edit warriors don't allow needed changes to an article as this would dilute their POV-pushing. Without naming names, there was a recent FAR of an article on a military campaign which was core to the country's history which ended up with the article being delisted mainly due to the editors being unwilling to budge on removing a heavily POV section which duplicated the more neutral tone of the rest of the article. Nick-D (talk) 06:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
One thing that YellowMonkey's comment made me think of is adopting the importance rankings used by many projects. We haven't done this for many years, and I've always assumed that this was because we just had too many articles and too big of a scope, but if we added it and gave points in the contest based on importance rank, with the number normally given multiplied by a certain number for high and top importance articles, we could give some incentive that might help. The problem, however, is that one person can't really bring one of these up to featured status, or even GA or A-Class, alone. I'm not sure if modifying the contest or even just adding the importance rankings would work, it's just a thought. – Joe N 18:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
With nearly 100,000 articles tagged by WP:MILHIST, I don't think an importances scale is practical, or even necessary (we all have ideas of what's important, and some such as WWI are indisputable). I'm dubious about the contest and how much points can motivate someone to work on something, but rather than "importance", why not use page views as a multiplier for points? Nev1 (talk) 18:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
The trouble with importance scales is their inherent subjectivity. Beyond the obvious core articles (WWI, WWII, War etc) then is down to individual task forces as to whether it is important. What is important for one is less important for another. I also think we have to be careful about alienating those editors who do work on "less important" articles. I agree with Nev that I don't see any amount of points being a motivator to work on the POV magnets such as WWI/WWII. The views might be something to look into, though that will lead us into issues such as George W. Bush being heavily viewed but not what anyone could describe as a core milhist article. Woody (talk) 18:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Hit count as a multiplier works if we adopt a customer is king model, but it will also fuel more recentism than there already is YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
One challenge that hasn't been discussed here with is key articles is that they tend to be complex subjects. (I suspect this has lead to a situation I've noticed throughout Wikipedia I call "the donut phenomenon": in any given topic, the better articles are about secondary or tertiary subjects,forming a ring around the core subjects which are less developed.) You can understand what I am talking about if you take the example Dhatfield mentioned above -- World War II -- & try to explain the subject in 500 words or less -- without leaving out any important issues. I doubt you could compile a list of the major topics in less than 500 words. In my corner of Wikipedia I've been focussing on subjects of lesser importance as a means to work towards those of greater importance: get the details right, and eventually one will be able to explain the greater plan. -- llywrch (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I started on Ngo Dinh Diem and as I knew very little ended up reading in more detail various events and opponents he was involved with and will probably never finish with the branches before getting to the trunk. A lot of people, as they are mostly beginners will do it this way, as they have to learn things in more depth to understand, whereas an expert knows how the facets fit in and can put the overview together immediately. The donut effect is definitely more promounced these days as expectations have gone up; there were lots of old 2006 and earlier FAs where some amateur historian Wikipedians wrote some FAs on iconic heads of state and independence leaders by just cut-pasting and paraphrasing a few rough and non-scholarly mini-web-bios that were just mediocre tertiary sources (sometimes from the official govt website synopsis) without getting the detailed scholarly books and journal articles and systematically dissecting the key events they were involved in and then distilling it, possibly creating subarticles on the way. The new way makes the article quality better but will also deter a person from writing up boldly, having a go, and getting a parent article done more quickly as sometimes they are focused on the subarticles that they neglect to cut the summary of the completed subarticle and paste it back into the dishevelled parent article. Yes I'm guilty there! YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

developing a solution

I agree with what has been said above. I also support the customer is king approach, because the high frequency articles are what people mainly see of wikipedia and would suggest to direct efforts into improving them. The problem is how. One key ingredient mentioned above is teamwork. The topics are large and difficult. For this teamwork, it would be helpful if we could organize our participants in such a way that although the whole thing is daunting, individual workload is manageable. My suggestion is, to create a framework wherein the different aspects of the article are listed and everyone picks out one aspect and writes about it. Considering a worldwar, we can break down by phases and fronts and by topics like gas war, homefront, events leading to the war and so on. We can also add supportive tasks like retrieving photos, scientific works on the topic from all around the world and so on. I don't suggest to start with the most daunting topic, but basically I think we can develop a technology for these articles that is similar to our well-organized drives. I don't think that such a team will have lots of trouble dealing with individual POV pushers and if they encounter an organized band with that purpose they might call the project for help. Opinions? Wandalstouring (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. For World War I, there is the current contest (which has been publicised as something to help get the centennial project going), the task force talk page, and the centennial project talk page. I'm sometimes unsure where to post something when I have a question about WWI articles that applies to more than just one or two articles, and have been using the task force talk page for general questions, the contest talk page for questions about the contest, and the centennial project talk page for longer term ideas, but the more talk pages there are to follow, the more focus can be lost sometimes. A general scheme for tackling broad and core articles would be very helpful for the WWI centennial project (which has as one of the aims to get the core articles all featured by 2014). One cautionary tale about selecting a list of core topics to work on is that the time spent deciding which should be the core topics is often better spent on improving articles (see the discussions around the core biographical articles for how not to do this - here there are discussions for changing a list settled on over three years ago, though admittedly Michael Jackson wasn't dead back then - and of the 200 articles selected, 22 are featured now compared to 17 featured back in December 2006 - compare the stats now to then). The discussion of the core topics should be brief, and work should begin almost immediately on one article, and the lessons learnt from that one applied to the next article, and so on, until a model for working on broad articles that actually works in practice, emerges. The other thing I noticed is that some project talk pages get overwhelmed by notices about reviews (see the WWI task force talk page for a current example). It is obviously important to attract reviewers to do these reviews, but the other discussions (that don't have anywhere else logical to go) look a bit lost among all the notices about reviews - is that generally considered a problem or not? As for the centennial project, I was very excited when I found it, posted on the talk page (this was back in December) and nothing so far. The timing of the posts there have been: December 2008, January 2009, February 2009, November 2009, December 2009, January 2010, so it seem some interest is slowly coming back, but unless more people get involved, it may just die out again, which would be sad. Is that level of activity OK at this point, or would people hope for more activity? I raise the point about activity, because to get a broad article like World War I improved, you need to develop a broad base of activity and discussion. Maybe all the discussion takes place on the article talk page? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 19:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, as far as the POV words go, I asked Betacommand to do a word search for me in May 2008 and the results are at User:YellowMonkey/Words if anyone wants to get into it. My previous attempt to discuss with these folks didn't reach a consensus, they claimed that as historians [nationalists] in their country used martyr and freedom fighter, then my use of a more placid synonym was "original research" and one also said that my appeals to WP:NPOV could be overriden by WP:IAR as though IAR could trump NPOV among other nonsense [[1]]. I did ask another coord at the time if coords could invoke their status to order them to back down on the military articles, but didn't get an endorsement and was advised to maybe ignore the POV violation. In any case, the beneficiaries of this situation are mostly inactively atm, so there might not be much reverting, although they aren't likely to actively take down POV that benefits them YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

World War I or World War II?

I have somewhat of a different approach for peoples' ideas. Some time ago we attempted to raise the quality / finish off World War II. That was done by a couple of eager enthusiasts doing most of the writing (including User:Oberiko, who did a lot of hard work) and several people trying to run interference on all the drive-by editors/POVers etc. I don't believe it can be done broken down in bits. I believe the way forward to see whether there are enthusiasts who are willing to take on either WW I or WW II - depends on their personal preferences, then collect 8-10 people who are willing to actively keep everybody else off their back, including at least a couple of coordinators, then be prepared to stick with it - and it might take some time, months. What do people think? Are there people out there willing to do the research and writing for either of the big two? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

What about copting the article to a sandbox in project space, and doing the major surgery there, moving it to mainspace when it is finished. Is that allowed,a nd would it work here? - BilCat (talk) 23:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
That's fine, it's essentially being bold, although if done you may want an admin to merge page histories so that record of people's contributions is not lost. It has the benefit of being more private: it's unlikely POV pushers and vandals will find it, and you can invite people to edit the sandbox. Nev1 (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
It's important to stress that given the huge number of page views per day and the number of people who have watchlisted the articles (1965 for World War I and 2261 for World War II) changes need to be as transparent as possible for them to be defensible. I like the idea of forming a work group and editing the text on either the article's main talk page or a subpage of it, with notices placed in appropriate places. I think that the World War I article is in most need of work, though it could be possible to bring the World War II article to GA or even A class in a relatively short period of time. Nick-D (talk) 00:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
A couple of years ago, during one of many rewrites of World War II, the work was done on the article talk page (you can see some of the work done here). It seemed to be a quite workable way to overhaul the article. Parsecboy (talk) 01:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it's an error to start this new concept with anything as difficult as a worldwar, because if you try something new you will encounter a lot of problems until you have optimized the technique. If you start with the biggest possible heap of problems you are very unlikely to achieve success. Having an unorganized team doesn't seem to be any asset because none knows what needs to be done while others do the same things twice. Coordinators aren't supermen that help solve issues, they're just editors doing administration, however, like you suggest to not organize the team there's no need for administration. Naturally, you're free to try anything, but I argue to start small with something our readers like (and not have a discussion about what we consider important). Wandalstouring (talk) 16:59, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
My thought was precisely to focus on what our readers find most important: seemingly, World War II, though, given the centenary, maybe World War I is a better target. I had no thought at all of coordinators doing anything else than their role plus a bit of surveillance - that's why I suggested a watching team of 8-10. The critical issue is raising the quality of the 2-3 most read articles. When an approach is decided upon and carried through - this or any other - I will be ready to spend hours as part of the effort to improve them. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Why are you fixed on this large number of participants (8-10)? And why are you fixed on two of our popular articles? Wandalstouring (talk)
And why fixed on only 20th. century? This technique could be used on topics nominated by individual task forces - it would spread the load better (not everyone being an expert on WWI or WWII)Monstrelet (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
As two of the most popular articles within the scope of this project (they're #1 and #3 according to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Popular pages|this list) they'd make great showcases for Wikipedia if they could be brought to a high standard. Moreover, Buckshot was merely making a suggestion so there's no need for the hostility; what would you suggest be an appropriate focus? Nick-D (talk) 07:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
A popular article about a topic where we don't stumble across lots of POV pushers. I don't think we can avoid tons of literature. Auschwitz concentration camp is a start article unlike WWI and WWII who are both reasonable B-class and would be a good limited topic to start. I wouldn't try Vietnam war with a new collaboration technique for a start, but settle with the biographies of Henry VIII of England, John F. Kennedy and George Washington who are all top viewed articles rated start. For these personalities there are a few good biographies, so we can have some people reading this or that biography. And yes, I would participate, although I'm more into classical times. These questions weren't hostile, but I wanted to clarify why my fellow editor has these opinions. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Ditto on the no hostility. Trying to widen the option set and the potential participants. WWI & WWII are popular but, to rephrase a sentiment already expressed, you don't start your climbing career with Everest. At least try a less tough one to shake the team down before going for the biggee - some good suggestions from Wandalstouring above. I could offer some help on Henry VIII, though I couldn't take a lead. On the other subjects, I'd try for Roman Army because a) it is a commonly understood topic, even it doesn't get the hits some others do b) it fits the overall aim, as Roman warfare is one of the historical foundations of modern Western military theory and c) there are some editors over on the Classical Warfare Task Force who are interested in improving it. Again, all suggestions made in support of the idea and without hostility. Monstrelet (talk) 18:55, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
I can join Roman army, but I think, we should start with Henry VIII first, because its popular. I don't want to get bogged down by discussions about what we consider important. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:37, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Moving Forward

Do we have a consensus for action or do we need more discussion? If/when we have consensus, what is our plan of action? Monstrelet (talk) 11:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I have received material for the Roman army. We could start that in a few months and I can try to recruit some more editors. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Recommend talking to EraNavigator (talk), who is the main editor on site at present and is keen to improve things Monstrelet (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I know him. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Naval battles

A dispute has arisen over how to name naval battles which do not have a well-established name, see talk for Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, also the naval campaign template for the War of 1812. I suggest that, while "Action of date X" should be the default option if nothing better can be found, "Ship A v. Ship B" is usually the best way of describing single-ship actions, and "Sinking of Ship C" is a perfectly legitimate way of describing some actions if this really was the dominant feature. PatGallacher (talk) 02:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Pat, just to clarify; is there a centralised discussion of this dispute anywhere, or is this it? Nick-D (talk) 07:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
@Pat: Having written a large number of these articles, and having considered this problem long and hard on several occassions, I'm afraid that I disagree with your assessment. There are several problems with either of the non-date options you suggest: the first option, "Ship A v. Ship B" has three immediate issues, the first being that I have never seen a serious naval history adopt such a "sports match" title, and therefore (as far as I am aware) we would be creating our own orthodoxy (if I'm wrong, please show me who has used it), the second is that such actions were not always or even often evenly matched between just two ships - outside the War of 1812 these engagements were usually between squadrons or portions of squadrons, which would lead to impossibly complicated titles, and the third is that there would be endless arguments over which ship should come first (I can't help but notice that in the War of 1812 actions the US Navy ship always comes first, regardless of alphabetic order or who actually won the engagement). The problem with the second suggested title is that there were frequently either multiple or no ships sunk or captured, and sometimes ships lost from from both sides, making it only applicable in a few cases. There is also the problem that only one ship is named in the title, which doesn't seem very equitable or descriptive. I agree that the date option is not entirely satisfactory, but until a better option is discovered it is probably the best way to deal with those actions that do not have accepted historic names.--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the centralised discussion, although it was already discussed at length at Sydney v. Kormoran. I am not disuputing that "action of X date" is the best title where e.g. more than 2 ships were involved or sunk, this is for cases only involving 2 ships, or where the capture or sinking of one ship really was the dominant event. How do serious naval histories of the War of 1812 refer to these actions? The date option can also have its problems e.g. if one navy was using the Gregorian calendar and the other was using the Julian, this does apply to a number of wars. PatGallacher (talk) 14:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There are several questions and points there: 1) It seems counter-productive to have a different convention for articles on engagements where only two ships was engaged from articles involving multiple ships - if we are going to establish a convention, then it should be for all such articles, except of course where there is a historical name for the battle, or it took place within a harbour, in which case (e.g. Raid on Dunkirk (1800)), the convention used in land battles should be followed of using the place name. I think there should be just the one rule for consistency and ease of understanding. 2) This is just the problem - serious naval histories don't in general give convenient titles to these more minor naval engagements, and they were not usually given a name at the time either. As a result, we at Wikipedia have to come up with a convenient compromise for the title of our articles. 3) The calendar issue with the date option is a potential problem, but in that instance we should use the date as given in reliable sources and put a note in the lead explaining the discrepancy. I'm not totally satisified with it either, but using the date really is the most neutral and convenient option.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
This one’s been puzzling me, also. The “Action of …” format seems to crop up a lot, here, but the format I’m used to seeing in books does use the ships names, as much as anything (The Swiftsure and the Foudroyant”, “The capture of the Guillaume Tell” “Java and Constitution” (the British one first, in that case; and not the winner either) “Shannon and Chesapeake” “The sinking of the Leopard” (which is articled here as Action of 16 March 1917); wouldn’t this be covered by WP Common name? If a descriptive name like that is used in a reliable source, why not use it? Xyl 54 (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Principally because those names are not consistently used in a majority of sources, and all fall foul of the problems I have highlighted above. These are in no way "official" or even "conventional" names (and many of them are decidedly non-descriptive as well - outside its context what on earth does “Shannon and Chesapeake” mean), and their use in source material is inconsistent and open to debate, argument and disagreement.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
"outside its context what on earth does “Shannon and Chesapeake” mean?" Answer: about as much as Romeo and Juliet once context is removed from that...something involving something called Romeo and something called Juliet. You are rarely (if ever) going to get all of the context necessary context into an article title... thats what lead sections and hatnotes to other possible targets are. -- saberwyn 23:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
That is true of course, but the problem still exists that there is no uniformity in the way these names are presented in the sources. Also, a quick survey of the roughly sixty articles on naval battles I have written so far shows that of these only three would qualify as "single ship" actions under this proposed guideline. This seems to me to be an unnecessary distinction in terms of article title that will actually make the situation more confusing not less.--Jackyd101 (talk) 08:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The Naval Review tends to call battles using action of insert date. So there are references that use the format. It didnt just pop up out of the blue. Many battles are unnamed, so in essence by calling the battle by anything else but the date we would be making up a name out of the blue.XavierGreen (talk) 23:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
But if no sources (or at least, none of the sources checked) use the date to "name" the battle, wouldn't we still be making a name up out of the blue? -- saberwyn 10:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Would it even be possible to pick the day of a battle out of the blue? The name of the battle is essentially the day it occured.XavierGreen (talk) 04:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River now open

The peer review for Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 02:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Colonial American military history

An article called Colonial American military history was created today. It does have some sources, but is basically a stub/start at this point. I've tagged the tlk page for MILHIST. It likes like a legitimately-needed articel, and I haven't found any overlapping articels yest. However, I'm not familar at all with the topoic, or with WP's coverage of the topic. Any help watching the articel while it comes together would be appraciated. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added an assessment and task force parameter. EyeSerenetalk 15:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

FA-Class review for Helmut Lent needs your help

May I ask anyone here to give the article a look? The review has been inactive for two weeks now. I fear that it may fail due to lack of interest. MisterBee1966 (talk) 07:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Henry Dolan

Good afternoon. I've got a question about WWII ace pilots. Are they considered notable because of a certain number of kills? Is that written somewhere? The person who disagrees with my notability tag on this specific article uses the rationale that "notability is established by award of an honor" but I do not see an award, only a number of kills. Can someone please clarify?--v/r - TP 22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Henry Dolan is a World War I ace pilot who was awarded the Military Cross. His honor is noted in the info box on this stub article. Georgejdorner (talk) 02:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
In principal, I do tend to believe flying aces are notable, providing that there are reliable sources available of course. However, per WP:MILPEOPLE and consensus in previous AfD debates, the award of a Military Cross is not enough to assert notability as it is a third level award; only the award of a first level decoration, such as the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor, or several second level decorations are deemed notable enough via the bestoyal of an honour criterion. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
So does that mean Henry Dolan does not meet Wikipedia standards? I've seen discussions on military awards before and their assertion of notability but I am not sure where the line is drawn. As far as my posting this question, I was unaware at the time that he even had the Military Cross.--v/r - TP 04:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
In my view, if there are reliable references available on this person, then, yes, he is notable and does meet the standards for inclusion. If not, however, then he probably does not. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree, notability all comes down to the quality, depth, reliability and independence of the source material. My personal opinion, looking at the article, is that there may not be enough there to justify a stand-alone article; the sources seem fine but are very limited. It might be best to merge the content into another article (perhaps No. 74 Squadron RAF?) EyeSerenetalk 10:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The MC alone is not generally sufficient to establish notability, however, in this case sufficient has been written about WWI aces as the pioneers of air combat that sufficient third-party sources can be found (I believe that the aerodrome website already cited itself draws on a number of published sources for details of kills etc). David Underdown (talk) 11:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
If there are more sources that mean the article can be expanded, that would certainly address my concern. At the moment I don't believe there's enough content to justify a biographical article (comparing it to, for example, Edward Mannock at the other end of the spectrum!) EyeSerenetalk 13:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
So in your opinions, does a notability tag seem justified at the very least?Per improvements, I retract my question--v/r - TP 18:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for HMS Lion (1910) now open

The A-Class review for HMS Lion (1910) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 01:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Smedley Butler now open

The featured article candidacy for Smedley Butler is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 03:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Thomas Baker (aviator) now open

The featured article candidacy for Thomas Baker (aviator) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer reviews needing attention

We have two peer review requests which have been open for some time without any comments:

If anyone could find some time to comment on these, it would be very appreciated! Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler's 50th Birthday

Adolf Hitler's 50th Birthday (April 20, 1939) is probably of interest to the Military History project, as a major military parade took place in Berlin on that day, and many contemporary press reports comment extensively on the weapons that have been displayed. Also, the article is being considered for deletion here.  Cs32en Talk to me  06:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

NORAD

Could some members here keep an eye on NORAD and it's talk page. I haven't looked too closely myself, but from what I understand, there's a 9/ll truther editing from an IP trying to introduce doubtful material and another editor opposing him more or less alone. It would probably help the page if more editors weighed in on the controversy to help establish consensus one way or the other. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Given that the editor has admitted using the article to push this fringe theory on the basis of their own 'research'. The indefinite semi protection of the article seems appropriate. I've watchlisted the article. Nick-D (talk) 09:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Alexander Pentland now open

The featured article candidacy for Alexander Pentland is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 05:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Outcome of Battle of Tali-Ihantala 1944

Recently I've posted several new references and a quote on Tali-Ihantala article (both Finnish sources and a quotations from Vasilevsky's memoirs), which prove that Russians planned to stop their offensive on the Karelian Isthmus already on June 17 (Vasilevsky's and Antonov's meeting with Stalin), and also that it was Stalin's order to Govorov in July that stopped the Russian advance at Ihantala. The troops (5 divisions and tanks) were transferred to the Baltics for the operations in Estonia. This, IMHO, proves beyond all doubts that Russians didn't plan to "occupy Finland" as many modern Finnish historians now claim. Also, the Finns claim that the Soviets sent an "unconditional surrender demand" to the Finns on June 23, but that isn't true either. The word "unconditional" wasn't present in Russians' note. They wanted to see a written declaration signed by the Finnish primeminister or minister of external affairs that "Finland capitulates and asks Soviet Union for peace" - in that case "the Soviets were ready to receive a delegation from the Finnish governement in Moscow". On July 2, an article in Pravda fought back Finnish accusations of "unconditional surrender". It stated that all Finnish talks about "unconditional surrender" are groundless. This article was quoted in several Swedish newspapers the next day with the titles like "No capitulation without conditions" (Svenska Dagbladet, July 3, 1944). Besides all that the faith of Finland was already decided in Teheran in December 1943, where Stalin said he would let Finland remain independent and would only take Vyborg, Karelian Isthmus, and Hangö with the Hangö district. He also said he could also change Hangö for Petsamo. Roosevelt replied: "This is a fair change". Everyone can read about it in Churchill's memoirs "Second World War" (chapter about Teheran).

With all the above said, the picture is clear, there where no plans for occupying Finland, Soviets planned to stop at the Finnish border (that decision was taken prior to their capturing of Vyborg), switch over to defence on the Karelian Isthmus and transer troops to the Baltics, no unconditional surrender was issued, Pravda denied Finnish lies in that aspect, the Russian troops stopped at Ihantala (July 11) when they received Stavkas order about transferring troops to the Baltics. Simply speaking, there was no "Decisive Finnish victory" - it's a modern-day Finnish political propaganda revisionist terminology, that has been spread around since 1994 (when Finns celebrated 50 years since battles on the Isthmus). Koskenkorva (talk) 18:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Other editors are warmly welcome to editing the article and participating to the discussion. ;-) --Whiskey (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
You already know my opinion as one of the editors of that article (and editor of varios different war articles during last 3 years). Sources and texts of Koskenkorva haven't been thus far anything but his/her very own opinions mixed to Soviet WW2 - Cold war era texts. His/her only goals this far in wikipedia have been to change outcome of Battle of Tali-Ihantala from "Decisive finnish victory" to "Stalemate" (or soviet victory as he/she have said/suggested in discussion page) and Vyborg-Petrozavodsk offense from "Stalemate" to "Soviet victory". Koskenkorva have this far managed to get one warning and one temporary block in wikipedia because of his/her edits. In my eyes his/her doings look pretty much like nationalist warpropaganda, nothing more. Its funny to see pro-soviet propagandists trying to explain (now 65 years after) in every stage that Soviet Union had no plans during the WW2 to occupy any country in any circumstances, when pure fact is that every single land area which Red Army managed to occupy during the war, were attached to Soviet Union or to Soviet Unions sphere of influence (by setting new communist/pro-Soviet governments). Some time ago one editor tryed desperately turn Winter War article to look like there never was plans about occupation of Finland in Soviet Union, because (as explanation of editor went) "there is no evidence about it, no Soviet leader ever said USSR was trying to occupy Finland". I think in this case its pretty much about same thing. Soviet Union did not wanted "unconditional surrender" from Finland, they just wanted "surrender". Whats the big differense between these two?? Battle of Tali-Ihantala was just one battle linked to larger Vyborg-Petrozavodsk offensive. Koskenkorva sees no differense between these two. Vyborg-Petrozavodsk offense was Soviet semi-succesful operation on summer 1944, while Tali-Ihantala was just one battle in it. In Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation Red Army managed to recapture Karelian Isthmus, but failed to beat Finnish army and invade Finnish mainlain. According Koskenkorva this still results clear Soviet victory. Tali-Ihantala battle was largest single battle during the operation. Soviet troops suffered many times more men casualties than Finland and lost over 300 tanks and 120-280 airplanes. Soviet forces were unable to carry on advance any further to Finland. Major battling in Tali-Ihantala ended on 3th July, and on 12th July and after remaining Soviet tanks and airplanes (not troops, just tanks and airplanes) which had participated to battle were transferred to Baltics. According Koskenkorva this is the reason why result of battle should be stalemate, not Finnish victory. Seems pretty odd to me...62.216.127.93 (talk) 13:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for German Type UB I submarine now open

The peer review for German Type UB I submarine is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 03:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Naming Help

I plan on creating a new article on alert pads, since a good article can be made on them. I was wondering if it should be named "Alert Pad" or "Alert Facility". I'm leaning towards pad, but there isn't a ton of Google hits, so I'm unsure of what to do here. Thanks. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Identifying a World War I Era Tank

The Tank in Question

I was looking into restoring this image. However, for it to be nominated for featured picture it needs to be definitively ID'd. The original caption on Library of Congress is "Tank ploughing its way through a trench and starting toward the German line, during World War I, near Saint Michel, France. However on commons the caption is "A French World War I Renault FT-17 tank, ditching." Does anyone have any materials that could fairly definitively ID this tank? Thanks NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 05:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the gun barrel design I suspect it may be a Renault FT-17, but that would need to be confirmed. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
You are right, Tom, it is a FT-17. And the symbols painted on the turret might be able to identify a unit or at least a nationality. But you'd have to ask at the specialized AFV boards to find somebody who might know, I expect.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Definitely an FT-17. Question is - is it French or American? Given the Library of Congress having the image, it may have an American connection. That said, identifying tanks in a squadron with playing card motifs was common on French tanks in WWII, so may have a WWI origin. Agree you need an AFV specialist.Monstrelet (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
The US did seem to use playing card motifs; see, eg, here. The FT-17 was used by both French and American forces in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, mid-September 1918. Shimgray | talk | 20:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Armoured target

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The article Armoured target has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for reference found support for a dictionary phrase, but did not find sufficient content to justify a full wikipeida article. Fails WP:V, WP:NOTDICT & WP:N

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Quebec in 1759: how to structure

There is a discussion at Talk:Battle of the Plains of Abraham about how to structure an expansion of content, principally the campaign and siege activities that preceded the battle. Interested parties are welcome to contribute. Magic♪piano 00:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Henry George Chauvel now open

The A-Class review for Henry George Chauvel is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 04:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured List candidacy for List of battlecruisers of Germany now open

The FLC for List of battlecruisers of Germany is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 11:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Battle of Smolensk (1943) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Unassessed articles

There is currently a rather large backlog associated with this project that could use some help:

Any help from project members to assess these articles would be appreciated. Thanks, -MBK004 05:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've done the one in my sphere of expertise. Most seem to be about planes, novels and films. BTW, has anyone visited the Middle Ages task force article list recently? Over 5,000 unassessed articles.Monstrelet (talk) 19:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of Winterthur (1799) now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Winterthur (1799) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 03:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry now open

The peer review for 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 03:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

New category: Category:Battle cries

I was looking at Awake iron! and realised there was no category joining together various war/battle cries, despite it being a relatively easily-identifiable cross-cultural custom. Accordingly, I created Category:Battle cries and managed to populate it with around a dozen article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Nguyen Van Nhung now open

The A-Class review for Nguyen Van Nhung is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 06:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

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