This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've been compiling a list of reference material for articles on the Classical warfare task force page. It strikes me that at least for us and the Middle Ages task force many of the primary sources of information are in the public domain, and usually available through online e-text sources like Project Gutenburg. I suspect that conflicts more recent than the in the 19th century may start running into copyright issues, unfortunatly. And of course, there are many secondary sources that are quite recent, under copyright, and only available in print, so this idea isn't a panacea for researching woes :)
Still, I was wondering if anyone out there might know of other usable e-text sources (by this I mean texts, not sites - sites one can find though Google), and be willing to contribute their knowledge? Perhaps, if there is wide enough (scope wise) response and information, that a "reference department" along similar lines to the "cartography department" might be spawned? If not, I'll maintain a list on the CWTF page. Just something to think about. - Vedexent 17:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed with the proper annotated bibliography part! As for interest... I don't know :) I think the immediate respond to the peer review process has shown that there are at least some people interested in getting "their" articles into FAC status, inline footnotes are a must for that, and who wants to go "dig up" reference material if you can just pull out e-texts from the list :) At least, that's how I'd think, and it is why I've been making the list of online e-texts in the CFTF (although my proper bibiography format is a bit off). - Vedexent 17:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a central location is more likely to be expanded by users. Everyone is looking at the same list, and a particularily good book that a user may have read - but which isn't relevant to the articles they are currently working on - is more likely to be added to a central list while they're looking it over for other things, than to expect them to track down the relevant task force, find their list, etc. - Vedexent 04:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
In sections chronologically (c.f. the campaignbox list) and the alphabetically within that? So we'd have, for example:
... == Medieval == * Book 1 * Book 2 === Crusades === * Book 3 * Book 4 === Hundred Years' War === * Book 5 * Book 6 ...
and so forth. Rather more interesting is the question of annotations: would we want a single annotation for each book, or individual annotations by project members (mini-reviews, essentially), or some other approach? — Kirill Lok s hin 14:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I see three broad ways of arranging this:
I think that the first option might be the most effective insofar as it won't require any sort of complicated categorization scheme; but I'm not sure how put off people would be by the need to search by going through the summary descriptions.
As far as the actual listing goes, I was thinking of something like this:
Comments? — Kirill Lok s hin 02:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there anyone in this group who has a Bot and would be willing to help me fix a problem? Well, a lot of problems? It has come to my attention that there are many hundreds of links to Confederate, which is an uninteresting page about Confederations in general. I started going through and editing them by hand, but am running out of steam. The task would consist of going to the What Links Here page for Confederate and editing the American Civil War-related links to be either:
as appropriate. If is too much work to differentiate in that way, changing them all to the first would be better than nothing. Thanks. Hal Jespersen 20:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I have this photo here that is bugging me. (Take a look.)
OK so this guy is weird. First of all he's definitely wearing a Wehrmacht uniform. But, he's East Asian. Then his collar and shoulder patches look like a Schütze's. But the German eagle thing on his uniform, that I thought was for officers? And then, his cap. Looks like a Japanese one. AFAIK no Japanese troops directly helped Germany or even went to Germany. That means no Koreans either. Probably not Chinese either, since we sent only officers over (IIRC). I've heard about a bunch of Mongolian soldiers who got captured while fighting in the Red Army and then forced to fight for the Wehrmacht. Could this be one of those guys? Anyone knows who this dude is? -- Миборовский U| T| C| M| E| Chugoku Banzai! 03:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
A call to any Kiwis here, or anyone who just happens to be quite knowledgable. Over the next week or so I'm going to be working on expanding Military history of New Zealand and I invite any support! It's alright at is it now, but there are some embarassingly lacking sections and it would be neat to get it towards FAC. I'll also post over at the NZ WikiProject. -- Loopy e 04:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Any help with figuring out how to label the outcome of this would be much appreciated. — Kirill Lok s hin 19:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
The excellent point has been made at the talk page of Battle of Krasny Bor - why does "Victory" in the battle box mean "win" or "lose"? Surely participants in battles defined these differently, and historians also interpreted these things differently. Perhaps we can move to a more results - oriented system of "Outcomes"? Examples
The problem may be wordiness, but would prevent arguments about less obvious outcomes such as, apparently, Krasny Bor. Michael Dorosh 00:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
How about split the differences: "Decisive victory", "marginal victory", "stalemate", "ambigous outcome", and "see text", with more "wordy" explanations expounded on in the article itself. - Vedexent 04:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Well... perhaps "see text" and "inconclusive" overlap. I meant it in those rare cases where the outcome of the battle can't really be summed up in a neat 2-3 word phrase. (The French won the naval battle, but only because the only ship not sunk in the conflict was under control of French marines, but it was an English vessel - and lest you laugh, I had something just that improbably happen in table top wargaming once - I don't know if reality has ever been that silly) - Vedexent 04:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
A little tangential, but worth mentioning...I hesitate to use battle boxes for Medieval battles. It's hard to establish reliable combatant numbers for many of these battles. Where they exist at all, they're often recorded by some chronicler decades later who fails to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants - and given the degree of disagreement between different chronicles regarding identical battles, probably just guesswork in a lot of instances. The battle box format tempts editors to insert numbers uncritically and tempts readers to view them equally uncritically. This convention is fine for modern conflicts, but becomes problematic for older eras. Comments? Durova 07:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts on this matter are very simple and I hope I can persuade my way towards a consensus. I've made only minor amendments to the system I've seen built up through several years of unspoken precedent and convention, a system that in my view has provided its own approval and justification.
I base my rationale on important distinctions between the types of conflicts sharing the common template:
I'll be happy to hear what all of you think. A consensus on this could potentially save us massive headaches like the piece of Hell that erupted over Battle of Krasny Bor (which, I maintain, was always a pretty clear-cut German victory—the result doesn't become "less obvious" just because more people yell about it). Albrecht 06:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There was a serious dispute over this at Battle of Borodino. I answered the RfC. By the end of discussion I would have been happiest with "marginal French victory." I let the editors reach their own conclusion. Durova 02:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
How should we record the the strength size of each side in a battle, taking reinforcements into question? My suggestion would be to have the initial number of forces and then a "+" for all reinforcements added; something like "500 + 450". I realize that there is a potential problem with forces being pulled out, but I think that's pretty rare in a battle (as oppossed to a campaign), so I think we can safely disregard that. Oberiko 14:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Chausse is among today's selections for "...Did you know?" Durova 02:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Does something like this exist? To help group e.g. articles like Human Wave Attack or Cavalry Charge etc. They are currently in the category ground warfare, but maybe deserving of a sub-category? Andreas 16:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I just looked at the articles on Camouflage and noticed a metric buttload of different categories; I took Military camouflage and put it in the category Category:Military camouflage because it was in Category:Military technology but surfing around the various categories, it seems like a lot of duplication - there are categories for personal equipment, military equipment, military, technology, military technology...yikes. Michael Dorosh 16:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
What do the different coloured letters in the signature blocks represent? Kirill Lok s hin Leith p Michael Dorosh 18:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Not sure whether this is the right place. I'd like to propose a template for a long duration conflict (either low-intensity or with occasional flareups) similar to {{ Infobox Military Conflict}} but with less required fields. The first candidate would be Arab-Israeli conflict, and later perhaps also Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Troubles, etc. Is there such an animal already in existence? Your thoughts/objections are welcome. ← Humus sapiens ну? 02:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Just an announcement that someone has put the Battle of Cannae article up for FAC consideration. - Vedexent 14:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Ahh... that is what is meant by "Critique". To me that is something like "Review" - which is a seperate category I see.... hmmm.... - Vedexent 14:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I recently made in inquiry to Osprey, as I know a lot of our articles use either text or artwork from them. Here is the response I got. Palm_Dogg 19:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Dear [Palm dogg], Thank you for your email. All our material (text & artwork) is our copyright and is protected by copyright law. Anyone wanting to use our material must apply to us for usage via our official Application Form. Artwork appearing on third party website must be of a low-resolution quality and we supply the a/w to you on disc. Please pass this onto your contacts at Wikipedia, and get them to contact us in each instance, when they want to use our material. Yours sincerely, Diane Hurdley Permissions Administrator Osprey Publishing Ltd diane.hurdley@ospreypublishing.com
Well, Osprey uses historical photographs and artworks and such in their publications as well. Those that are either public domain or the photographer has released rights to them should be fair game. But Osprey's original artwork (like the centre-fold illustrations - which are really good most of the time) and copyrighted photographs should probably need the copyright holders' consent before we use them. -- Миборовский U| T| C| M| E| Chugoku Banzai! 23:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Please comment on this article, thank you. Joaquin Murietta 00:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've been compiling a list of reference material for articles on the Classical warfare task force page. It strikes me that at least for us and the Middle Ages task force many of the primary sources of information are in the public domain, and usually available through online e-text sources like Project Gutenburg. I suspect that conflicts more recent than the in the 19th century may start running into copyright issues, unfortunatly. And of course, there are many secondary sources that are quite recent, under copyright, and only available in print, so this idea isn't a panacea for researching woes :)
Still, I was wondering if anyone out there might know of other usable e-text sources (by this I mean texts, not sites - sites one can find though Google), and be willing to contribute their knowledge? Perhaps, if there is wide enough (scope wise) response and information, that a "reference department" along similar lines to the "cartography department" might be spawned? If not, I'll maintain a list on the CWTF page. Just something to think about. - Vedexent 17:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed with the proper annotated bibliography part! As for interest... I don't know :) I think the immediate respond to the peer review process has shown that there are at least some people interested in getting "their" articles into FAC status, inline footnotes are a must for that, and who wants to go "dig up" reference material if you can just pull out e-texts from the list :) At least, that's how I'd think, and it is why I've been making the list of online e-texts in the CFTF (although my proper bibiography format is a bit off). - Vedexent 17:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a central location is more likely to be expanded by users. Everyone is looking at the same list, and a particularily good book that a user may have read - but which isn't relevant to the articles they are currently working on - is more likely to be added to a central list while they're looking it over for other things, than to expect them to track down the relevant task force, find their list, etc. - Vedexent 04:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
In sections chronologically (c.f. the campaignbox list) and the alphabetically within that? So we'd have, for example:
... == Medieval == * Book 1 * Book 2 === Crusades === * Book 3 * Book 4 === Hundred Years' War === * Book 5 * Book 6 ...
and so forth. Rather more interesting is the question of annotations: would we want a single annotation for each book, or individual annotations by project members (mini-reviews, essentially), or some other approach? — Kirill Lok s hin 14:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I see three broad ways of arranging this:
I think that the first option might be the most effective insofar as it won't require any sort of complicated categorization scheme; but I'm not sure how put off people would be by the need to search by going through the summary descriptions.
As far as the actual listing goes, I was thinking of something like this:
Comments? — Kirill Lok s hin 02:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there anyone in this group who has a Bot and would be willing to help me fix a problem? Well, a lot of problems? It has come to my attention that there are many hundreds of links to Confederate, which is an uninteresting page about Confederations in general. I started going through and editing them by hand, but am running out of steam. The task would consist of going to the What Links Here page for Confederate and editing the American Civil War-related links to be either:
as appropriate. If is too much work to differentiate in that way, changing them all to the first would be better than nothing. Thanks. Hal Jespersen 20:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I have this photo here that is bugging me. (Take a look.)
OK so this guy is weird. First of all he's definitely wearing a Wehrmacht uniform. But, he's East Asian. Then his collar and shoulder patches look like a Schütze's. But the German eagle thing on his uniform, that I thought was for officers? And then, his cap. Looks like a Japanese one. AFAIK no Japanese troops directly helped Germany or even went to Germany. That means no Koreans either. Probably not Chinese either, since we sent only officers over (IIRC). I've heard about a bunch of Mongolian soldiers who got captured while fighting in the Red Army and then forced to fight for the Wehrmacht. Could this be one of those guys? Anyone knows who this dude is? -- Миборовский U| T| C| M| E| Chugoku Banzai! 03:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
A call to any Kiwis here, or anyone who just happens to be quite knowledgable. Over the next week or so I'm going to be working on expanding Military history of New Zealand and I invite any support! It's alright at is it now, but there are some embarassingly lacking sections and it would be neat to get it towards FAC. I'll also post over at the NZ WikiProject. -- Loopy e 04:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Any help with figuring out how to label the outcome of this would be much appreciated. — Kirill Lok s hin 19:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
The excellent point has been made at the talk page of Battle of Krasny Bor - why does "Victory" in the battle box mean "win" or "lose"? Surely participants in battles defined these differently, and historians also interpreted these things differently. Perhaps we can move to a more results - oriented system of "Outcomes"? Examples
The problem may be wordiness, but would prevent arguments about less obvious outcomes such as, apparently, Krasny Bor. Michael Dorosh 00:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
How about split the differences: "Decisive victory", "marginal victory", "stalemate", "ambigous outcome", and "see text", with more "wordy" explanations expounded on in the article itself. - Vedexent 04:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Well... perhaps "see text" and "inconclusive" overlap. I meant it in those rare cases where the outcome of the battle can't really be summed up in a neat 2-3 word phrase. (The French won the naval battle, but only because the only ship not sunk in the conflict was under control of French marines, but it was an English vessel - and lest you laugh, I had something just that improbably happen in table top wargaming once - I don't know if reality has ever been that silly) - Vedexent 04:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
A little tangential, but worth mentioning...I hesitate to use battle boxes for Medieval battles. It's hard to establish reliable combatant numbers for many of these battles. Where they exist at all, they're often recorded by some chronicler decades later who fails to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants - and given the degree of disagreement between different chronicles regarding identical battles, probably just guesswork in a lot of instances. The battle box format tempts editors to insert numbers uncritically and tempts readers to view them equally uncritically. This convention is fine for modern conflicts, but becomes problematic for older eras. Comments? Durova 07:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts on this matter are very simple and I hope I can persuade my way towards a consensus. I've made only minor amendments to the system I've seen built up through several years of unspoken precedent and convention, a system that in my view has provided its own approval and justification.
I base my rationale on important distinctions between the types of conflicts sharing the common template:
I'll be happy to hear what all of you think. A consensus on this could potentially save us massive headaches like the piece of Hell that erupted over Battle of Krasny Bor (which, I maintain, was always a pretty clear-cut German victory—the result doesn't become "less obvious" just because more people yell about it). Albrecht 06:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There was a serious dispute over this at Battle of Borodino. I answered the RfC. By the end of discussion I would have been happiest with "marginal French victory." I let the editors reach their own conclusion. Durova 02:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
How should we record the the strength size of each side in a battle, taking reinforcements into question? My suggestion would be to have the initial number of forces and then a "+" for all reinforcements added; something like "500 + 450". I realize that there is a potential problem with forces being pulled out, but I think that's pretty rare in a battle (as oppossed to a campaign), so I think we can safely disregard that. Oberiko 14:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Chausse is among today's selections for "...Did you know?" Durova 02:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Does something like this exist? To help group e.g. articles like Human Wave Attack or Cavalry Charge etc. They are currently in the category ground warfare, but maybe deserving of a sub-category? Andreas 16:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I just looked at the articles on Camouflage and noticed a metric buttload of different categories; I took Military camouflage and put it in the category Category:Military camouflage because it was in Category:Military technology but surfing around the various categories, it seems like a lot of duplication - there are categories for personal equipment, military equipment, military, technology, military technology...yikes. Michael Dorosh 16:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
What do the different coloured letters in the signature blocks represent? Kirill Lok s hin Leith p Michael Dorosh 18:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Not sure whether this is the right place. I'd like to propose a template for a long duration conflict (either low-intensity or with occasional flareups) similar to {{ Infobox Military Conflict}} but with less required fields. The first candidate would be Arab-Israeli conflict, and later perhaps also Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Troubles, etc. Is there such an animal already in existence? Your thoughts/objections are welcome. ← Humus sapiens ну? 02:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Just an announcement that someone has put the Battle of Cannae article up for FAC consideration. - Vedexent 14:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Ahh... that is what is meant by "Critique". To me that is something like "Review" - which is a seperate category I see.... hmmm.... - Vedexent 14:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I recently made in inquiry to Osprey, as I know a lot of our articles use either text or artwork from them. Here is the response I got. Palm_Dogg 19:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Dear [Palm dogg], Thank you for your email. All our material (text & artwork) is our copyright and is protected by copyright law. Anyone wanting to use our material must apply to us for usage via our official Application Form. Artwork appearing on third party website must be of a low-resolution quality and we supply the a/w to you on disc. Please pass this onto your contacts at Wikipedia, and get them to contact us in each instance, when they want to use our material. Yours sincerely, Diane Hurdley Permissions Administrator Osprey Publishing Ltd diane.hurdley@ospreypublishing.com
Well, Osprey uses historical photographs and artworks and such in their publications as well. Those that are either public domain or the photographer has released rights to them should be fair game. But Osprey's original artwork (like the centre-fold illustrations - which are really good most of the time) and copyrighted photographs should probably need the copyright holders' consent before we use them. -- Миборовский U| T| C| M| E| Chugoku Banzai! 23:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Please comment on this article, thank you. Joaquin Murietta 00:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)