This Military history WikiProject page is an archive, log collection, or currently inactive page; it is kept primarily for historical interest. |
This 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. |
Archive 35 | ← | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | Archive 41 | Archive 42 | Archive 43 | → | Archive 45 |
Hey folks. What do y'all think of this change to the main project page? They are also linked in the sidebar, but I thought giving them more visibility couldn't be the worst idea we've had, especially when more of them already sport the majority of the links (eg fr:Discussion_Portail:Histoire_militaire, right below the TOC). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:43, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
As some of you may remember, I brought attention to the huge amount of articles and their incomplete "B-class" assessments. This was brought up when the Coordinators started their term was only a few weeks old. Since then, "we" (whoever has contributed) ... We've been able to get the assessment of almost 4,000 articles completed ... through completing the "B-class" assessment. It's been a good effort on everyone who has been able to contribute, unfortunately, I know for a fact it will take time and much longer to get down to an acceptable level maybe a few hundred and keep it down. I am proud of who has helped with the effort in the backlog of so many articles. Adamdaley ( talk) 05:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Click on [show] for progress bar
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Anotherclown ( talk) 12:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Dear all, for over two years I have been attempting to modify articles written by User:Marcd30319, specifically now on carrier strike groups, U.S. Navy formations. I consider that the material is presented in a very obtruse and inaccessible style, laden with overcomplicated acronyms, has numerous official PR statements reproduced wholesale, and suffers severely from US Navy POV. I have tried rewritting then in a variety of ways, currently by rewritting one extensively, and submitting it for Peer Review ( Wikipedia:Peer review/Carrier Strike Group Seven/archive1). Marcd30319 appears to believe that he alone should change his originated articles, as will be evident from the talkpage discussion linked above - he's written a note on the PR requesting it be stopped. However I believe WP is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, that this important material about a worldwide influential force can be presented more accessibly and with less POV, and I frankly am very annoyed at his WP:OWN attitude. I have tried to rewrite this one article linked above so that others can comment on a rewritten version, but he persists in reverting so that all his articles are consistent. I do not wish to get involved in any more reverting than has already taken place, so I would very much appreciate several third party opinions. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 00:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard your call, and in the interest of comity, I have undertaken an extensive re-write of the article in question. I have eliminated such feature involving change of command, training and maintenance details, and minimized the use of jargon. Regarding the of U.S. Navy sources, given the contemporaneous nature of current carrier strike group operations, there is few little alternatives, and I have employed these news releases strictly for specific historical facts and operational details. I will undertake to rewrite the other carrier strike group article to conform to the Carrier Strike Group Seven. This new paradigm will be easier to maintain, less labor intensive, and very likely can be contained in a single article. Thank you for your input and my apologies for any misunderstandings. Marcd30319 ( talk) 15:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I am proposing the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS be renamed to the following: 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Dirlewanger Brigade). Adamdaley ( talk) 09:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Hey all. Apologies for my recent lack of activity; as often happens, RL priorities intrude. I anticipate at least another month of the same, but will try to chip in where I can.
On another topic, I see the medal ribbon RfC has been archived without closure. While it's obviously too late to do much about that, the original intention was to use it as a basis for developing project guidelines for handling that type of content. Do we feel there's enough input now to put something together? If so, where should we develop the guideline? My feeling is that we could do the same as before and rough it out here before putting it to the project, but there's no reason why we can't do it on the project talk page either. Thoughts? EyeSerene talk 12:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, we were a good deal later getting The Bugle out last month than we'd like to be -- what generally holds us up is the op-ed, as we've never gone without one since they started and don't want to set a precedent there. What would be great is to get a small backlog of draft op-eds so we don't get stymied in that department. While I'd be keen to get one from anyone in the project, I thought I'd start here to encourage production of one or two in the next week or so -- as coords we should all be pretty good at talking up a worthwhile subject... ;-) Tks in advance for your assistance! Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 02:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
In regards to my post at WT:MILHIST#Interesting Wikimedia Foundation job ad, had the Foundation been in touch with any of the coordinators or other members of the project? It seems like something of an oversight if they haven't given that we'd be well placed to advise them on what the job could involve and members of this project are the most likely to be interested in applying for it. Nick-D ( talk) 08:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Any thoughts on the discussion at WT:FAC#Moving forward about soliciting help from so-called subject-matter experts (SMEs), at least on articles that people want to bring to FAC at some point? I'm calling this thread "Wikidemia" to show my slant: I think any collaboration between academics and Wikipedians has to involve as much learning about their world as about our world, and needs to reflect the best values of both if we're going to have any reasonable expectation of capturing the attention and goodwill of academics. FWIW, I agree with the general sense of caution in the WT:FAC threads ... most academics (in the broad sense, including academic wannabes) have values and goals that are sufficiently different from ours that collaboration is going to be a net negative for us, but "most" isn't "all", and I think we all have a general sense of what to watch out for. There was a recent story that the British government intends to require much wider availability and transparency of all research from publicly funded schools (effectively, all schools) within two years, and just today I see a story in the New York Times that they've asked Jimmy Wales to help. I think the timing is right to try to do a better job at getting some academics (not most) involved with some Wikipedia articles (not most). - Dank ( push to talk) 15:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I've finally found the time to rewrite the description of our assessment system to reflect our decision (circa six months ago) to introduce parallel rating scales for prose articles and lists; the result can be seen at WP:MHA#Overview. As always, any comments on the rewritten material would be very appreciated; much of the text is new, and having more eyes check it over would be beneficial.
In addition to the text itself, I have a few more practical questions about the next steps we should take in implementing this system and about the assessment department in general:
Any other comments or suggestions would, of course, also be very welcome! Kirill [talk] 19:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we could rewrite this to be something very simple, such as:The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element; it has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
- A particularly useful picture or graphic
- Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic
- A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic
- Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article
I noticed under "AL" Detailed criteria it says "the article" instead of "the list". Also, more generally, can the detailed criteria sections for the various list classes be tailored a bit more towards lists? Thanks. Mojoworker ( talk) 02:05, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Military history pages by quality | ||
---|---|---|
Quality | ||
Total | ||
FA | 1,442 | |
FL | 150 | |
A | 669 | |
AL | 36 | |
GA | 5,426 | |
B | 20,592 | |
BL | 338 | |
C | 63,748 | |
CL | 1,016 | |
Start | 106,606 | |
Stub | 27,163 | |
List | 4,135 | |
Category | 46,193 | |
Disambig | 2,362 | |
File | 4,544 | |
Portal | 12 | |
Project | 199 | |
Redirect | 22,674 | |
Template | 8,313 | |
Draft | 355 | |
Assessed | 315,973 | |
Unassessed | 7 | |
Total | 315,980 |
I've updated {{ WPMILHIST}} to automatically generate AL/BL/CL assessment ratings for the main project assessment using the scheme described above, and the assessment bot appears to be processing them correctly (see table at right). Please let me know if you spot any errors with the new functionality; once we've confirmed that it works correctly, we can roll it out for the task force assessments as well. I'll also update the criteria tables with new examples once the categories populate.
I think the next step will be to come up with tailored AL/BL/CL criteria for lists based on the current A/B/C criteria for articles. If there are no objections, I can open a discussion on the main project page to do some initial brainstorming; we can use the results of that to decide how to move forward.
As always, any comments would be appreciated! Kirill [talk] 07:07, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I've updated the scoreboard and awarded the second place barnstar to Australian Rupert. Thanks to Ian for doing the bulk of the verification of the entries. I'd be obliged if someone else could award the winner his trinket.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 01:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I probably should have posted this at the time, but I've nominated Anotherclown ( talk · contribs) for the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves. The nomination is at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards#Nominations for the Oak Leaves and comments/votes from other coordinators would be great. Nick-D ( talk) 08:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
... or better yet, disarmament. I'd really appreciate any feedback Milhisters want to give, sooner rather than later since the deadline is Tuesday, on the mess at WP:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012. If you'd rather email me via my talk page, that works too. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Since we're close to the RFC's deadline, I don't want to encourage people to comment there, since most voters won't have a chance to respond. What I'm doing is soliciting reactions to the RFC and opinions on how you guys would close it, given the votes and discussion so far ... on your honor that you either don't have a position on PC or think the process is more important than which way the call goes. The four closing admins may or may not pay any attention to anything we say here, of course, and it's not generally encouraged to "help" close contentious discussions. But this RFC is exceptional: the discussion has sucked up an enormous amount of time over the last seven years or so, and IMO the current state of voting indicates to me that good faith has broken down completely ... only a tiny fraction of the comments on either side attempt to rebut, or even address, the main points of the other side. That's going to make the discussion very hard to close. Any thoughts about which points have support and which don't? - Dank ( push to talk) 20:29, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll put my cards on the table: unless something dramatic changes in the next day, it seems to me that neither side was able to make their case, since neither side dealt with the quite reasonable objections of the other. That is, I don't see a 65-35 vote here; I see an overwhelming vote, among the people who were willing to consider points made by the Option 2 voters, that Option1 (no action) will result in harm to Wikipedia, and another overwhelming vote by people who considered Option 1 rationales that Option 2 will result in harm to Wikipedia. (The voters could be right or wrong of course, but that's what the vote looks like to me.) For whatever reasons, very few of the voters were willing to use Option 3 to negotiate or explore alternatives. That is, I think the voters are saying that this was the wrong RFC. However, there were a lot of very intelligent things said on both sides, and I'm not entirely pessimistic that some progress will eventually be made. - Dank ( push to talk) 14:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
For purposes of suggesting options in the PC debate, does anyone know if the Mediawiki software has an option to protect a page to allow editing only by registered users? (Semi-protection currently requires that the user has 10 edits over at least 4 days, or has special permission ... I'm looking for page protection that would let any non-IP edit.) - Dank ( push to talk) 14:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Just want to jump in and say hi, hope to be back on the list in September. Term has ended nicely, actually improved my GPA. Buggie111 ( talk) 21:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Our featured picture showcase appears to be significantly out of date, and I suspect that a large part of the problem is that FP promotions aren't tracked in our assessment system, since {{ WPMILHIST}} doesn't generate a real assessment rating when used on image talk pages.
A number of other projects have implemented the (relatively new) " FM-Class" rating to track "featured media" directly. Would it perhaps make sense for us to do the same? That would allow us to keep our showcase more up-to-date, if nothing else.
Any comments would be very appreciated! Kirill [talk] 07:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
There are three nominations at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards in which the medals are ready to be handed out (disclaimer: including one for me). Could an uninvolved coordinator please do the honours? (and as a gentle reminder, these nominations only need three coordinators to verify that they're good to go, so if you're the fourth coordinator to come along, it's better to award the medal than to post your support for it! ;) ) Nick-D ( talk) 23:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Since we're now tracking A-Class lists through a separate AL-Class assessment category, would anyone object if we split the A-Class showcase into separate A and AL listings, similar to how we split the FA and FL showcases? Kirill [talk] 19:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
If some kind person could verify my entries in the May contest log here, I'll update the scoreboard and put the results into the next issue of The Bugle. I may also need help handing out the awards if I've pipped Rupert for second place... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 17:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
For reasons that escape me Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Becoming an Administrator was not actually deleted back when it was judged to be off topic for the academy. In a review of deleted material I've been involved in it the incorrectly created academy page popped up which lead me to the aforementioned admin course page. I reviewed what I had written in the admin course with fresh eyes and determined that even if the page in its entirety is unneeded parts of it could theoretically be spun out as stand alone academy article(s). I've taken an initial stab at spinning off material from the admin article to create an academy page for page protection, and wanted to know if this material could be considered useful at the academy. If so, then I may try spinning off other sections and seeing if the content can not be added to other pages we have in the academy or used to start new academy page. TomStar81 ( Talk) 09:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to add something short to the academy on this; any objections? Moore's Law marches on, and grammar checkers, both on the web and on laptops, keep getting better. I'm not ready to suggest any particular piece of software yet ... it's a lot of work to select and learn a package ... but that day is coming soon, so I do think it's time for me to start helping writers of A-class ands featured articles to identify patterns that will let us personalize a grammar checker for your own writing style and for the requirements of reviewers. What I need is a short page at our academy that I can link to from a review page so that I don't have to explain the relevance of grammar checkers every time this comes up. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:13, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Edits and discussion are encouraged. Strongly. - Dank ( push to talk) 23:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Yikes, here's something else coming from outside Milhist that could have a big impact on Milhist. Bing (www.bing.com) is now showing an extra link below Wikipedia entries that says "watch the qwiki" ... you may want to have a look, it's too awful to adequately describe :) The Bing search engine has about half as much traffic as Google, but it powers 3 of the world's top 5 websites. Since the qwiki's are geeky and pseudo-encyclopedic and associated on Bing with Wikipedia, and even contain the word "wiki", readers are likely to assume there's a connection, which of course there isn't. Qwiki has said in the past that they're open to adopting content from anyone who can give them good content; if they're serious about that, perhaps we could get them to replace the crap they're currently hosting with the lead sections of our military history articles. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Just as an FYI, your Bugle newsletter will have an errant section title this week thanks to me. See also User talk:The ed17#Uh oh. Minnow slaps may be acceptable. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Is this page becoming a little too big? Having so many successful ACRs that the archive takes a while to load is a nice problem to have, but perhaps we should think about splitting it up somehow, or perhaps linking (rather than trascluding) reviews? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
So, any other thoughts on what we should do here? Kirill [talk] 22:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Someone with better math skills than I can check the totals, and someone with awarding skills can please distribute the necessary awards. Nikkimaria ( talk) 05:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi all, if someone could just verify my entries for the month, I'll do the scoring, update the Bugle, and hand out the top bauble (guess I'm in the running for the no. 2 spot, so may not be able to hand that one out)... Tks/cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 10:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, can anyone remind me of when/where we held our last discussion that involved establishing, with evidence, exactly which projects officially accept our ACR results for their assessment scale? Ships has always done so and Aviation started doing so a few years ago, I think Biography does and a few of us felt various country projects did, but not sure we found clear evidence of it. Unless we're simply assuming all projects accept our A-Class (whether or not they have their own ACR system or not) I think it'd be worth re-establishing just who does and listing them in ACR closure guidelines, so we're all on (literally) the same page. Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 15:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Please see my proposal in response to a question at FAC. Thoughts? - Dank ( push to talk)
There's a discussion at User talk:Dank#Internship proposal that may be helpful. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
This Military history WikiProject page is an archive, log collection, or currently inactive page; it is kept primarily for historical interest. |
This 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. |
Archive 35 | ← | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | Archive 41 | Archive 42 | Archive 43 | → | Archive 45 |
Hey folks. What do y'all think of this change to the main project page? They are also linked in the sidebar, but I thought giving them more visibility couldn't be the worst idea we've had, especially when more of them already sport the majority of the links (eg fr:Discussion_Portail:Histoire_militaire, right below the TOC). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:43, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
As some of you may remember, I brought attention to the huge amount of articles and their incomplete "B-class" assessments. This was brought up when the Coordinators started their term was only a few weeks old. Since then, "we" (whoever has contributed) ... We've been able to get the assessment of almost 4,000 articles completed ... through completing the "B-class" assessment. It's been a good effort on everyone who has been able to contribute, unfortunately, I know for a fact it will take time and much longer to get down to an acceptable level maybe a few hundred and keep it down. I am proud of who has helped with the effort in the backlog of so many articles. Adamdaley ( talk) 05:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Click on [show] for progress bar
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Anotherclown ( talk) 12:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Dear all, for over two years I have been attempting to modify articles written by User:Marcd30319, specifically now on carrier strike groups, U.S. Navy formations. I consider that the material is presented in a very obtruse and inaccessible style, laden with overcomplicated acronyms, has numerous official PR statements reproduced wholesale, and suffers severely from US Navy POV. I have tried rewritting then in a variety of ways, currently by rewritting one extensively, and submitting it for Peer Review ( Wikipedia:Peer review/Carrier Strike Group Seven/archive1). Marcd30319 appears to believe that he alone should change his originated articles, as will be evident from the talkpage discussion linked above - he's written a note on the PR requesting it be stopped. However I believe WP is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, that this important material about a worldwide influential force can be presented more accessibly and with less POV, and I frankly am very annoyed at his WP:OWN attitude. I have tried to rewrite this one article linked above so that others can comment on a rewritten version, but he persists in reverting so that all his articles are consistent. I do not wish to get involved in any more reverting than has already taken place, so I would very much appreciate several third party opinions. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 00:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard your call, and in the interest of comity, I have undertaken an extensive re-write of the article in question. I have eliminated such feature involving change of command, training and maintenance details, and minimized the use of jargon. Regarding the of U.S. Navy sources, given the contemporaneous nature of current carrier strike group operations, there is few little alternatives, and I have employed these news releases strictly for specific historical facts and operational details. I will undertake to rewrite the other carrier strike group article to conform to the Carrier Strike Group Seven. This new paradigm will be easier to maintain, less labor intensive, and very likely can be contained in a single article. Thank you for your input and my apologies for any misunderstandings. Marcd30319 ( talk) 15:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I am proposing the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS be renamed to the following: 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Dirlewanger Brigade). Adamdaley ( talk) 09:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Hey all. Apologies for my recent lack of activity; as often happens, RL priorities intrude. I anticipate at least another month of the same, but will try to chip in where I can.
On another topic, I see the medal ribbon RfC has been archived without closure. While it's obviously too late to do much about that, the original intention was to use it as a basis for developing project guidelines for handling that type of content. Do we feel there's enough input now to put something together? If so, where should we develop the guideline? My feeling is that we could do the same as before and rough it out here before putting it to the project, but there's no reason why we can't do it on the project talk page either. Thoughts? EyeSerene talk 12:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, we were a good deal later getting The Bugle out last month than we'd like to be -- what generally holds us up is the op-ed, as we've never gone without one since they started and don't want to set a precedent there. What would be great is to get a small backlog of draft op-eds so we don't get stymied in that department. While I'd be keen to get one from anyone in the project, I thought I'd start here to encourage production of one or two in the next week or so -- as coords we should all be pretty good at talking up a worthwhile subject... ;-) Tks in advance for your assistance! Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 02:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
In regards to my post at WT:MILHIST#Interesting Wikimedia Foundation job ad, had the Foundation been in touch with any of the coordinators or other members of the project? It seems like something of an oversight if they haven't given that we'd be well placed to advise them on what the job could involve and members of this project are the most likely to be interested in applying for it. Nick-D ( talk) 08:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Any thoughts on the discussion at WT:FAC#Moving forward about soliciting help from so-called subject-matter experts (SMEs), at least on articles that people want to bring to FAC at some point? I'm calling this thread "Wikidemia" to show my slant: I think any collaboration between academics and Wikipedians has to involve as much learning about their world as about our world, and needs to reflect the best values of both if we're going to have any reasonable expectation of capturing the attention and goodwill of academics. FWIW, I agree with the general sense of caution in the WT:FAC threads ... most academics (in the broad sense, including academic wannabes) have values and goals that are sufficiently different from ours that collaboration is going to be a net negative for us, but "most" isn't "all", and I think we all have a general sense of what to watch out for. There was a recent story that the British government intends to require much wider availability and transparency of all research from publicly funded schools (effectively, all schools) within two years, and just today I see a story in the New York Times that they've asked Jimmy Wales to help. I think the timing is right to try to do a better job at getting some academics (not most) involved with some Wikipedia articles (not most). - Dank ( push to talk) 15:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I've finally found the time to rewrite the description of our assessment system to reflect our decision (circa six months ago) to introduce parallel rating scales for prose articles and lists; the result can be seen at WP:MHA#Overview. As always, any comments on the rewritten material would be very appreciated; much of the text is new, and having more eyes check it over would be beneficial.
In addition to the text itself, I have a few more practical questions about the next steps we should take in implementing this system and about the assessment department in general:
Any other comments or suggestions would, of course, also be very welcome! Kirill [talk] 19:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we could rewrite this to be something very simple, such as:The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element; it has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
- A particularly useful picture or graphic
- Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic
- A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic
- Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article
I noticed under "AL" Detailed criteria it says "the article" instead of "the list". Also, more generally, can the detailed criteria sections for the various list classes be tailored a bit more towards lists? Thanks. Mojoworker ( talk) 02:05, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Military history pages by quality | ||
---|---|---|
Quality | ||
Total | ||
FA | 1,442 | |
FL | 150 | |
A | 669 | |
AL | 36 | |
GA | 5,426 | |
B | 20,592 | |
BL | 338 | |
C | 63,748 | |
CL | 1,016 | |
Start | 106,606 | |
Stub | 27,163 | |
List | 4,135 | |
Category | 46,193 | |
Disambig | 2,362 | |
File | 4,544 | |
Portal | 12 | |
Project | 199 | |
Redirect | 22,674 | |
Template | 8,313 | |
Draft | 355 | |
Assessed | 315,973 | |
Unassessed | 7 | |
Total | 315,980 |
I've updated {{ WPMILHIST}} to automatically generate AL/BL/CL assessment ratings for the main project assessment using the scheme described above, and the assessment bot appears to be processing them correctly (see table at right). Please let me know if you spot any errors with the new functionality; once we've confirmed that it works correctly, we can roll it out for the task force assessments as well. I'll also update the criteria tables with new examples once the categories populate.
I think the next step will be to come up with tailored AL/BL/CL criteria for lists based on the current A/B/C criteria for articles. If there are no objections, I can open a discussion on the main project page to do some initial brainstorming; we can use the results of that to decide how to move forward.
As always, any comments would be appreciated! Kirill [talk] 07:07, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I've updated the scoreboard and awarded the second place barnstar to Australian Rupert. Thanks to Ian for doing the bulk of the verification of the entries. I'd be obliged if someone else could award the winner his trinket.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 01:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I probably should have posted this at the time, but I've nominated Anotherclown ( talk · contribs) for the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves. The nomination is at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards#Nominations for the Oak Leaves and comments/votes from other coordinators would be great. Nick-D ( talk) 08:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
... or better yet, disarmament. I'd really appreciate any feedback Milhisters want to give, sooner rather than later since the deadline is Tuesday, on the mess at WP:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012. If you'd rather email me via my talk page, that works too. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Since we're close to the RFC's deadline, I don't want to encourage people to comment there, since most voters won't have a chance to respond. What I'm doing is soliciting reactions to the RFC and opinions on how you guys would close it, given the votes and discussion so far ... on your honor that you either don't have a position on PC or think the process is more important than which way the call goes. The four closing admins may or may not pay any attention to anything we say here, of course, and it's not generally encouraged to "help" close contentious discussions. But this RFC is exceptional: the discussion has sucked up an enormous amount of time over the last seven years or so, and IMO the current state of voting indicates to me that good faith has broken down completely ... only a tiny fraction of the comments on either side attempt to rebut, or even address, the main points of the other side. That's going to make the discussion very hard to close. Any thoughts about which points have support and which don't? - Dank ( push to talk) 20:29, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll put my cards on the table: unless something dramatic changes in the next day, it seems to me that neither side was able to make their case, since neither side dealt with the quite reasonable objections of the other. That is, I don't see a 65-35 vote here; I see an overwhelming vote, among the people who were willing to consider points made by the Option 2 voters, that Option1 (no action) will result in harm to Wikipedia, and another overwhelming vote by people who considered Option 1 rationales that Option 2 will result in harm to Wikipedia. (The voters could be right or wrong of course, but that's what the vote looks like to me.) For whatever reasons, very few of the voters were willing to use Option 3 to negotiate or explore alternatives. That is, I think the voters are saying that this was the wrong RFC. However, there were a lot of very intelligent things said on both sides, and I'm not entirely pessimistic that some progress will eventually be made. - Dank ( push to talk) 14:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
For purposes of suggesting options in the PC debate, does anyone know if the Mediawiki software has an option to protect a page to allow editing only by registered users? (Semi-protection currently requires that the user has 10 edits over at least 4 days, or has special permission ... I'm looking for page protection that would let any non-IP edit.) - Dank ( push to talk) 14:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Just want to jump in and say hi, hope to be back on the list in September. Term has ended nicely, actually improved my GPA. Buggie111 ( talk) 21:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Our featured picture showcase appears to be significantly out of date, and I suspect that a large part of the problem is that FP promotions aren't tracked in our assessment system, since {{ WPMILHIST}} doesn't generate a real assessment rating when used on image talk pages.
A number of other projects have implemented the (relatively new) " FM-Class" rating to track "featured media" directly. Would it perhaps make sense for us to do the same? That would allow us to keep our showcase more up-to-date, if nothing else.
Any comments would be very appreciated! Kirill [talk] 07:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
There are three nominations at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards in which the medals are ready to be handed out (disclaimer: including one for me). Could an uninvolved coordinator please do the honours? (and as a gentle reminder, these nominations only need three coordinators to verify that they're good to go, so if you're the fourth coordinator to come along, it's better to award the medal than to post your support for it! ;) ) Nick-D ( talk) 23:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Since we're now tracking A-Class lists through a separate AL-Class assessment category, would anyone object if we split the A-Class showcase into separate A and AL listings, similar to how we split the FA and FL showcases? Kirill [talk] 19:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
If some kind person could verify my entries in the May contest log here, I'll update the scoreboard and put the results into the next issue of The Bugle. I may also need help handing out the awards if I've pipped Rupert for second place... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 17:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
For reasons that escape me Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Becoming an Administrator was not actually deleted back when it was judged to be off topic for the academy. In a review of deleted material I've been involved in it the incorrectly created academy page popped up which lead me to the aforementioned admin course page. I reviewed what I had written in the admin course with fresh eyes and determined that even if the page in its entirety is unneeded parts of it could theoretically be spun out as stand alone academy article(s). I've taken an initial stab at spinning off material from the admin article to create an academy page for page protection, and wanted to know if this material could be considered useful at the academy. If so, then I may try spinning off other sections and seeing if the content can not be added to other pages we have in the academy or used to start new academy page. TomStar81 ( Talk) 09:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to add something short to the academy on this; any objections? Moore's Law marches on, and grammar checkers, both on the web and on laptops, keep getting better. I'm not ready to suggest any particular piece of software yet ... it's a lot of work to select and learn a package ... but that day is coming soon, so I do think it's time for me to start helping writers of A-class ands featured articles to identify patterns that will let us personalize a grammar checker for your own writing style and for the requirements of reviewers. What I need is a short page at our academy that I can link to from a review page so that I don't have to explain the relevance of grammar checkers every time this comes up. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:13, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Edits and discussion are encouraged. Strongly. - Dank ( push to talk) 23:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Yikes, here's something else coming from outside Milhist that could have a big impact on Milhist. Bing (www.bing.com) is now showing an extra link below Wikipedia entries that says "watch the qwiki" ... you may want to have a look, it's too awful to adequately describe :) The Bing search engine has about half as much traffic as Google, but it powers 3 of the world's top 5 websites. Since the qwiki's are geeky and pseudo-encyclopedic and associated on Bing with Wikipedia, and even contain the word "wiki", readers are likely to assume there's a connection, which of course there isn't. Qwiki has said in the past that they're open to adopting content from anyone who can give them good content; if they're serious about that, perhaps we could get them to replace the crap they're currently hosting with the lead sections of our military history articles. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Just as an FYI, your Bugle newsletter will have an errant section title this week thanks to me. See also User talk:The ed17#Uh oh. Minnow slaps may be acceptable. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Is this page becoming a little too big? Having so many successful ACRs that the archive takes a while to load is a nice problem to have, but perhaps we should think about splitting it up somehow, or perhaps linking (rather than trascluding) reviews? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
So, any other thoughts on what we should do here? Kirill [talk] 22:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Someone with better math skills than I can check the totals, and someone with awarding skills can please distribute the necessary awards. Nikkimaria ( talk) 05:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi all, if someone could just verify my entries for the month, I'll do the scoring, update the Bugle, and hand out the top bauble (guess I'm in the running for the no. 2 spot, so may not be able to hand that one out)... Tks/cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 10:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, can anyone remind me of when/where we held our last discussion that involved establishing, with evidence, exactly which projects officially accept our ACR results for their assessment scale? Ships has always done so and Aviation started doing so a few years ago, I think Biography does and a few of us felt various country projects did, but not sure we found clear evidence of it. Unless we're simply assuming all projects accept our A-Class (whether or not they have their own ACR system or not) I think it'd be worth re-establishing just who does and listing them in ACR closure guidelines, so we're all on (literally) the same page. Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 15:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Please see my proposal in response to a question at FAC. Thoughts? - Dank ( push to talk)
There's a discussion at User talk:Dank#Internship proposal that may be helpful. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)