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.
@
Sturmvogel 66: You've noticed it
here, for example. I'm also seeing it as well such as
here, but it appears the MilHistBot is having some serious hiccups with failing to detect mostly unsourced material. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
19:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
I am also concerned that the amount of human checking is becoming a bit unmanageable, and that a significant proportion of the bot-assessed Bs just shouldn't be being assessed that way. Perhaps Hawkeye could tighten up Milhistbot a bit so we err towards a C rather than a B? If everyone could note what they have assessed the article as when they strike it, that might help to identify weaknesses in the assessing so Hawkeye can tweak the bot appropriately. Thoughts?
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
23:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Will do. Obviously, the bot can't really catch unreliable or dated sources or probably bad grammar, but the uncited paragraphs ought to be catchable. I remember there being a couple last month with no section divisions, which should be catchable as b3=no.
Hog FarmTalk01:49, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Hmmm. I see the problem. I changed the way newlines are handled and it was no longer performing the check for references correctly. This has now been fixed. But the fix won't affect this month's list.
Hawkeye7(discuss)03:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Looks like some A-Class articles probably need reassessed
So looking through the recently-delisted FAs, we'll have to be keeping an eye out for
WP:URFA/2020-delisted MILHIST ones that need an A-Class re-review. From a quick look,
Structural history of the Roman military, is a old ACR-passed one that just got delisted, and there may be other. Peacemaker was on top of this earlier, but they're busy and not as active. Is anyone else familiar with A-class reassessment processes?
WP:MILHIST/ACR just sends you to the coords. I'm not super familiar with the topic for the structural history of the Roman military one, but if someone who is familiar with that thinks it needs A-Class reassessment, like with the FAR, then maybe one should be opened.
Hog FarmTalk01:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
G'day, the process is that you have to move the most recent ACR for the article to an archive, then start the ACR process again as normal. For an example, see the move that took place
here and then the reappraisal review that took place
here, which was set up with these edits on the talk page:
[1]. The review page is listed at WP:MHACR as per a normal first time ACR. Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
09:24, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
my compliments to the commanding general,
WP:MILHIST! this is the coordinator for
WP:HIST. allow me to express my admiration for the vast and highly impressive functionings of your wikiproject. my own wikiproject is relatively less-active in comparison to yours. based on that, I wanted to suggest one or two possible actions.
would some of you be willing to serve as part-time liaison or coordinators at
WP:HIST? we could only benefit from any input that you might care to provide.
If any of you wish to join any existing task forces at
WP:HIST. relating to any eras or topics that you currently are working on, or else to set up any new task forces, you are entirely welcome to do so.
the sheer range and scope of military history makes it an almost exact parallel for the general field of history itself, since it encompasses every society and every historical period that ever existed. based upon that, any action, input or items that you might care to offer at
WP:HIST would be most welcome.
I hope that sounds good to you. please feel free to reply, with any thoughts that you may have. thanks! --
Sm8900 (
talk)
20:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
March contest
Can someone please verify my entries for the March article writing contest so it can finalised. I have updated the tables and done a blurb for the Bugle on a provisional basis. Cheers,
Zawed (
talk)
09:20, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I finished checking the last entries, and have award
Zawed the second-place bling. I got first, so somebody else will have to handle the other barnstar.
Hog FarmTalk01:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Experienced editor recommended me to contact editors from this project regarding article Battle of Vukovar. For several months now there's ongoing discussion about
inclusion of battle of Vukovar on this list. Editors reached dead end until user started RfC
[2]. I thought this would solve things but RfC expired
[3] because no one answered. I asked for help before but no one replied
[4]. I fear that if no one comments or resolves the issue the entire discussion on talk page of article in question will be archived and removed while the controversial addition to the list will remain. Any advice or help editors from this project offer would be greatly appreciated.
Istinar (
talk)
10:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Dear coordinators, I would like to draw your attention to
this diff, by
BlueD954 which appears to be attempting to "out" another editor from their pseudonym edit handle. I have had a number of acrimonious exchanges with BlueD954, so I would much appreciate any guidance you elders might have in this regard, to avoid any further risk of 'outing' or bitter discussion.
I will state for the record that the quoting of
WP:BURDEN which appears to have drawn this ire was not directed at any particular user. Kind regards
Buckshot06(talk)07:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@
Indy beetle and
Buckshot06: - I have applied revision deletion. Was gonna do this quite awhile ago, but evidently got distracted by something else. Should likely be oversighted as well, which I cannot do. I believe
Mz7 and
HJ Mitchell are oversighters, and I think there's a form that can be filled out, as well.
Hog FarmTalk06:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I've closed the April contest and awarded the first place bling. I finished second, so I could not hand out the second place personally. Also did do the writeup, as the next issue of the Bugle has not been started. Once it opens up, ping me and I can do the writeup if needed.
Hog FarmTalk03:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
There seem to be quite a few entries which have been assessed as B class but were never on either the AutoCheck report nor the MilHist Assess page. Eg all bar five of Darwin Naz's. Some entrants have added a category of "Articles manually assessed against B class criteria". I assume that these score no points and so don't need checking?
Gog the Mild (
talk)
17:10, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I am a uni student editing the 'Pitched Battle' article for a project. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to link the article to the Military history project? Any help or guidance in this regard would be great. Cheers.
AutoCheck report for May
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
Lichtenberg Siege Start-class. Bad translation from Viet wikipedia, contains grammatical errors, internal inconsistencies, lead issues, partially incomprehensible refs, and cites Karl Marx for a military history subject.
Hog FarmTalk04:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Hey, I just looked at
HSL-class fleet support ship, and as far as I understand things, we don't generally create articles on ships before steel has been cut (or at least that's the precedent I've always seen enforced at
WP:SHIPS). In a nutshell, it's a
WP:CRYSTAL issue, since these kinds of projects get cut all the time and they aren't all independently notable (in the way that, say, the
Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche is). Anyone have any opinions on AFDing this one?
Parsecboy (
talk)
11:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Hi
Hawkeye7, I am clearly doing something to upset the bot. The list credits me with 4 FA reviews, but a quick skim gives eight FACs which I both reviewed and were promoted within the quarter. Plus some archived. I seem to have been careful to include "recusal" for at least one edit summary for each of them. Any idea what I am doing wrong? Thanks. (I suspect that the bot has only picked up the four I reviewed in Oct-Dec and were promoted the following quarter and not counted any from Jan-Mar, but that is just a guess.)
Gog the Mild (
talk)
10:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes: "recusal" wasn't a keyword the Bot recognised; it expected "recuse", "recused" or "recusing". As it happened I noticed you do this a week ago, and have already told the Bot to accept "recusal" as well. This was after the March reviews were processed, but it will take effect next time.
Hawkeye7(discuss)10:55, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
I added that Seabee Lt. Painter (CEC) was given the job of salvaging the
USS California and
USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor.
This was deleted: "Undid revision 1035004230 by Mcb133aco (talk) rmv non-notable personnel per wp:shipsnotcrews" I reposted the original material adding that for his leadership Lt. Painter was awarded the first of the 5
Legion of Merit awards. I added a ref for the 120 men from the 16th CB posted to the West Virginia salvage. All of it was deleted, now stating that I was "edit warring" and I had a "COI" because my knowledge base is Seabee history. The information cited was stated without embellishment and footnoted. The edit note also said my editing was poor while what they reposted was verbose. A NPOV would be great Thank You.
Mcb133aco (
talk) 18:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)mcb133aco
Mcb133aco (
talk)
18:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Your user page indicates in bold text that you’re a public affairs officer for a naval construction unit. That’s why I said you have a COI issue when trying to insert material related to Seabees.
in any event, the material you posted was poorly formatted, with numerous extraneous spaces, refs that don’t match the existing citation style, lack of italics for ship names, etc. Moreover, trivial details about the non-notable lieutenant in charge of salvage operations or the specific time of an accidental explosion aren’t encyclopedic.
Parsecboy (
talk)
19:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
MY USER PAGE STATES in bold print A REQUEST from the PAO officer of NMCB 11 to ME. Is English a second language for you? I also believe your POV is not neutral as the Navy thought Lt. Painter was notable enough to be awarded 5 Legion of Merits. The "time" you cite as trivial has been posted to that article long before I did anyathing The information you deleted from the
USS Gansevoort came straight from the
USS California and you cited the same "Undid revision 1035004230 by Mcb133aco (talk) rmv non-notable personnel per wp:shipsnotcrews". My opinion of that delete is it was pure vandalism. I also think your response here is inappropriate as I specifically requested an editor with a NPOV and yours clearly is not.
Mcb133aco (
talk) 20:24, 23 July 2021 (UTC)mcb133aco
Mcb133aco (
talk)
20:24, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Good question. Parts of it are entirely reliable as they're transcriptions of Admiralty documents like the official ship's logs from WWI. But I've encountered too many errors in Mason's ship movement histories for WWII to regard it as accurate and will replace it with other sources in every article I work on. I hesitate though to call those non-RS for B-class articles and below as it's about 85% accurate by my reckoning.--
Sturmvogel 66 (
talk)
11:29, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
If I see a ship article that overwhelmingly relies on naval-history.net, uboat.net, or anything of the sort, I automatically fail B1. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships or Jane's Fighting Ships almost always has material for warships that could be used instead, and there's usually some of the much preferable deadtree about many vessels that is out there but may be harder to access or read. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
17:52, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
AutoCheck report for August
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
Thanks
Vami IV, once these checks have been completed, anyone can manually archive the thread to the most recent archive page (currently
58, see the navbox just below the Discussion heading). The July checks also need to be archived in the same way. If you wouldn't mind doing the honours that would be appreciated! Cheers,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
04:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
2021 Coordinator Election
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
September historically marks our coordinator election cycle. With that in mind, the following need to be settled on:
How many spots do we want to open, and should that number include or exclude the lead coordinator?
When do we want to start and end the election?
What format do we want to use?
I think last year we had a the 14 day nom/14 day election format with 12 spots, starting I think on September 3. If we are ok keeping that format then we're good, otherwise a little discussion on the matter would be good.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
11:23, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Last time we went for 10 coordinators, including the lead. The same as in 2019 and 2018. I think that we should keep it at that. I have a mild preference for reducing the nomination and voting periods (especially the nomination period), perhaps to 10 and 10 days? Starting on 3 September sounds good.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
11:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
I would prefer we just left the numbers/timings per last year and used the same system, but it is a good point Tom, we need to get organised. I'm familiar with the process, and am happy to do it if no-one else wants to volunteer. Any other views on the numbers/timings/format?
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
11:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Agree, that keeping the numbers/timings same as last year is probably the best route. Not familiar with the set-up process, but I guess we should all be figuring out if we're going to stand for reelection.
Hog FarmTalk17:55, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
In case I'm not around (which lately seems more likely than not) it goes without saying that I will not be seeking reelection. A new job in October last year has meant that my time for Wikipedia has plummeted to practically zero. My sincerest apologies for my absence during this year's cycle.
Harrias(he/him) •talk21:03, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Like Gog, I have a mild preference for the 10 day nom/10 day election, but I'm cool with whatever works. If there are no further discussion within the next week or so I'd say go ahead and establish the pages.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
05:15, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
I could get behind 10 at least for the nom period - it looks like the last nomination was on day 11 last year, and maybe the nomination would have come in quicker with a sooner deadline. The last couple days of the nomination period aren't likely to be overly busy.
Hog FarmTalk05:28, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Hog Farm: "Not familiar with the set-up process, but I guess we should all be figuring out if we're going to stand for reelection." We actually have an academy course specifically for establishing the election pages, its at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Establishing coordinator election pages, so in theory anyone should be able to set them up. As for whose standing, four of us - including myself - hold emeritus status and are therefore not technically up for reelection, so in our case its less standing for reelection and more waiting to welcome back whoever arrives next tranche and congratulate the new comers, whoever they may be :)
TomStar81 (
Talk)
10:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
I looked at status pages for the past year's election and tried tinkering with the code, I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe it will only work during the month of September? -
Indy beetle (
talk)
02:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Upon further research I think that might the the problem. CURRENTDAY returns a value representative only of the day of the month (the month and year are not accounted for in that equation).
This shows what the value is at any given time. Since were are in late August (the election being less than a month away) the day value is so high that the election template reads it as past the voting period. Hopefully this will all be fixed when the new month begins. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
02:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks HF and Indybeetle, I've fixed the wikicode, but used the same dates as last year. If you feel these is a consensus for different dates/periods, I'm happy with that, just change them in the code.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
02:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I've added everyone to the table of current coordinators (so I guess now we indicate if re-running or not there). Also, what are the exact dates for the new tranche, so that (ADD THE DATE OF THE INCOMING TRANCHE HERE USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) to (ADD THE ENDING DATE OF THE UPCOMING COORDINATOR TRANCHE HERE, USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) on the main election page can be filled with actual meaningful content?
Hog FarmTalk15:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
It's 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022. That gives the current coord team one day after the election ends at 23:59 on the 29th to promulgate the results of the election, hand out the coord stars, and make all the changes to templates etc before the new team takes over the following day. Make sense? Cheers,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I guess we need to make a final decision on how long we want nom/voting periods to be. I've provisionally used the 14 day/14 day nomination/voting schedule from last year so that we at least have something that's not a placeholder, but there's some discussion above about possibly going 10 days at least for the nomination period. Personally, I'm indifferent on the 10/14 for nomination period, but would like to keep the voting at 14. What are all y'all's thought?
Hog FarmTalk22:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Like you, I prefer at least 14 days for voting. On the nomination side, 10 days or 14 days to me is neither here nor there.
Zawed (
talk)
23:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
G'day
Hog Farm, do you want to send out a mass message to the project members about nominations for the election? The "how to" is
here. If you're not comfortable with it, let me know, I'm happy to do it.
Here is what I sent last year. Regards,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- should we consider sending a second announcement about the elections? We're at about 2/3s of the way through the nomination period with only 5 candidates (all returning coords) and three coords not returning. Also, what happens if we have fewer candidates than slots?
Hog FarmTalk18:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I've closed the September 2021 coordinator election, as it is past the end of the voting period. The new tranche begins on September 30, so there will be some further housekeeping in about 23-ish hours. Many thanks to the outgoing coordinators for their work during the past year, congratulations for the newcomers, and a bit of both for the returners!
Hog FarmTalk01:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for wrangling this, HF. It’s been nice to have a break from it, and I’m away from a computer at present and it is no fun doing this stuff on a phone. Cheers, 01:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Addition of friendly fire incident to article USS Guest (DD-472)
I would like to find out the source that IP 134.134.139.72 (registered to Intel Corp. and located in Hillsboro, Oregon) used to add, on January 21, 2009 at 00:57, this sentence in the section 1944:
"In a case of mistaken identity on 17 March motor torpedo boat PT-283 was sunk by friendly fire from destroyer Guest (DD-472), in the Solomons, near Choseul Island."
Is there any way to ask this contributor where he obtained this information?
Senescent2 (
talk)
15:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Senescent2: - probably not. There is an incredibly low chance that that anon user is still on the same IP 12.5 years later, so there's no way of finding out from them. You'll likely have to hunt for a source (posting at
WT:MILHIST might be able to find someone who knows where to look for such info).
Hog FarmTalk15:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Ain't done with June autocheck yet
To maybe help expedite the process, these are the unchecked ones from the June report:
Hopefully a concerted push can get these checked off, as well as the 45-50ish remaining from July, so we can have a cleaner start when the August batch drops on September 1.
Hog FarmTalk14:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
August contest
I have updated the page. Could someone nudge me once The Bugle page is free for the report. I have issued the second place awards, perhaps someone could do the honours with the first place chevrons.
Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
18:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
...@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
we've been mention as a project at
wired.com. Since the article deals with Nazi-era material, it may a good idea to perk up the radar sets on such pages a little for the next few days just to make sure the hardliners don't come in as a result of the publicity.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
13:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
I doubt many Neo-Nazis read Wired. I use to work in a Walmart in a rural Missouri community with a lot of Neo-Nazi and KKK-adjacent community residents and we were always having to get rid of pamphlets they dumped. If the stuff we get is as idiotic of drivel as those "materials" were, it should be fairly easy to detect and remove.
Hog FarmTalk02:35, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
It is old news, frankly. Most of it goes back to before the German War Effort ArbCom case. We should always be on the lookout for Nazi sympathisers inserting nonsense into WWII articles.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Broadly, anyone with an opinion on the matter who feels obliged to contribute it to the site. In practice those tend to be hardliners who have an opinion on the matter, the rest us us read it and then move on.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
13:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
ACR backlog
I don't think that I've seen such a big backlog of ACRs. The oldest nomination (
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Uganda–Tanzania War) has been open since October last year, and doesn't seem to have attracted any supports. Some of the other nominations are quite old and aren't going anywhere. I'd suggest closing those which have been open for a lengthy period and are unlikely to pass, which will help to direct reviewers to the newer nominations.
Nick-D (
talk)
05:49, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I notice the five oldest ACRs each require another support to pass and don't seem to have any opposition, so perhaps a concerted effort would knock them off quickly and positively (no, I'm afraid I probably don't have time to be part of such an effort but still)... Cheers,
Ian Rose (
talk)
09:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I'll try to review a few once I get through a lengthy FAC I've promised to review. Will note that we're also behind on last month's autocheck and handing out the stuff from the April reviewing drive; I'll try to look into those a bit too.
Hog FarmTalk22:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
G'day, sorry I haven't been able to review much of late as I am away for work. I have a couple of days off now, so I will try to take a look at one also before I head off again. Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
12:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't think the ACR queue is unusually long, but the amount of time some articles have been there is excessive. I'm taking a leaf out of DYK's book and listing the oldest here:
In a nutshell: reviews needed for the middle of the pack, closure from reviewers for the ones at the end. The bottom half dozen need some source reviews; the oldest two only need one more support.
Hawkeye7(discuss)00:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Hello my fellow @
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
I have recently drafted a MilHist Academy course on writing about African military history at
User:Indy beetle/sandbox/Writing about Africa. I envision it being one of the "Specialist courses". I offer it here for your suggestions. I am also not sure what level of consensus is required for the MilHist project to adopt a page as an academy course, so on that account I seek your advice and (hopefully) your approval. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
23:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
I've done some tweaks, and I'm thinking of going ahead and publishing it. A 2019 journal article, "Introducing the New Lens of African Military History", I cited in it really encapsulates a lot of what is important and I would definitely recommend reading it. @
Nick-D: Could it be adapted for The Bugle? -
Indy beetle (
talk)
14:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
A lot of the examples for what articles at a certain assessment class are from 2011 or 2012. Should we pick out some more current examples for comparison. For instance, I don't think the 2012 revision of
List of hillforts in England called out as a Blist example would be likely to be assessed as b-list afresh now. Also, the example for A-list is now a featured article, so it wouldn't hurt to pick out an A-list not assessed as FL.
Hog FarmTalk06:00, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I also agree. Would it be possible, though, to cycle through examples of each assessment class? Could we program a bot to, say, change out the Stub, Start, and C-class on display with a new article every couple of days (or every day for the Stub)? –
♠Vami_IV†♠10:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Not sure about this one, mainly because of the extended scope, time-wise. ORBATs usually cover a defined and contiguous period of fighting, this seems to be a conglomeration of a series of fights over this terrain, and I'm not sure we should be highlighting such an approach to lists.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Here's a sample list with some of my thoughts. I'm not as familiar with the lists, so there's less topic variation there, although I've tried to pull examples from a variety of subject matter.
Hog FarmTalk07:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
These are all done, with the exception of A-list, as my A-list example was promoted to FL last week. @
Peacemaker67: - are you still comfortable with the state of
List of Partisan detachments in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
List of British mobile brigades during the Second World War could be another option, as well. (I'd prefer not to use
List of battleships of Greece because we've got a ships list for the FL example). We've apparently only got 35 A-lists, most of which are the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross lists. The KCIC lists seem to rely very heavily on two sources. I'm not familiar with either, although the light use of
Gordon Williamson isn't great. I'd rather not use those as examples until someone familiar with that topic area can confirm they don't fall into the fanboy tier of Nazi study.
Hog FarmTalk06:57, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, the Partisan detachment one is in good nick. I don't know if I'll ever bother nominating it for FLC again, there was basically zero interest. Williamson is no academic, but ok for basic facts – I wouldn't use him for anything that is likely to be challenged.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
07:10, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The June autocheck listing is now completed. We still have a few from July as well as ~20 from the August batch. As the bot will likely resume reassessing stubs with the coming batch, it would be nice to get all the remainders finished off as there will probably be a larger group coming again.
The reason I don't post it is that it is absurdly long. I need to find a way to cut it down to a more reasonable size. A typical article the Bot flags as potentially worthy is
1st Airlanding Light Regiment. I think it could easily qualify as a GA, but I don't know if the project is interested in generating GAs, as out target of 5,000 Good Articles is nearly completed.
Hawkeye7(discuss)00:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
As there's less than 30 total needing the autocheck looked at again, hopefully if we all pitch in this can be done in the week we have left of September.
Hog FarmTalk17:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Now that the election is over, there is a small project I would like to tackle. In Australia there is such a thing as the Chief of Army's Reading List; I believe that other armies also have similar lists. In fact, the Australian one was probably inspired by its American counterpart. Personally, I think it's way too long for most. What I would like to do is construct a WikiProject Military history reading list, with each coordinator contributing two three books. Thoughts?
Hawkeye7(discuss)20:09, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I've started adding my material. I might cheat though and add five rather than three books - three seems a bit too restrictive.
Nick-D (
talk)
22:40, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I had an idea like this a while back, to see if we could gather or generate a list of resources used in the articles to create a kind of on site library for people who may be looking for citations for a given field. This, I think, fits right in with that, so I'm all for it, but most of my library is sitting in boxes at the moment and I'm uncertain as to whether or not I have anything worthy to put in as it were.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
12:37, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
I like that idea of a MilHist library with sections full of sources. The task forces' resources already exist indeed but they're mostly getting old, need updates and they only have a couple of sources per task force sadly. I wouldn't mind trying something new with these ideas. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
21:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
I am blown away by the response. This is great. Perhaps we could publicise it in the next issue of the Bugle? The list is even more eclectic than I thought it would be, and I have only read four of them (apart for my own selection of course). (Have started reading the one on Phocas.) I would like to comment on Peacemaker67's nomination of Germany and the Second World War. This is a magnum opus, it's really big, really expensive, translation could have been better, and they've deliberately allowed some of the authors to contradict one another. (I only have volumes III, IV, VI, VII and VIII.)
Hawkeye7(discuss)06:02, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying about Germany and the Second World War, however, I consider it is very important body of work for Wikipedia purposes for several reasons, which is why I listed it. Firstly, it provides German perspectives on the strategic and operational level of the war at an academic level that are otherwise largely inaccessible in English, and quality coverage of WWII topics from a German perspective is quite lacking on English Wikipedia, generally the average standard of sourcing is at the level of popular history, and also relies a fair bit on personal memoirs, rather self-serving post-war summaries by German generals done for the Allies, and sources that can only be used for basic information because they are close to the edge on the "independent from the subject" criteria. Secondly, the disagreements evident in the series are part of the academic discourse, and the series includes contributions from many notable German historians. Despite what some editors on WP claim, respected German historians are not all on the same page on a number of key aspects of WWII, and I personally think that is a good sign that those disagreements were retained in the series. Sure, Boog (for example) was a bit outspoken about the Luftwaffe, and is in the minority on a number of issues, but his work isn't fringe and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, and should be used to compare and contrast in articles on those subjects. As for it being expensive, that is true, but so are hardcover copies of Bean's The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 (of which I have the full set) and also Australia in the War of 1939–1945. The second volume of Tomasevich costs $150 if you can find a copy, but it is indispensable for articles on WWII in Yugoslavia. —
User:Peacemaker67 (Attribution added by Iazyges)
You may already be past this point, but if not, keep a close eye out for Leo the Grammarian's description of him versus Kedrenos'; it is quite funny. It is also somewhat remarkable that the propaganda was allowed to stand for so long. Although many sources since have adjusted to Olster's understanding, there were only a few sources before him who questioned the depth of the propaganda, and of them, almost all make a comment along the lines of "this doesn't really look right", before moving on. It is possible that he has excluded some earlier voices, but I have been unable to find them, and I would assume their Ph.D. advisor would catch this, although I have been unable to find out who it was, which is strange as the University of Chicago is usually very good about that.
IazygesConsermonorOpus meum14:46, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Correct, the
incubator page is a place where new task forces can get launched. It's possible some people are also interested in this topic and will join the task force. Until (as the page itself says) "a reasonable number of interested editors and demonstrated a consistent level of activity" the project can graduate as an incubator. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
21:02, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
AutoCheck report for September
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
@
Hawkeye7: - This assessment seems to be a bug - it's had a big orange tag for more references since 2010, has no sections, and has uncited spots that the bot would usually catch.
Hog FarmTalk19:13, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
As
Hog Farm has pointed out the bot also cannot reconise the issue tags that Wikipedians have dropped on the articles. I found the same issue in J. Scott Burhoe. I am also in favour with PM's suggestion. As MOS points us that we need a lead in our structure so some of these articles should've been a start rather a B. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
14:45, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
This strikes me as a textbook
WP:SPS. The webmaster's bibliograpghy additionally reads The information included in this database has been complied using several thousand sources: articles, books, websites and e-mails from numerous people providing information. so clearly there are better sources for the information he provides. Seems fine enough for its intended purpose, though. Just not for mainspace. –
♠Vami_IV†♠17:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
generals.dk is not reliable and is an SPS. I only use it for clues on who might have been the commander of this or that division, so that I can search for that name and get info from a reliable source. It shouldn't be used to cite anything.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
01:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- We've got about 75 (if I counted right) articles left on the listing, and we're nearing the next month's listing drop. Let's try and get all of these checked before month-end if possible.
Hog FarmTalk18:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I've moved the remaining handful down here to make it easier to find them. Let's see if we can get these knocked out today or tomorrow.
Parsecboy (
talk)
11:09, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I have pinged AustralianRupert on this one, as his review seems complete but he has yet to support. His comms aren't good at the moment, but hopefully he'll be back in range soonish.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
03:41, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
I have just completed a thorough run through this one. The grammar, prose and MoS compliance are' IMO, much improved - to the extent that I have supported promotion. Editors who have skimmed this and thought "Quick fail" may wish to re-examine it.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
17:58, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The community
Wikipedia Discord server has
been previously discussed here at MILHIST and probably doesn't need to be discussed again, but I feel we as Coordinators should all be aware of it and prepared for whatever originates from it. I want to stress here now, though, as an active member of the server myself that I don't want it integrated into the WikiProject, and its moderator staff will not - and have refused without our direction - to with a dedicated MILHIST channel. I am on record there and now here opposing the creation of a MILHIST channel in the server. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
General information: logs are public, and searchable, but sharing them on-wiki was forbidden by this village pump discussion; this effectively turns the server into IRC, which does not archive things, validating the biggest concern in the previous conversation about the server: that is not public and that is not on-wiki; that discussion is in a way obfuscated. MILHIST articles have been worked on collaboratively by Discord members, including by yours truly, and the faster pace of instant/near-instant communication has gotten results. I have not found at this time that this has deprived other editors of context pertaining to how and article being worked on by a team on Discord became the way it is, but nonetheless Discord is still social media. Editors would not associate good things with a group of users working on an article in a Facebook messaging group. No officialization of the Discord server should be considered by this WikiProject, but we should not feel that we're not responsible for it. Coordinators should thus be aware of it, as a productive and perverse thing. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
My experience is that the server serves to collectively heighten the perception and abilities of its editors and form bonds between them; that is to say, to brigade them. With two exceptions,
every accepted nomination for the Editor of the Week award as I write this is a member of the Discord server (one of those exceptions is Diannaa, patron saint of CCI). That said, it is also my experience that it is not an echo chamber; in fact what inspired this post was my rebuffing a request for a MILHIST channel in the server. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
It's one file for each day in SVG. This is a
draft of Day-1 so you can see how extensive the maps are.
When requested it was intended for this article here
Nikopol–Krivoi_Rog_offensive.
I would really like to complete it as there is a lot of time and effort invested in it both from the requester and me.
So I'm asking if there is anyone here that has the knowledge and possibility to work with me and help completing and finish those maps. It would really mean a lot for me and hopefully also for that article or elsewhere it might be used. --always ping me--
Goran tek-en (
talk)
13:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
Military historian of the year/newcomer of the year
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- It looks like we've started these awards off in late November/early December in recent years. Since that time of year is rolling around soon, it'd be best to go ahead and get thinking about setting this up soon (I don't know how).
Hog FarmTalk05:01, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
I've prepped notices in my sandbox, will post late on 1 December, noms open 00:01 (GMT) on 2 December and last until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December, voting starts then and runs to 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
08:55, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
I have brought the competition page up to date, barring the award of the first place chevrons for September. Perhaps someone could do the honours?
Gog the Mild (
talk) 14:01, 28 November 2021 (UTC) Could someone also award the November second place barnstar? It's a
BOGOF.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
19:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
First, we just cleared 5,000 GAs. That 100% of our stated goal, so we need a goal post. Anyone have any thoughts on what that number should be?
Second, would it be possible to tweak MilHistBot to add a category to or generate a list of articles at or above GA-class that were promoted about 2-3 years back? If we can break up which articles need help into smaller bites I think the community would have an easier time digesting them as it were, and that could go a long way to stopping article rot in quality content.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
17:25, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
I've just added a short para on this to The Bugle. Does anyone know which article was the one that achieved the 5000 target?
Nick-D (
talk)
06:12, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
@
Vami IV: Why should an article only having a single non-lead prose section automatically mean B3 = no? From the criteria: "B3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content." Emphasis added.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
15:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough, I seem to be in error. I've just been noticing that these Italian general bios all have a "Biography" section that could be easily be three or four sections. –
♠Vami_IV†♠16:29, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
All of those Italian general bios are fairly low-quality, IMO. Mainly seem to be translations from it.wiki, I've been marking the ones with a one-sentence lead as b3=no. They also frequently contain unreliable sources are the page creator has been sock-blocked.
Hog FarmTalk17:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Rhodesian mission in Lisbon was just delisted from Featured status (
FAR). It passed A-class back in 2012 (
A-class review). Since the FAR brought up some significant issues with sourcing and comprehensiveness, it probably needs to be sent through A-class review again and, I would presume, delisted. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
18:58, 26 December 2021 (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.
@
Sturmvogel 66: You've noticed it
here, for example. I'm also seeing it as well such as
here, but it appears the MilHistBot is having some serious hiccups with failing to detect mostly unsourced material. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
19:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
I am also concerned that the amount of human checking is becoming a bit unmanageable, and that a significant proportion of the bot-assessed Bs just shouldn't be being assessed that way. Perhaps Hawkeye could tighten up Milhistbot a bit so we err towards a C rather than a B? If everyone could note what they have assessed the article as when they strike it, that might help to identify weaknesses in the assessing so Hawkeye can tweak the bot appropriately. Thoughts?
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
23:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Will do. Obviously, the bot can't really catch unreliable or dated sources or probably bad grammar, but the uncited paragraphs ought to be catchable. I remember there being a couple last month with no section divisions, which should be catchable as b3=no.
Hog FarmTalk01:49, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Hmmm. I see the problem. I changed the way newlines are handled and it was no longer performing the check for references correctly. This has now been fixed. But the fix won't affect this month's list.
Hawkeye7(discuss)03:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Looks like some A-Class articles probably need reassessed
So looking through the recently-delisted FAs, we'll have to be keeping an eye out for
WP:URFA/2020-delisted MILHIST ones that need an A-Class re-review. From a quick look,
Structural history of the Roman military, is a old ACR-passed one that just got delisted, and there may be other. Peacemaker was on top of this earlier, but they're busy and not as active. Is anyone else familiar with A-class reassessment processes?
WP:MILHIST/ACR just sends you to the coords. I'm not super familiar with the topic for the structural history of the Roman military one, but if someone who is familiar with that thinks it needs A-Class reassessment, like with the FAR, then maybe one should be opened.
Hog FarmTalk01:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
G'day, the process is that you have to move the most recent ACR for the article to an archive, then start the ACR process again as normal. For an example, see the move that took place
here and then the reappraisal review that took place
here, which was set up with these edits on the talk page:
[1]. The review page is listed at WP:MHACR as per a normal first time ACR. Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
09:24, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
my compliments to the commanding general,
WP:MILHIST! this is the coordinator for
WP:HIST. allow me to express my admiration for the vast and highly impressive functionings of your wikiproject. my own wikiproject is relatively less-active in comparison to yours. based on that, I wanted to suggest one or two possible actions.
would some of you be willing to serve as part-time liaison or coordinators at
WP:HIST? we could only benefit from any input that you might care to provide.
If any of you wish to join any existing task forces at
WP:HIST. relating to any eras or topics that you currently are working on, or else to set up any new task forces, you are entirely welcome to do so.
the sheer range and scope of military history makes it an almost exact parallel for the general field of history itself, since it encompasses every society and every historical period that ever existed. based upon that, any action, input or items that you might care to offer at
WP:HIST would be most welcome.
I hope that sounds good to you. please feel free to reply, with any thoughts that you may have. thanks! --
Sm8900 (
talk)
20:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
March contest
Can someone please verify my entries for the March article writing contest so it can finalised. I have updated the tables and done a blurb for the Bugle on a provisional basis. Cheers,
Zawed (
talk)
09:20, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I finished checking the last entries, and have award
Zawed the second-place bling. I got first, so somebody else will have to handle the other barnstar.
Hog FarmTalk01:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Experienced editor recommended me to contact editors from this project regarding article Battle of Vukovar. For several months now there's ongoing discussion about
inclusion of battle of Vukovar on this list. Editors reached dead end until user started RfC
[2]. I thought this would solve things but RfC expired
[3] because no one answered. I asked for help before but no one replied
[4]. I fear that if no one comments or resolves the issue the entire discussion on talk page of article in question will be archived and removed while the controversial addition to the list will remain. Any advice or help editors from this project offer would be greatly appreciated.
Istinar (
talk)
10:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Dear coordinators, I would like to draw your attention to
this diff, by
BlueD954 which appears to be attempting to "out" another editor from their pseudonym edit handle. I have had a number of acrimonious exchanges with BlueD954, so I would much appreciate any guidance you elders might have in this regard, to avoid any further risk of 'outing' or bitter discussion.
I will state for the record that the quoting of
WP:BURDEN which appears to have drawn this ire was not directed at any particular user. Kind regards
Buckshot06(talk)07:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@
Indy beetle and
Buckshot06: - I have applied revision deletion. Was gonna do this quite awhile ago, but evidently got distracted by something else. Should likely be oversighted as well, which I cannot do. I believe
Mz7 and
HJ Mitchell are oversighters, and I think there's a form that can be filled out, as well.
Hog FarmTalk06:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I've closed the April contest and awarded the first place bling. I finished second, so I could not hand out the second place personally. Also did do the writeup, as the next issue of the Bugle has not been started. Once it opens up, ping me and I can do the writeup if needed.
Hog FarmTalk03:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
There seem to be quite a few entries which have been assessed as B class but were never on either the AutoCheck report nor the MilHist Assess page. Eg all bar five of Darwin Naz's. Some entrants have added a category of "Articles manually assessed against B class criteria". I assume that these score no points and so don't need checking?
Gog the Mild (
talk)
17:10, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I am a uni student editing the 'Pitched Battle' article for a project. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to link the article to the Military history project? Any help or guidance in this regard would be great. Cheers.
AutoCheck report for May
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
Lichtenberg Siege Start-class. Bad translation from Viet wikipedia, contains grammatical errors, internal inconsistencies, lead issues, partially incomprehensible refs, and cites Karl Marx for a military history subject.
Hog FarmTalk04:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Hey, I just looked at
HSL-class fleet support ship, and as far as I understand things, we don't generally create articles on ships before steel has been cut (or at least that's the precedent I've always seen enforced at
WP:SHIPS). In a nutshell, it's a
WP:CRYSTAL issue, since these kinds of projects get cut all the time and they aren't all independently notable (in the way that, say, the
Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche is). Anyone have any opinions on AFDing this one?
Parsecboy (
talk)
11:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Hi
Hawkeye7, I am clearly doing something to upset the bot. The list credits me with 4 FA reviews, but a quick skim gives eight FACs which I both reviewed and were promoted within the quarter. Plus some archived. I seem to have been careful to include "recusal" for at least one edit summary for each of them. Any idea what I am doing wrong? Thanks. (I suspect that the bot has only picked up the four I reviewed in Oct-Dec and were promoted the following quarter and not counted any from Jan-Mar, but that is just a guess.)
Gog the Mild (
talk)
10:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes: "recusal" wasn't a keyword the Bot recognised; it expected "recuse", "recused" or "recusing". As it happened I noticed you do this a week ago, and have already told the Bot to accept "recusal" as well. This was after the March reviews were processed, but it will take effect next time.
Hawkeye7(discuss)10:55, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
I added that Seabee Lt. Painter (CEC) was given the job of salvaging the
USS California and
USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor.
This was deleted: "Undid revision 1035004230 by Mcb133aco (talk) rmv non-notable personnel per wp:shipsnotcrews" I reposted the original material adding that for his leadership Lt. Painter was awarded the first of the 5
Legion of Merit awards. I added a ref for the 120 men from the 16th CB posted to the West Virginia salvage. All of it was deleted, now stating that I was "edit warring" and I had a "COI" because my knowledge base is Seabee history. The information cited was stated without embellishment and footnoted. The edit note also said my editing was poor while what they reposted was verbose. A NPOV would be great Thank You.
Mcb133aco (
talk) 18:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)mcb133aco
Mcb133aco (
talk)
18:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Your user page indicates in bold text that you’re a public affairs officer for a naval construction unit. That’s why I said you have a COI issue when trying to insert material related to Seabees.
in any event, the material you posted was poorly formatted, with numerous extraneous spaces, refs that don’t match the existing citation style, lack of italics for ship names, etc. Moreover, trivial details about the non-notable lieutenant in charge of salvage operations or the specific time of an accidental explosion aren’t encyclopedic.
Parsecboy (
talk)
19:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
MY USER PAGE STATES in bold print A REQUEST from the PAO officer of NMCB 11 to ME. Is English a second language for you? I also believe your POV is not neutral as the Navy thought Lt. Painter was notable enough to be awarded 5 Legion of Merits. The "time" you cite as trivial has been posted to that article long before I did anyathing The information you deleted from the
USS Gansevoort came straight from the
USS California and you cited the same "Undid revision 1035004230 by Mcb133aco (talk) rmv non-notable personnel per wp:shipsnotcrews". My opinion of that delete is it was pure vandalism. I also think your response here is inappropriate as I specifically requested an editor with a NPOV and yours clearly is not.
Mcb133aco (
talk) 20:24, 23 July 2021 (UTC)mcb133aco
Mcb133aco (
talk)
20:24, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Good question. Parts of it are entirely reliable as they're transcriptions of Admiralty documents like the official ship's logs from WWI. But I've encountered too many errors in Mason's ship movement histories for WWII to regard it as accurate and will replace it with other sources in every article I work on. I hesitate though to call those non-RS for B-class articles and below as it's about 85% accurate by my reckoning.--
Sturmvogel 66 (
talk)
11:29, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
If I see a ship article that overwhelmingly relies on naval-history.net, uboat.net, or anything of the sort, I automatically fail B1. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships or Jane's Fighting Ships almost always has material for warships that could be used instead, and there's usually some of the much preferable deadtree about many vessels that is out there but may be harder to access or read. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
17:52, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
AutoCheck report for August
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
Thanks
Vami IV, once these checks have been completed, anyone can manually archive the thread to the most recent archive page (currently
58, see the navbox just below the Discussion heading). The July checks also need to be archived in the same way. If you wouldn't mind doing the honours that would be appreciated! Cheers,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
04:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
2021 Coordinator Election
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
September historically marks our coordinator election cycle. With that in mind, the following need to be settled on:
How many spots do we want to open, and should that number include or exclude the lead coordinator?
When do we want to start and end the election?
What format do we want to use?
I think last year we had a the 14 day nom/14 day election format with 12 spots, starting I think on September 3. If we are ok keeping that format then we're good, otherwise a little discussion on the matter would be good.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
11:23, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Last time we went for 10 coordinators, including the lead. The same as in 2019 and 2018. I think that we should keep it at that. I have a mild preference for reducing the nomination and voting periods (especially the nomination period), perhaps to 10 and 10 days? Starting on 3 September sounds good.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
11:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
I would prefer we just left the numbers/timings per last year and used the same system, but it is a good point Tom, we need to get organised. I'm familiar with the process, and am happy to do it if no-one else wants to volunteer. Any other views on the numbers/timings/format?
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
11:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Agree, that keeping the numbers/timings same as last year is probably the best route. Not familiar with the set-up process, but I guess we should all be figuring out if we're going to stand for reelection.
Hog FarmTalk17:55, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
In case I'm not around (which lately seems more likely than not) it goes without saying that I will not be seeking reelection. A new job in October last year has meant that my time for Wikipedia has plummeted to practically zero. My sincerest apologies for my absence during this year's cycle.
Harrias(he/him) •talk21:03, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Like Gog, I have a mild preference for the 10 day nom/10 day election, but I'm cool with whatever works. If there are no further discussion within the next week or so I'd say go ahead and establish the pages.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
05:15, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
I could get behind 10 at least for the nom period - it looks like the last nomination was on day 11 last year, and maybe the nomination would have come in quicker with a sooner deadline. The last couple days of the nomination period aren't likely to be overly busy.
Hog FarmTalk05:28, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Hog Farm: "Not familiar with the set-up process, but I guess we should all be figuring out if we're going to stand for reelection." We actually have an academy course specifically for establishing the election pages, its at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Establishing coordinator election pages, so in theory anyone should be able to set them up. As for whose standing, four of us - including myself - hold emeritus status and are therefore not technically up for reelection, so in our case its less standing for reelection and more waiting to welcome back whoever arrives next tranche and congratulate the new comers, whoever they may be :)
TomStar81 (
Talk)
10:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
I looked at status pages for the past year's election and tried tinkering with the code, I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe it will only work during the month of September? -
Indy beetle (
talk)
02:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Upon further research I think that might the the problem. CURRENTDAY returns a value representative only of the day of the month (the month and year are not accounted for in that equation).
This shows what the value is at any given time. Since were are in late August (the election being less than a month away) the day value is so high that the election template reads it as past the voting period. Hopefully this will all be fixed when the new month begins. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
02:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks HF and Indybeetle, I've fixed the wikicode, but used the same dates as last year. If you feel these is a consensus for different dates/periods, I'm happy with that, just change them in the code.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
02:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I've added everyone to the table of current coordinators (so I guess now we indicate if re-running or not there). Also, what are the exact dates for the new tranche, so that (ADD THE DATE OF THE INCOMING TRANCHE HERE USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) to (ADD THE ENDING DATE OF THE UPCOMING COORDINATOR TRANCHE HERE, USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) on the main election page can be filled with actual meaningful content?
Hog FarmTalk15:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
It's 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022. That gives the current coord team one day after the election ends at 23:59 on the 29th to promulgate the results of the election, hand out the coord stars, and make all the changes to templates etc before the new team takes over the following day. Make sense? Cheers,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I guess we need to make a final decision on how long we want nom/voting periods to be. I've provisionally used the 14 day/14 day nomination/voting schedule from last year so that we at least have something that's not a placeholder, but there's some discussion above about possibly going 10 days at least for the nomination period. Personally, I'm indifferent on the 10/14 for nomination period, but would like to keep the voting at 14. What are all y'all's thought?
Hog FarmTalk22:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Like you, I prefer at least 14 days for voting. On the nomination side, 10 days or 14 days to me is neither here nor there.
Zawed (
talk)
23:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
G'day
Hog Farm, do you want to send out a mass message to the project members about nominations for the election? The "how to" is
here. If you're not comfortable with it, let me know, I'm happy to do it.
Here is what I sent last year. Regards,
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- should we consider sending a second announcement about the elections? We're at about 2/3s of the way through the nomination period with only 5 candidates (all returning coords) and three coords not returning. Also, what happens if we have fewer candidates than slots?
Hog FarmTalk18:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- I've closed the September 2021 coordinator election, as it is past the end of the voting period. The new tranche begins on September 30, so there will be some further housekeeping in about 23-ish hours. Many thanks to the outgoing coordinators for their work during the past year, congratulations for the newcomers, and a bit of both for the returners!
Hog FarmTalk01:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for wrangling this, HF. It’s been nice to have a break from it, and I’m away from a computer at present and it is no fun doing this stuff on a phone. Cheers, 01:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Addition of friendly fire incident to article USS Guest (DD-472)
I would like to find out the source that IP 134.134.139.72 (registered to Intel Corp. and located in Hillsboro, Oregon) used to add, on January 21, 2009 at 00:57, this sentence in the section 1944:
"In a case of mistaken identity on 17 March motor torpedo boat PT-283 was sunk by friendly fire from destroyer Guest (DD-472), in the Solomons, near Choseul Island."
Is there any way to ask this contributor where he obtained this information?
Senescent2 (
talk)
15:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Senescent2: - probably not. There is an incredibly low chance that that anon user is still on the same IP 12.5 years later, so there's no way of finding out from them. You'll likely have to hunt for a source (posting at
WT:MILHIST might be able to find someone who knows where to look for such info).
Hog FarmTalk15:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Ain't done with June autocheck yet
To maybe help expedite the process, these are the unchecked ones from the June report:
Hopefully a concerted push can get these checked off, as well as the 45-50ish remaining from July, so we can have a cleaner start when the August batch drops on September 1.
Hog FarmTalk14:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
August contest
I have updated the page. Could someone nudge me once The Bugle page is free for the report. I have issued the second place awards, perhaps someone could do the honours with the first place chevrons.
Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
18:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
...@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
we've been mention as a project at
wired.com. Since the article deals with Nazi-era material, it may a good idea to perk up the radar sets on such pages a little for the next few days just to make sure the hardliners don't come in as a result of the publicity.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
13:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
I doubt many Neo-Nazis read Wired. I use to work in a Walmart in a rural Missouri community with a lot of Neo-Nazi and KKK-adjacent community residents and we were always having to get rid of pamphlets they dumped. If the stuff we get is as idiotic of drivel as those "materials" were, it should be fairly easy to detect and remove.
Hog FarmTalk02:35, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
It is old news, frankly. Most of it goes back to before the German War Effort ArbCom case. We should always be on the lookout for Nazi sympathisers inserting nonsense into WWII articles.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Broadly, anyone with an opinion on the matter who feels obliged to contribute it to the site. In practice those tend to be hardliners who have an opinion on the matter, the rest us us read it and then move on.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
13:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
ACR backlog
I don't think that I've seen such a big backlog of ACRs. The oldest nomination (
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Uganda–Tanzania War) has been open since October last year, and doesn't seem to have attracted any supports. Some of the other nominations are quite old and aren't going anywhere. I'd suggest closing those which have been open for a lengthy period and are unlikely to pass, which will help to direct reviewers to the newer nominations.
Nick-D (
talk)
05:49, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I notice the five oldest ACRs each require another support to pass and don't seem to have any opposition, so perhaps a concerted effort would knock them off quickly and positively (no, I'm afraid I probably don't have time to be part of such an effort but still)... Cheers,
Ian Rose (
talk)
09:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I'll try to review a few once I get through a lengthy FAC I've promised to review. Will note that we're also behind on last month's autocheck and handing out the stuff from the April reviewing drive; I'll try to look into those a bit too.
Hog FarmTalk22:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
G'day, sorry I haven't been able to review much of late as I am away for work. I have a couple of days off now, so I will try to take a look at one also before I head off again. Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
12:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't think the ACR queue is unusually long, but the amount of time some articles have been there is excessive. I'm taking a leaf out of DYK's book and listing the oldest here:
In a nutshell: reviews needed for the middle of the pack, closure from reviewers for the ones at the end. The bottom half dozen need some source reviews; the oldest two only need one more support.
Hawkeye7(discuss)00:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Hello my fellow @
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
I have recently drafted a MilHist Academy course on writing about African military history at
User:Indy beetle/sandbox/Writing about Africa. I envision it being one of the "Specialist courses". I offer it here for your suggestions. I am also not sure what level of consensus is required for the MilHist project to adopt a page as an academy course, so on that account I seek your advice and (hopefully) your approval. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
23:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
I've done some tweaks, and I'm thinking of going ahead and publishing it. A 2019 journal article, "Introducing the New Lens of African Military History", I cited in it really encapsulates a lot of what is important and I would definitely recommend reading it. @
Nick-D: Could it be adapted for The Bugle? -
Indy beetle (
talk)
14:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
A lot of the examples for what articles at a certain assessment class are from 2011 or 2012. Should we pick out some more current examples for comparison. For instance, I don't think the 2012 revision of
List of hillforts in England called out as a Blist example would be likely to be assessed as b-list afresh now. Also, the example for A-list is now a featured article, so it wouldn't hurt to pick out an A-list not assessed as FL.
Hog FarmTalk06:00, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I also agree. Would it be possible, though, to cycle through examples of each assessment class? Could we program a bot to, say, change out the Stub, Start, and C-class on display with a new article every couple of days (or every day for the Stub)? –
♠Vami_IV†♠10:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Not sure about this one, mainly because of the extended scope, time-wise. ORBATs usually cover a defined and contiguous period of fighting, this seems to be a conglomeration of a series of fights over this terrain, and I'm not sure we should be highlighting such an approach to lists.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
21:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Here's a sample list with some of my thoughts. I'm not as familiar with the lists, so there's less topic variation there, although I've tried to pull examples from a variety of subject matter.
Hog FarmTalk07:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
These are all done, with the exception of A-list, as my A-list example was promoted to FL last week. @
Peacemaker67: - are you still comfortable with the state of
List of Partisan detachments in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
List of British mobile brigades during the Second World War could be another option, as well. (I'd prefer not to use
List of battleships of Greece because we've got a ships list for the FL example). We've apparently only got 35 A-lists, most of which are the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross lists. The KCIC lists seem to rely very heavily on two sources. I'm not familiar with either, although the light use of
Gordon Williamson isn't great. I'd rather not use those as examples until someone familiar with that topic area can confirm they don't fall into the fanboy tier of Nazi study.
Hog FarmTalk06:57, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, the Partisan detachment one is in good nick. I don't know if I'll ever bother nominating it for FLC again, there was basically zero interest. Williamson is no academic, but ok for basic facts – I wouldn't use him for anything that is likely to be challenged.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
07:10, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The June autocheck listing is now completed. We still have a few from July as well as ~20 from the August batch. As the bot will likely resume reassessing stubs with the coming batch, it would be nice to get all the remainders finished off as there will probably be a larger group coming again.
The reason I don't post it is that it is absurdly long. I need to find a way to cut it down to a more reasonable size. A typical article the Bot flags as potentially worthy is
1st Airlanding Light Regiment. I think it could easily qualify as a GA, but I don't know if the project is interested in generating GAs, as out target of 5,000 Good Articles is nearly completed.
Hawkeye7(discuss)00:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
As there's less than 30 total needing the autocheck looked at again, hopefully if we all pitch in this can be done in the week we have left of September.
Hog FarmTalk17:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Now that the election is over, there is a small project I would like to tackle. In Australia there is such a thing as the Chief of Army's Reading List; I believe that other armies also have similar lists. In fact, the Australian one was probably inspired by its American counterpart. Personally, I think it's way too long for most. What I would like to do is construct a WikiProject Military history reading list, with each coordinator contributing two three books. Thoughts?
Hawkeye7(discuss)20:09, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I've started adding my material. I might cheat though and add five rather than three books - three seems a bit too restrictive.
Nick-D (
talk)
22:40, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I had an idea like this a while back, to see if we could gather or generate a list of resources used in the articles to create a kind of on site library for people who may be looking for citations for a given field. This, I think, fits right in with that, so I'm all for it, but most of my library is sitting in boxes at the moment and I'm uncertain as to whether or not I have anything worthy to put in as it were.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
12:37, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
I like that idea of a MilHist library with sections full of sources. The task forces' resources already exist indeed but they're mostly getting old, need updates and they only have a couple of sources per task force sadly. I wouldn't mind trying something new with these ideas. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
21:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
I am blown away by the response. This is great. Perhaps we could publicise it in the next issue of the Bugle? The list is even more eclectic than I thought it would be, and I have only read four of them (apart for my own selection of course). (Have started reading the one on Phocas.) I would like to comment on Peacemaker67's nomination of Germany and the Second World War. This is a magnum opus, it's really big, really expensive, translation could have been better, and they've deliberately allowed some of the authors to contradict one another. (I only have volumes III, IV, VI, VII and VIII.)
Hawkeye7(discuss)06:02, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying about Germany and the Second World War, however, I consider it is very important body of work for Wikipedia purposes for several reasons, which is why I listed it. Firstly, it provides German perspectives on the strategic and operational level of the war at an academic level that are otherwise largely inaccessible in English, and quality coverage of WWII topics from a German perspective is quite lacking on English Wikipedia, generally the average standard of sourcing is at the level of popular history, and also relies a fair bit on personal memoirs, rather self-serving post-war summaries by German generals done for the Allies, and sources that can only be used for basic information because they are close to the edge on the "independent from the subject" criteria. Secondly, the disagreements evident in the series are part of the academic discourse, and the series includes contributions from many notable German historians. Despite what some editors on WP claim, respected German historians are not all on the same page on a number of key aspects of WWII, and I personally think that is a good sign that those disagreements were retained in the series. Sure, Boog (for example) was a bit outspoken about the Luftwaffe, and is in the minority on a number of issues, but his work isn't fringe and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, and should be used to compare and contrast in articles on those subjects. As for it being expensive, that is true, but so are hardcover copies of Bean's The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 (of which I have the full set) and also Australia in the War of 1939–1945. The second volume of Tomasevich costs $150 if you can find a copy, but it is indispensable for articles on WWII in Yugoslavia. —
User:Peacemaker67 (Attribution added by Iazyges)
You may already be past this point, but if not, keep a close eye out for Leo the Grammarian's description of him versus Kedrenos'; it is quite funny. It is also somewhat remarkable that the propaganda was allowed to stand for so long. Although many sources since have adjusted to Olster's understanding, there were only a few sources before him who questioned the depth of the propaganda, and of them, almost all make a comment along the lines of "this doesn't really look right", before moving on. It is possible that he has excluded some earlier voices, but I have been unable to find them, and I would assume their Ph.D. advisor would catch this, although I have been unable to find out who it was, which is strange as the University of Chicago is usually very good about that.
IazygesConsermonorOpus meum14:46, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Correct, the
incubator page is a place where new task forces can get launched. It's possible some people are also interested in this topic and will join the task force. Until (as the page itself says) "a reasonable number of interested editors and demonstrated a consistent level of activity" the project can graduate as an incubator. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
21:02, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
AutoCheck report for September
The following articles were rated as B class by automatic assessment:
@
Hawkeye7: - This assessment seems to be a bug - it's had a big orange tag for more references since 2010, has no sections, and has uncited spots that the bot would usually catch.
Hog FarmTalk19:13, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
As
Hog Farm has pointed out the bot also cannot reconise the issue tags that Wikipedians have dropped on the articles. I found the same issue in J. Scott Burhoe. I am also in favour with PM's suggestion. As MOS points us that we need a lead in our structure so some of these articles should've been a start rather a B. Cheers.
CPA-5 (
talk)
14:45, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
This strikes me as a textbook
WP:SPS. The webmaster's bibliograpghy additionally reads The information included in this database has been complied using several thousand sources: articles, books, websites and e-mails from numerous people providing information. so clearly there are better sources for the information he provides. Seems fine enough for its intended purpose, though. Just not for mainspace. –
♠Vami_IV†♠17:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
generals.dk is not reliable and is an SPS. I only use it for clues on who might have been the commander of this or that division, so that I can search for that name and get info from a reliable source. It shouldn't be used to cite anything.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
01:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- We've got about 75 (if I counted right) articles left on the listing, and we're nearing the next month's listing drop. Let's try and get all of these checked before month-end if possible.
Hog FarmTalk18:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I've moved the remaining handful down here to make it easier to find them. Let's see if we can get these knocked out today or tomorrow.
Parsecboy (
talk)
11:09, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I have pinged AustralianRupert on this one, as his review seems complete but he has yet to support. His comms aren't good at the moment, but hopefully he'll be back in range soonish.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
03:41, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
I have just completed a thorough run through this one. The grammar, prose and MoS compliance are' IMO, much improved - to the extent that I have supported promotion. Editors who have skimmed this and thought "Quick fail" may wish to re-examine it.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
17:58, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The community
Wikipedia Discord server has
been previously discussed here at MILHIST and probably doesn't need to be discussed again, but I feel we as Coordinators should all be aware of it and prepared for whatever originates from it. I want to stress here now, though, as an active member of the server myself that I don't want it integrated into the WikiProject, and its moderator staff will not - and have refused without our direction - to with a dedicated MILHIST channel. I am on record there and now here opposing the creation of a MILHIST channel in the server. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
General information: logs are public, and searchable, but sharing them on-wiki was forbidden by this village pump discussion; this effectively turns the server into IRC, which does not archive things, validating the biggest concern in the previous conversation about the server: that is not public and that is not on-wiki; that discussion is in a way obfuscated. MILHIST articles have been worked on collaboratively by Discord members, including by yours truly, and the faster pace of instant/near-instant communication has gotten results. I have not found at this time that this has deprived other editors of context pertaining to how and article being worked on by a team on Discord became the way it is, but nonetheless Discord is still social media. Editors would not associate good things with a group of users working on an article in a Facebook messaging group. No officialization of the Discord server should be considered by this WikiProject, but we should not feel that we're not responsible for it. Coordinators should thus be aware of it, as a productive and perverse thing. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
My experience is that the server serves to collectively heighten the perception and abilities of its editors and form bonds between them; that is to say, to brigade them. With two exceptions,
every accepted nomination for the Editor of the Week award as I write this is a member of the Discord server (one of those exceptions is Diannaa, patron saint of CCI). That said, it is also my experience that it is not an echo chamber; in fact what inspired this post was my rebuffing a request for a MILHIST channel in the server. –
♠Vami_IV†♠20:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
It's one file for each day in SVG. This is a
draft of Day-1 so you can see how extensive the maps are.
When requested it was intended for this article here
Nikopol–Krivoi_Rog_offensive.
I would really like to complete it as there is a lot of time and effort invested in it both from the requester and me.
So I'm asking if there is anyone here that has the knowledge and possibility to work with me and help completing and finish those maps. It would really mean a lot for me and hopefully also for that article or elsewhere it might be used. --always ping me--
Goran tek-en (
talk)
13:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
Military historian of the year/newcomer of the year
@
WP:MILHIST coordinators:
- It looks like we've started these awards off in late November/early December in recent years. Since that time of year is rolling around soon, it'd be best to go ahead and get thinking about setting this up soon (I don't know how).
Hog FarmTalk05:01, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
I've prepped notices in my sandbox, will post late on 1 December, noms open 00:01 (GMT) on 2 December and last until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December, voting starts then and runs to 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December.
Peacemaker67 (
click to talk to me)
08:55, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
I have brought the competition page up to date, barring the award of the first place chevrons for September. Perhaps someone could do the honours?
Gog the Mild (
talk) 14:01, 28 November 2021 (UTC) Could someone also award the November second place barnstar? It's a
BOGOF.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
19:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
First, we just cleared 5,000 GAs. That 100% of our stated goal, so we need a goal post. Anyone have any thoughts on what that number should be?
Second, would it be possible to tweak MilHistBot to add a category to or generate a list of articles at or above GA-class that were promoted about 2-3 years back? If we can break up which articles need help into smaller bites I think the community would have an easier time digesting them as it were, and that could go a long way to stopping article rot in quality content.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
17:25, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
I've just added a short para on this to The Bugle. Does anyone know which article was the one that achieved the 5000 target?
Nick-D (
talk)
06:12, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
@
Vami IV: Why should an article only having a single non-lead prose section automatically mean B3 = no? From the criteria: "B3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content." Emphasis added.
Gog the Mild (
talk)
15:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough, I seem to be in error. I've just been noticing that these Italian general bios all have a "Biography" section that could be easily be three or four sections. –
♠Vami_IV†♠16:29, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
All of those Italian general bios are fairly low-quality, IMO. Mainly seem to be translations from it.wiki, I've been marking the ones with a one-sentence lead as b3=no. They also frequently contain unreliable sources are the page creator has been sock-blocked.
Hog FarmTalk17:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Rhodesian mission in Lisbon was just delisted from Featured status (
FAR). It passed A-class back in 2012 (
A-class review). Since the FAR brought up some significant issues with sourcing and comprehensiveness, it probably needs to be sent through A-class review again and, I would presume, delisted. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
18:58, 26 December 2021 (UTC)