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 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
Closed: Partially implemented with removal of historical statistics. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The current BCAD drive, which focuses on B-class articles, has given rise to several issues. Before I go into detail, here, for ease of reference, are the current criteria:
{{WPMILHIST |class= <!-- B-Class checklist --> <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. --> |B-Class-1= yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2= yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3= yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4= yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5= yes/no }} |
The first issue is whether there ought to be a minimum length for B-class. I have an open mind myself but note that featured articles are often quite short, around 1500 words.
The second is slightly more complicated. The argument goes that if an article is inadequately referenced (criterion B1), we have no means of verifying whether it complies with the inaccuracies requirements (criterion B2). This could be partly addressed by changing the wording of B2 to "does not contain any obvious omissions or inaccuracies".
The third is whether the supporting materials criterion (B5) needs to be explicit to explain that this is proportional to the article's length, i.e. the longer the article, the more bells and whistles.
Thoughts and comments? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Some input on the second and third points above would be great. Or does the general silence on them mean "leave well alone" :) ? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 13:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
(od) We have consensus to change B2 to "does not contain major obvious omissions or inaccuracies", which I'll do in a moment. --
ROGER DAVIES
talk
18:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Template changes and Tag & Assess 2008 implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
With Tag & Assess coming up, it seems a good moment to review what we want to do in the next couple of months. There are some thoughts based the experience of BCAD and building on discussions here over the last month. What I propose is a three-stage strategy. I'd really appreciate as much input on this as possible.
Stage 1: Tag & Assess 2008
We talked about starting this mid-April. As so many of our regulars are tied up with other things, I suggest we launch it on 25 April to run for ten weeks until 4 July.
It might be useful to use this drive for essential housekeeping, reviewing our 58,000 stub and start articles. The aim here would be to ensure that they are correctly and sufficiently tagged for task forces and class. We could use the opportunity to courtesy cross-tag for WP:Biography, WP:Ships and WP:Aviation.
Our autumn Tag & Assess could then concentrate on sweeping for untagged articles that fall within our scope and warehouse them in a recently cleaned system.
Implementation: Expanding worklists per BCAD, so that we generate them as needed. This allows a bit of strategical leeway to add in articles that need sorting that we might have over-looked. The raw material would be the Start-Class and Stub-Class categories.
Stage 2: Project class categories
Now might be a good idea to simplify the article classification structure. As a result of BCAD, our B-class articles are currently reasonably clean. Following on from this, it might be helpful to separate failed B-Class articles out so they can be worked up to B-Class.
Implementation: A mixture of manpower, moving categories by bot, and modifying templates I imagine.
Stage 3: Energizing the task forces
This has been brought up here before and the reaction was positive.
The modified category structure makes it possible for task forces to target categories for improvement. This will involve a degree of task force organization and is thus easiest handled at task force level. By breaking the numbers down to task force level, these jobs become manageable and less-daunting. The improvement could be either working up Start-Class to B-Class or Stub-Class to Start-Class.
The idea is to give coordinators a more active role in task force motivation and organization, and act as the primary point of contact. Ideally, we'd have two coordinators per task force for holiday and wiki-break cover. With about 50 task forces and ten coordinators, this would mean each coordinator adopting ten task forces. This is easy to implement: we just set up an adoption list and each coordinator signs up to various task forces.
-- ROGER DAVIES talk 18:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
If the upcoming drive is going to focus on something other than untagged articles, it would be good to know that sooner rather than later, as it will affect the scripts I'll need to run to generate the worklists. ;-) As far as category schemes go, I'm not sure if perhaps some people are unaware of the features already available:
Kirill 19:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
One idea that was briefly brought up at one point but never really discussed, incidentally, would be making Stub/Start/B assessments purely mechanical, based on the checklist criteria; in other words, an article with all five criteria met would be automatically marked as B-Class, an article with, one to four criteria met would be automatically marked as Start-Class, and an article with no criteria met would be automatically marked as Stub-Class. For that matter, if GA-Class were taken out of the scale, A-Class tagging could also be done automatically, with the net result that only the FA rating would need to be manually set. Kirill 20:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Taking this even further, one could potentially eliminate Stub-Class entirely, and collapse the system down to only four levels—not-yet-B (Start), B, A, featured—of which the first three would be assigned automatically based on the checklist and the A-Class review status. This would have the benefit of eliminating a lot of the error cases we're trying to catch; since the assessment would be determined by the criteria, there'd be no potential for cases where a grade was assigned in contradiction to them. On the flip side, there would no longer be any ability to indicate the level of an article beyond that allowed by the criteria, since the discretionary Stub/Start choice would be eliminated. Kirill 20:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I made an interesting discovery today: I have some down time at the moment before my next round of assignments are due, so I decided to get a little more involved here for a few days to compensate for my recent absence (be forwarned though, I won;t be here long). As far as this section is concerned:
One last somewhat-related note: I had suggested that we may benifit from running a drive aimed at checking references and citations, both to ensure that they are accurate and within established parameters and to ensure that all pages using citations adhere to a single style insofar as the MoS demands it. Should we attempt to add an aspect of this nature to the April assessment drive, or should we put it off for a late date? TomStar81 ( Talk) 20:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea of energizing the task forces as it would be easy to maintain and control the taskforces if we had cooridnators looking after them. As for the B-class review section being used for stub and start, the only problem I can see is that for example, if a stub is an article that means none of the criteria and start being 1-4, what if a three line stub had an infobox, image and template, then it would be promoted. Kyriakos ( talk) 21:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm conscious that we need to start the ball rolling very soon if we wish to open the next drive on time. To summarise the points above:
If there are no objections, can we press on with the above? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 23:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, let me make a checklist of stuff I'm to implement, and we can verify that everyone is on the same page:
There's no really good way, at the moment, to have the task force codes display in the task force itself, particularly as there's no criterion for whether an article needs them. As an initial step towards eventual implementation of something along these lines, we could do the following:
A few other points mentioned above that would be reasonably simple to implement (but may not be desirable?)
Let me know which items I should implement. :-) Kirill 04:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, more updates implemented on the sandboxed version of the template:
As before, help with testing would be very appreciated!
Also, some updates to the categories:
If anyone has other ideas for changes to the template, now is a good time to bring them up, since much of the code is being rewritten anyways. Kirill 19:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I've played around with this quite a lot. My main concern is how editors will get from stub to the checklist. At the moment, you set the class to Start or B before the checklist appears, which isn't very intuitive. Any ideas? I'll also still like to be able to cut and paste the TF parameters from the template somehow (or have a link to them in cut and pastable form). If we make this easier, more people will do it. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 12:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The new code is now live, and should be propagating across articles today. If anyone spots anything not working as intended, please let me know! Kirill 15:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Can someone else close Ed's two A-class reveiws please? I am refraining since I copyedited them. They are both pretty clearcut anyway. Blnguyen ( vote in the photo straw poll) 01:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Coordinator list updated with "wikibreak" notice. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Greetings all,
I apologize to do this so shortly after being reelected Asst Coordinator - thanks to all those who supported me and voted for me and such - but I do think I'm on a Wikibreak. I've been even less active than usual in participating on this and other talk pages, both in Main space and within the Project; It's been at least a week since I've looked at my watchlist, and while I have not been particularly busy with schoolwork or anything serious like that, I've just not felt the desire to Wiki. Wiki's taken up *a lot* of my free time in the last several years since I started here, and I am happy to be now doing more reading, catching up on Battlestar, and just doing other things with my free time in general. I may return over the summer, or sooner, or I may not.
I apologize as well to make myself seem important or something simply by writing all of this, taking up space on the talk page.. I don't think I was ever one of the more active coordinators, anyway. Though I may not be checking my watchlist or doing much editing in the coming weeks or months, I shall continue to heed the call of the orange "you've got new messages" bar, and would be happy to answer any questions or address any issues that anyone wishes to direct to me personally.
よろしくお願いします。 LordAmeth ( talk) 05:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Number 8 in our scope description concerns when our project deams a fictionalized military-based pop culture representation worthy of our two cents, however I notice that video games are not mentioned there. Now I realise that such games do take liberties with historical representations of actual military history, but I feel compelled to bring this up becuase a limited number of games like the Medal of Honor series and World in Conflict are faithful enough to history that I think we may wish to include them in our scope. Before ammending our scope description on the matter though I decided to bring this up here, since some consensus needs to be reached on the matter. What do all of you think? TomStar81 ( Talk) 06:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
- 8. Depictions of military history in cultural art forms, such as painting, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and prose.
- Note that the project generally covers only those cultural depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is therefore made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented depictions of fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of actual military history would no longer be relevant to them—such as futuristic warfare in Star Wars—are not considered to be within the project's scope.
Closed: Implemented. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The first step I suppose is to find who wants to adopt what. Easiest is probably with a table. The idea is that coordinators sign up for a minimum of ten task forces, so we have two or more coordinators for each. If we cannot cover this entirely ourselves (though in theory we should be able to), I suggest we ask project members to fill the gaps. Many members will welcome this and sign up, I think, as it's bound to be seen as a stepping stone towards coordinator.
Once we've "adopted" the task forces, we can add a hatnote to TF pages, showing the coordinators. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 23:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Can we think about shuffling around a bit so that every task force has at least one coordinator? I know this will mean taking on TFs that aren't necessarily of interest to you personally but it is essentially an administrative role. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 22:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Task force adopted | Coordinator 1 | Coordinator 2 | Coordinator 3 |
---|---|---|---|
Fortifications | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Intelligence | Nick Dowling | ||
Maritime warfare | Woody | TomStar81 | |
Military aviation | Eurocopter | Nick Dowling | |
Military biography | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Military historiography | Nick Dowling | Woody | |
Military memorials and cemeteries | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Military science | Nick Dowling | ||
Military technology and engineering | Wandalstouring | ||
National militaries | Nick Dowling | Woody | Eurocopter |
War films | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Weaponry | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter | Woody |
African military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Australian military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Balkan military history | Kirill | Kyriakos | |
Baltic states military history | Kyriakos | ||
British military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | Nick Dowling |
Canadian military history | TomStar81 | Woody | |
Chinese military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Dutch military history | Wandalstouring | Woody | |
French military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | |
German military history | Wandalstouring | TomStar81 | |
Indian military history | Roger Davies | ||
Italian military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | |
Japanese military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Korean military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Middle Eastern military history | Roger Davies | Eurocopter | |
New Zealand military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Nordic military history | Kyriakos | ||
Ottoman military history | Kyriakos | Roger Davies | |
Polish military history | Kyriakos | Eurocopter | |
Romanian military history | Eurocopter | ||
Russian and Soviet military history | TomStar81 | Kyriakos | Eurocopter |
South American military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Southeast Asian military history | Roger Davies | Blnguyen | |
Spanish military history | Kirill | Kyriakos | |
Taiwanese military history | Wandalstouring | ||
United States military history | TomStar81 | Nick Dowling | |
Classical warfare | Kyriakos | Wandalstouring | |
Medieval warfare | Kirill | Kyriakos | Wandalstouring |
Early Muslim military history | Wandalstouring | Roger Davies | Kyriakos |
Crusades | Wandalstouring | Kyriakos | |
Early Modern warfare | Kirill | Nick Dowling | Kyriakos |
American Revolutionary War | Kirill | TomStar81 | |
Napoleonic era | Kirill | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter |
American Civil War | Roger Davies | TomStar81 | |
World War I | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter | Woody |
World War II | TomStar81 | Nick Dowling | Eurocopter |
We're probably ready to go ahead with this. It would be great if everyone could check over the task forces they've signed up for and see if they want to make any last minute adjustments. (Broadly, we still have a few with just one coordinator.) Then, I suggest in a couple of days, we implement this. Initially, we could hatnote TF pages/talk pages with something like: Task force coordinator/s: name, name. A volunteer or two to do this, based on this list above, would be great.
Then comes the energisation phase :) Here are some ideas that have been raised over the last six weeks. Individual TFs can probably be encouraged to start one or two of them.
An idea that came up last month was to invite task forces to work up a portal each. This is probably a good moment to raise it as task force level and help provide the impetus/experience to achieve it.
Some thoughts on this included:
Have I forgotten anything? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Overwhelmingly rejected. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an idea to mull over. The "all-change"-every-six-month system we have for coordinators is bad for continuity. It means there a lame duck period in the run up to the elections and a learning curve at the beginning of the next one. (As a secondary thought, August is not a good month for elections because of holidays and so forth.)
So let's split the coordinators into two tranches, electing one lead and four coordinators at each election.
This has numerous advantages. the main ones are: an infusion of new blood every three months and planning outside the six-month window. It'll also make it easier to manage the TFs.
Setting it up? Easy. We hold elections in Jun for one lead and four coordinators (term Jul-Dec). We run through the summer with a temporarily bloated number of coordinators. (This assumes that none of the existing coordinators stand in the Jun elections: it would be good if some did.) We defer the Aug elections to Sep (term Oct-Mar) when one lead and four coordinators are elected, bring the number back down to two leads plus eight coordinators.
The numbers are arbitrary. We might do better with one plus five, especially with the extra work, energising the TFs will bring :)
Thoughts? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 03:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Thank you for all the comments. It was very interesting. Just as a bit of background, this came up fleeting here and I thought I'd run it up the flagpole and, um, see who saluted it :) My main objection, funnily enough, is being in a state of permanent election (if you'll excuse the phrase). This could though be overcome by changing the coordinator term from six months to one year and thus having new people coming onboard every board six months. Any other thoughts, incidentally, would be very welcome, basically as a discussion point. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 22:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Proposal drafted, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 18:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
In the past I have seen articles fail A-class review not because they have been opposed but because they have only received 2 or less supports. I was thinking that if that is the case maybe we should extend the A-class review by a day and leave message on WT:MILHIST asking members to go to the review's page and give thri two cents. Thoughts? Kyriakos ( talk) 06:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
{{subst:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Toolbox/A-Class review alert|Name of article}} ~~~~
to ask for more editors. Recently I haven't seen an A-Class review closed without the requisite number of !votes.
Woody (
talk)
13:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)Well the A-class review for the Battle of Bonchurch has just passed its fourth day by a couple of hours and has two supports and no opposes. Would anyone mind to comment at the review page before it is closed? Kyriakos ( talk) 13:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Do we want to change the time period to a week then? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
{od} So is there any support for extending the review time to seven days or shall we leave it as it is? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 08:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Can I take it that there's no clear consensus for change? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 04:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not. Even now the A-class reviewfor the Batle of the Kalka River has been on review for three days now and has one support and no opposes and faces failures do to lack of voting. Similarly the Erich Hartmann review after two days only has had one comment. Also, I was thinking if the editor doesn't have time too finish the review then maybe they can request an extended period of time to meet the comments. Kyriakos ( talk) 09:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That sounds perfect. Exactly what I was thinking. Kyriakos ( talk) 11:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Closed: All done. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, on WP:MHA we have Glock pistol up for assessment. Does this fall under our scope, it is only used sparingly for military purposes. If it is within our scope, can someone assess it please. Also, to avoid the obvious charges of nepotism, can someone review James Joseph Magennis please? Thanks.
Oh, and Category:Unassessed military history articles is above 30 again. Some help clearing it would be appreciated. Thanks. Woody ( talk) 16:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Elegantly implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know how the new procedures work for this is? Portal:British Army could really use a Milhist peer review. Should it be listed as a Milhist topic, or a Portal one? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Thanks very much, guys, for cracking that one :) As Kirill says, it also means we can ditch the separate Picture Peer Review section. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 19:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Can I be clear how this works?
Is this correct? And if so, any suggestions for improving/clarifying the wording? Where is best to post this as instructions? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
peer-review=yes
to the {{
WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (see the
project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax).#REDIRECT [[External peer review page location]]
to the page.{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article}}
at the top of the list of peer review requests below.A MILHIST image with a corresponding article will appear tomorrow as the Pic of the Day (if anyone cares, the template is here). It may be worth watch listing the articles to keep an eye out for vandalism.
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 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
Closed: Partially implemented with removal of historical statistics. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The current BCAD drive, which focuses on B-class articles, has given rise to several issues. Before I go into detail, here, for ease of reference, are the current criteria:
{{WPMILHIST |class= <!-- B-Class checklist --> <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. --> |B-Class-1= yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2= yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3= yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4= yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5= yes/no }} |
The first issue is whether there ought to be a minimum length for B-class. I have an open mind myself but note that featured articles are often quite short, around 1500 words.
The second is slightly more complicated. The argument goes that if an article is inadequately referenced (criterion B1), we have no means of verifying whether it complies with the inaccuracies requirements (criterion B2). This could be partly addressed by changing the wording of B2 to "does not contain any obvious omissions or inaccuracies".
The third is whether the supporting materials criterion (B5) needs to be explicit to explain that this is proportional to the article's length, i.e. the longer the article, the more bells and whistles.
Thoughts and comments? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Some input on the second and third points above would be great. Or does the general silence on them mean "leave well alone" :) ? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 13:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
(od) We have consensus to change B2 to "does not contain major obvious omissions or inaccuracies", which I'll do in a moment. --
ROGER DAVIES
talk
18:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Template changes and Tag & Assess 2008 implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
With Tag & Assess coming up, it seems a good moment to review what we want to do in the next couple of months. There are some thoughts based the experience of BCAD and building on discussions here over the last month. What I propose is a three-stage strategy. I'd really appreciate as much input on this as possible.
Stage 1: Tag & Assess 2008
We talked about starting this mid-April. As so many of our regulars are tied up with other things, I suggest we launch it on 25 April to run for ten weeks until 4 July.
It might be useful to use this drive for essential housekeeping, reviewing our 58,000 stub and start articles. The aim here would be to ensure that they are correctly and sufficiently tagged for task forces and class. We could use the opportunity to courtesy cross-tag for WP:Biography, WP:Ships and WP:Aviation.
Our autumn Tag & Assess could then concentrate on sweeping for untagged articles that fall within our scope and warehouse them in a recently cleaned system.
Implementation: Expanding worklists per BCAD, so that we generate them as needed. This allows a bit of strategical leeway to add in articles that need sorting that we might have over-looked. The raw material would be the Start-Class and Stub-Class categories.
Stage 2: Project class categories
Now might be a good idea to simplify the article classification structure. As a result of BCAD, our B-class articles are currently reasonably clean. Following on from this, it might be helpful to separate failed B-Class articles out so they can be worked up to B-Class.
Implementation: A mixture of manpower, moving categories by bot, and modifying templates I imagine.
Stage 3: Energizing the task forces
This has been brought up here before and the reaction was positive.
The modified category structure makes it possible for task forces to target categories for improvement. This will involve a degree of task force organization and is thus easiest handled at task force level. By breaking the numbers down to task force level, these jobs become manageable and less-daunting. The improvement could be either working up Start-Class to B-Class or Stub-Class to Start-Class.
The idea is to give coordinators a more active role in task force motivation and organization, and act as the primary point of contact. Ideally, we'd have two coordinators per task force for holiday and wiki-break cover. With about 50 task forces and ten coordinators, this would mean each coordinator adopting ten task forces. This is easy to implement: we just set up an adoption list and each coordinator signs up to various task forces.
-- ROGER DAVIES talk 18:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
If the upcoming drive is going to focus on something other than untagged articles, it would be good to know that sooner rather than later, as it will affect the scripts I'll need to run to generate the worklists. ;-) As far as category schemes go, I'm not sure if perhaps some people are unaware of the features already available:
Kirill 19:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
One idea that was briefly brought up at one point but never really discussed, incidentally, would be making Stub/Start/B assessments purely mechanical, based on the checklist criteria; in other words, an article with all five criteria met would be automatically marked as B-Class, an article with, one to four criteria met would be automatically marked as Start-Class, and an article with no criteria met would be automatically marked as Stub-Class. For that matter, if GA-Class were taken out of the scale, A-Class tagging could also be done automatically, with the net result that only the FA rating would need to be manually set. Kirill 20:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Taking this even further, one could potentially eliminate Stub-Class entirely, and collapse the system down to only four levels—not-yet-B (Start), B, A, featured—of which the first three would be assigned automatically based on the checklist and the A-Class review status. This would have the benefit of eliminating a lot of the error cases we're trying to catch; since the assessment would be determined by the criteria, there'd be no potential for cases where a grade was assigned in contradiction to them. On the flip side, there would no longer be any ability to indicate the level of an article beyond that allowed by the criteria, since the discretionary Stub/Start choice would be eliminated. Kirill 20:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I made an interesting discovery today: I have some down time at the moment before my next round of assignments are due, so I decided to get a little more involved here for a few days to compensate for my recent absence (be forwarned though, I won;t be here long). As far as this section is concerned:
One last somewhat-related note: I had suggested that we may benifit from running a drive aimed at checking references and citations, both to ensure that they are accurate and within established parameters and to ensure that all pages using citations adhere to a single style insofar as the MoS demands it. Should we attempt to add an aspect of this nature to the April assessment drive, or should we put it off for a late date? TomStar81 ( Talk) 20:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea of energizing the task forces as it would be easy to maintain and control the taskforces if we had cooridnators looking after them. As for the B-class review section being used for stub and start, the only problem I can see is that for example, if a stub is an article that means none of the criteria and start being 1-4, what if a three line stub had an infobox, image and template, then it would be promoted. Kyriakos ( talk) 21:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm conscious that we need to start the ball rolling very soon if we wish to open the next drive on time. To summarise the points above:
If there are no objections, can we press on with the above? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 23:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, let me make a checklist of stuff I'm to implement, and we can verify that everyone is on the same page:
There's no really good way, at the moment, to have the task force codes display in the task force itself, particularly as there's no criterion for whether an article needs them. As an initial step towards eventual implementation of something along these lines, we could do the following:
A few other points mentioned above that would be reasonably simple to implement (but may not be desirable?)
Let me know which items I should implement. :-) Kirill 04:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, more updates implemented on the sandboxed version of the template:
As before, help with testing would be very appreciated!
Also, some updates to the categories:
If anyone has other ideas for changes to the template, now is a good time to bring them up, since much of the code is being rewritten anyways. Kirill 19:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I've played around with this quite a lot. My main concern is how editors will get from stub to the checklist. At the moment, you set the class to Start or B before the checklist appears, which isn't very intuitive. Any ideas? I'll also still like to be able to cut and paste the TF parameters from the template somehow (or have a link to them in cut and pastable form). If we make this easier, more people will do it. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 12:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The new code is now live, and should be propagating across articles today. If anyone spots anything not working as intended, please let me know! Kirill 15:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Can someone else close Ed's two A-class reveiws please? I am refraining since I copyedited them. They are both pretty clearcut anyway. Blnguyen ( vote in the photo straw poll) 01:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Coordinator list updated with "wikibreak" notice. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Greetings all,
I apologize to do this so shortly after being reelected Asst Coordinator - thanks to all those who supported me and voted for me and such - but I do think I'm on a Wikibreak. I've been even less active than usual in participating on this and other talk pages, both in Main space and within the Project; It's been at least a week since I've looked at my watchlist, and while I have not been particularly busy with schoolwork or anything serious like that, I've just not felt the desire to Wiki. Wiki's taken up *a lot* of my free time in the last several years since I started here, and I am happy to be now doing more reading, catching up on Battlestar, and just doing other things with my free time in general. I may return over the summer, or sooner, or I may not.
I apologize as well to make myself seem important or something simply by writing all of this, taking up space on the talk page.. I don't think I was ever one of the more active coordinators, anyway. Though I may not be checking my watchlist or doing much editing in the coming weeks or months, I shall continue to heed the call of the orange "you've got new messages" bar, and would be happy to answer any questions or address any issues that anyone wishes to direct to me personally.
よろしくお願いします。 LordAmeth ( talk) 05:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Number 8 in our scope description concerns when our project deams a fictionalized military-based pop culture representation worthy of our two cents, however I notice that video games are not mentioned there. Now I realise that such games do take liberties with historical representations of actual military history, but I feel compelled to bring this up becuase a limited number of games like the Medal of Honor series and World in Conflict are faithful enough to history that I think we may wish to include them in our scope. Before ammending our scope description on the matter though I decided to bring this up here, since some consensus needs to be reached on the matter. What do all of you think? TomStar81 ( Talk) 06:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
- 8. Depictions of military history in cultural art forms, such as painting, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and prose.
- Note that the project generally covers only those cultural depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is therefore made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented depictions of fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of actual military history would no longer be relevant to them—such as futuristic warfare in Star Wars—are not considered to be within the project's scope.
Closed: Implemented. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The first step I suppose is to find who wants to adopt what. Easiest is probably with a table. The idea is that coordinators sign up for a minimum of ten task forces, so we have two or more coordinators for each. If we cannot cover this entirely ourselves (though in theory we should be able to), I suggest we ask project members to fill the gaps. Many members will welcome this and sign up, I think, as it's bound to be seen as a stepping stone towards coordinator.
Once we've "adopted" the task forces, we can add a hatnote to TF pages, showing the coordinators. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 23:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Can we think about shuffling around a bit so that every task force has at least one coordinator? I know this will mean taking on TFs that aren't necessarily of interest to you personally but it is essentially an administrative role. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 22:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Task force adopted | Coordinator 1 | Coordinator 2 | Coordinator 3 |
---|---|---|---|
Fortifications | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Intelligence | Nick Dowling | ||
Maritime warfare | Woody | TomStar81 | |
Military aviation | Eurocopter | Nick Dowling | |
Military biography | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Military historiography | Nick Dowling | Woody | |
Military memorials and cemeteries | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Military science | Nick Dowling | ||
Military technology and engineering | Wandalstouring | ||
National militaries | Nick Dowling | Woody | Eurocopter |
War films | Woody | Roger Davies | |
Weaponry | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter | Woody |
African military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Australian military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Balkan military history | Kirill | Kyriakos | |
Baltic states military history | Kyriakos | ||
British military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | Nick Dowling |
Canadian military history | TomStar81 | Woody | |
Chinese military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Dutch military history | Wandalstouring | Woody | |
French military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | |
German military history | Wandalstouring | TomStar81 | |
Indian military history | Roger Davies | ||
Italian military history | Kirill | Eurocopter | |
Japanese military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Korean military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Middle Eastern military history | Roger Davies | Eurocopter | |
New Zealand military history | Nick Dowling | ||
Nordic military history | Kyriakos | ||
Ottoman military history | Kyriakos | Roger Davies | |
Polish military history | Kyriakos | Eurocopter | |
Romanian military history | Eurocopter | ||
Russian and Soviet military history | TomStar81 | Kyriakos | Eurocopter |
South American military history | Wandalstouring | ||
Southeast Asian military history | Roger Davies | Blnguyen | |
Spanish military history | Kirill | Kyriakos | |
Taiwanese military history | Wandalstouring | ||
United States military history | TomStar81 | Nick Dowling | |
Classical warfare | Kyriakos | Wandalstouring | |
Medieval warfare | Kirill | Kyriakos | Wandalstouring |
Early Muslim military history | Wandalstouring | Roger Davies | Kyriakos |
Crusades | Wandalstouring | Kyriakos | |
Early Modern warfare | Kirill | Nick Dowling | Kyriakos |
American Revolutionary War | Kirill | TomStar81 | |
Napoleonic era | Kirill | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter |
American Civil War | Roger Davies | TomStar81 | |
World War I | Wandalstouring | Eurocopter | Woody |
World War II | TomStar81 | Nick Dowling | Eurocopter |
We're probably ready to go ahead with this. It would be great if everyone could check over the task forces they've signed up for and see if they want to make any last minute adjustments. (Broadly, we still have a few with just one coordinator.) Then, I suggest in a couple of days, we implement this. Initially, we could hatnote TF pages/talk pages with something like: Task force coordinator/s: name, name. A volunteer or two to do this, based on this list above, would be great.
Then comes the energisation phase :) Here are some ideas that have been raised over the last six weeks. Individual TFs can probably be encouraged to start one or two of them.
An idea that came up last month was to invite task forces to work up a portal each. This is probably a good moment to raise it as task force level and help provide the impetus/experience to achieve it.
Some thoughts on this included:
Have I forgotten anything? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Overwhelmingly rejected. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an idea to mull over. The "all-change"-every-six-month system we have for coordinators is bad for continuity. It means there a lame duck period in the run up to the elections and a learning curve at the beginning of the next one. (As a secondary thought, August is not a good month for elections because of holidays and so forth.)
So let's split the coordinators into two tranches, electing one lead and four coordinators at each election.
This has numerous advantages. the main ones are: an infusion of new blood every three months and planning outside the six-month window. It'll also make it easier to manage the TFs.
Setting it up? Easy. We hold elections in Jun for one lead and four coordinators (term Jul-Dec). We run through the summer with a temporarily bloated number of coordinators. (This assumes that none of the existing coordinators stand in the Jun elections: it would be good if some did.) We defer the Aug elections to Sep (term Oct-Mar) when one lead and four coordinators are elected, bring the number back down to two leads plus eight coordinators.
The numbers are arbitrary. We might do better with one plus five, especially with the extra work, energising the TFs will bring :)
Thoughts? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 03:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Thank you for all the comments. It was very interesting. Just as a bit of background, this came up fleeting here and I thought I'd run it up the flagpole and, um, see who saluted it :) My main objection, funnily enough, is being in a state of permanent election (if you'll excuse the phrase). This could though be overcome by changing the coordinator term from six months to one year and thus having new people coming onboard every board six months. Any other thoughts, incidentally, would be very welcome, basically as a discussion point. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 22:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Proposal drafted, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 18:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
In the past I have seen articles fail A-class review not because they have been opposed but because they have only received 2 or less supports. I was thinking that if that is the case maybe we should extend the A-class review by a day and leave message on WT:MILHIST asking members to go to the review's page and give thri two cents. Thoughts? Kyriakos ( talk) 06:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
{{subst:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Toolbox/A-Class review alert|Name of article}} ~~~~
to ask for more editors. Recently I haven't seen an A-Class review closed without the requisite number of !votes.
Woody (
talk)
13:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)Well the A-class review for the Battle of Bonchurch has just passed its fourth day by a couple of hours and has two supports and no opposes. Would anyone mind to comment at the review page before it is closed? Kyriakos ( talk) 13:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Do we want to change the time period to a week then? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
{od} So is there any support for extending the review time to seven days or shall we leave it as it is? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 08:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Can I take it that there's no clear consensus for change? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 04:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not. Even now the A-class reviewfor the Batle of the Kalka River has been on review for three days now and has one support and no opposes and faces failures do to lack of voting. Similarly the Erich Hartmann review after two days only has had one comment. Also, I was thinking if the editor doesn't have time too finish the review then maybe they can request an extended period of time to meet the comments. Kyriakos ( talk) 09:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That sounds perfect. Exactly what I was thinking. Kyriakos ( talk) 11:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Closed: All done. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, on WP:MHA we have Glock pistol up for assessment. Does this fall under our scope, it is only used sparingly for military purposes. If it is within our scope, can someone assess it please. Also, to avoid the obvious charges of nepotism, can someone review James Joseph Magennis please? Thanks.
Oh, and Category:Unassessed military history articles is above 30 again. Some help clearing it would be appreciated. Thanks. Woody ( talk) 16:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Closed: Elegantly implemented, -- ROGER DAVIES talk 06:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know how the new procedures work for this is? Portal:British Army could really use a Milhist peer review. Should it be listed as a Milhist topic, or a Portal one? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 05:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Thanks very much, guys, for cracking that one :) As Kirill says, it also means we can ditch the separate Picture Peer Review section. -- ROGER DAVIES talk 19:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
(od) Can I be clear how this works?
Is this correct? And if so, any suggestions for improving/clarifying the wording? Where is best to post this as instructions? -- ROGER DAVIES talk 09:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
peer-review=yes
to the {{
WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (see the
project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax).#REDIRECT [[External peer review page location]]
to the page.{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article}}
at the top of the list of peer review requests below.A MILHIST image with a corresponding article will appear tomorrow as the Pic of the Day (if anyone cares, the template is here). It may be worth watch listing the articles to keep an eye out for vandalism.