Guys, as you would've gathered if you've got this far, I've created a basic subpage for this drive, based on the Normandy special project, and copied the initial discussion on this from the ACW TF talk page. While I'll probably not actively participate in article improvement myself, I'm happy to act for now at least as a moderator and be involved in discussions and administrative stuff. Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 14:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
With the Civil War sesquicentenial coming up, maybe we could organize a drive similar to the WWI task force's centenary drive. Wild Wolf ( talk) 19:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Seems to me, our first step in this "Operation" would be to develop a list of articles to promote to FA. The Normandy project has designated 40 articles. Something in that range sounds about right to me. I think the challenge will be selecting which people and places to highlight. With hundreds upon hundreds of notable leaders, battles, political issues swirling around this topic, I think we're going to have to stick to the mainstream, best-known subjects.
So, a suggestion: we develop (and hash it out here) a list of, say, the top 20 battles, the top 10 Confederate leaders, the top 10 Union leaders and the top 10 political/cultural topics pertaining to the war? Just a thought. I realize this exercise, in and of itself, will be difficult to agree upon. But I think we should give it a shot. What would your top battles/leaders be?
- LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 18:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Hope you don't mind, Bushranger, but I'm moving your suggestion from the project page to this discussion page. I think we should reserve the project page for articles that have definitely been agreed upon. On April 28, The Bushranger suggested we include the Battle of Natural Bridge as a priority article. Historical Perspective ( talk) 20:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I suggest the following battles be included in our scope. I've tried to give roughly equal attention to the years (although '61 and '65 are difficult) and also eastern and western theaters. I'd be interested to hear additional suggestions/thoughts.
Historical Perspective ( talk) 11:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
On a slightly tangential note, I'm assuming that—given that this drive will last several years—the plan here is to turn this into a MILHIST special project, similar to the WWI centenary drive? If that's the case, we ought to come up with an operational codename for it, so that we can keep a consistent naming with the other special projects. Any suggestions for one would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I can think of two at the moment:
The former refers to a nickname for the confederate flag, while the later refers to the departure of the states in the south, symbolized by the stars on the American flag, to create a new country. Both are just suggestions at this point, but I submit them for consideration. TomStar81 ( Talk) 19:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Are any of those decent ideas? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 20:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe that we should adopt an official Userbox for the project as that seems to be one the staples of many well established, active Wikiprojects. Though I must confess whether that is the is a cause or more likely just a symptom of said status is up for debate. That aside having something such as a userbox would go towards convincing potential editors that the project is a serious endeavor in which they would not be laboring alone. Towards that end I went ahead and designed a placeholder userbox for the time being.
![]() | This user is a member of the American Civil War Sesquicentennial Project. |
![]() |
Alright, yeah I know its painfully rudimentary, I too have eyeballs. This is just for illustrative purposes at the momement. I figure that if others agree with me that this is a worthwhile thing to pursue, we might go on over the WikiProject Userboxes and see if someone over there is willing to design one that isn't as ...bad. What do you others think? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 06:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's your userbox - hope you guys like it! Tell me if you have any problems with it and I'll be happy to fix them. I have also made a much more bland version here - if you prefer it, just tell me and I'll switch it over. Forenti talk 09:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC) {{ User:Forenti/Userboxes/ACWSProject}}
![]() ![]() | This user is a member of Operation Brothers at War, a special project of WikiProject Military history. |
Here are my suggestions for articles to cover:
Union Generals | Confederate Generals | Land Battles | Naval Battles | Technological Aspects of the War | Causes of the War | Results of the War | Political Aspects of the War | Notable Politicians | Miscellaneous Aspects of the War |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ulysses S. Grant | Robert E. Lee | Battle of Gettysburg | Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack | Minie Ball | Kansas Nebraska Act | Freedman's Bureau | Anaconda Plan | Abraham Lincoln | |
William T. Sherman | Stonewall Jackson | Battle of Antietam | Battle of Mobile Bay | Ironclads | Jefferson Davis | ||||
George Meade | James Longstreet | Battle of Vicksburg | Second Battle of Sabine Pass | Salmon P. Chase | |||||
Winfield Scott Hancock | J.E.B. Stuart | Battle of Shiloh | Battle of Fort Sumter | Alexander H. Stephens | |||||
Ambrose Burnside | A.P. Hill | First Battle of Manassas | Second Battle of Fort Wagner | William Seward | |||||
George B. McClellan | Joseph E. Johnston | Battle of Fredericksburg | Judah P. Benjamin | ||||||
Joseph Hooker | Nathan Bedford Forrest | Battle of Chancellorsville | |||||||
John Buford | George Pickett | Chattanooga Campaign |
LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 21:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we would be remiss is we didn't include a few female leaders. It would provide a better picture of the war as a whole. On the Union side, I'm thinking Dorothea Dix or Clara Barton. I confess I'm not as up to speed regarding women in the Confederacy. Any suggestions? Historical Perspective ( talk) 11:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Here's a test for the group. A major obstacle to ever having this article reach Featured status is the section on "Causes of secession". Besides the contoversial nature of the issue itself, the article is long and probably needs to be cut someplace. Since this is subject at the moment to a serious debate, why don't y'all weigh in and see what you can do. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 00:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it is premature at this moment to act upon this suggestion, but I believe that is not too early to at least get this idea out their and stir up some discussion on the issue. But I think that we as a project should instate some manner of service award along the lines of Wikipedia's Service Awards. I think that if we were able to slap a offer up on the Wikipedia:Reward board we would get some more traffic on the project page and potentially some more participation in the project.Any thoughts from others? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 22:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Alright I threw some more Generals and such up on the main page. I know that we should typically try to come to a consensus about targeting an article for efforts, but I also think that some of these are givens. (I mean if we could not come to a consensus as to whether Ulysses S. Grant was important enough to target, then we shouldn't be working on these articles as we would be grossly underqualified.) But with the Grant article, he is important enough that we have to work on him. But with his political career and his early life thrown in the mix that would take up some effort that might be better spent elsewhere. So what does everyone think about undertaking a second page exclusively on Grant's military career or in Civil War service? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 05:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I think that the inclusion of Generals, while now a problematic issue as we have no clear policy as to when those articles are to be targeted for Featured Article, actually gives this project a needed degree of flexibility. If an article on a specific battle is not ready in time for its 150th Aniversary, we as project could put an article on a General who was prominent in the course of a given battle. Say for instance, if the article of the Battle of Fredericksburg was not a Featured article by December 13, 2012, but the article on Ambrose Burnside was Featured article class by that date, it could be called a victory as long an editor involved in the project was responsible for raising the quality of the article in question. LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 00:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering about adding the following battles to the project:
Bios:
Also, for the general topics, the Eastern Theater and Western Theater articles could be added. Wild Wolf ( talk) 19:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I just added my name to help contribute and noticed that the Second Battle of Bull Run wasan't on the list. I'm just curious as to why that is.-- Samurai262 ( talk) 00:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Also I can Create a Civil War Time Line if you guys want.-- Samurai262 ( talk) 00:31, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, folks, I gave Fort Sumter the old college try. But too little too late, I'm afraid. There was no interest in my peer review request and only one reviewer commented on it at FAC. Too bad. I do think the article is worth promotion to FA (I can say this unabashedly because I did not write it). If there had been constructive criticism to work with, that would have been one thing...but, given the lack of interest and the lack of time, I think I'm going to throw in the towel on this one. Perhaps we might have more success with other articles with a longer lead time. Sorry for the fail, folks. It was worth a shot. Historical Perspective ( talk) 23:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
The article on the USS New Ironsides, an ironclad that saw action at Ft. Fisher and Charleston is a featured article candidate. Feel free to drop by and review the article to see if it meets the FAC criteria.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 04:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Posting a brief note here to alert anyone watching this page of the discussion I've started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Special projects, regarding the special projects in general. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Portal:American Civil War has been heavily updated, by myself, due to a considerable lack of manual effort to maintain the portal; I have improved the automated rotation of the boxes on the portal, as well as a few tweaks to the appearance and layout - needs a little more work, but for now it should probably be able to retain its "Featured portal" status and keep running okay. Ma®©usBritish [ Chat • RFF 15:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I've also take the opportunity to update Template:American Civil War with links to the portal, task force and special project, to maximise attention for American Civil War articles on MilHist. Ma®©usBritish [ Chat • RFF 15:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Might I suggest adding the following articles?
Battles/Incidents:
Naval Battles/Incidents:
I'd be willing to contribute to these, particularly Mosby, Spotsylvania Court House, or either Naval battles listed. Cheers, Zaldax ( talk) 17:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
So, first off, I will state that this article isn't something that will be 150 years old in the coming years. In fact, the 1913 Gettysburg reunion will only be 100 years old next July. That being said, since the scope of this drive is to include Civil War-related articles, I figured some people might be interested in improving it with the goal of having it as a Featured Article next July. I would be willing to help if anyone wants me to, but I figured I might as well get the ball rolling on this idea. Kevin Rutherford ( talk) 19:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that this project seems to have stalled a bit, with very few (if any) articles reaching FA class. I've changed the project page a bit, arranging the engagements in chronological order and seperating the articles into two sections, depending on if they are past their anniversary date. I also hid the inactive users in the contributors sections (similar to what has been done to the task force pages). I'm also wondering if the previous sections on this talk page should be archived.
Looking ahead for the future anniversaries, any ideas on how to get anyone to start improving these articles to FA status? I haven't noticed any GA, A-class, or FA class reviews started for these (or any other ACW) articles other than the ones I've started (and the ones I started have failed). We probably need some way to encourage more active partitipation in this project. LeonidasSpartan suggested some kind of service medal in this section.
Anyone else have any comments? Wild Wolf ( talk) 18:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
To whom it may concern,
I have asked Nick-D if a "progress bar" for WikiProject Military history/Operation Brothers at War could be set up in relation to the progress of "B class" articles set at 1,000 articles. It would be appreciated if someone who has the knowledge to do this could set it up. Adamdaley ( talk) 06:24, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Okay, maybe I'm being unclear. I'm trying to determine if we need to tag "Brothers at War" articles separately from ACW articles, or if we can use the same tag for both. In other words, are there any ACW articles that are not part of "Brothers at War"? If the answer is yes, then we'll need to create a new tag specific to "Brothers at War" if we want to generate statistics automatically. If the answer is no, then we can use the existing tags/categories for ACW to generate the statistics. Does that make sense? Kirill [talk] 05:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
My contribution is going to be in image restoration. To start off: Quaker Guns and the Battle of Franklin. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 01:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Work continues. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 09:48, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Can a comprehensive list of credible and/or recommended resources be added to the project page at all? As it stands, at my "desk" I have the Illustrated History of the Civil War collection of [three] books by Time-Life Books. -- Vami _IV✠ 13:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Guys, as you would've gathered if you've got this far, I've created a basic subpage for this drive, based on the Normandy special project, and copied the initial discussion on this from the ACW TF talk page. While I'll probably not actively participate in article improvement myself, I'm happy to act for now at least as a moderator and be involved in discussions and administrative stuff. Cheers, Ian Rose ( talk) 14:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
With the Civil War sesquicentenial coming up, maybe we could organize a drive similar to the WWI task force's centenary drive. Wild Wolf ( talk) 19:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Seems to me, our first step in this "Operation" would be to develop a list of articles to promote to FA. The Normandy project has designated 40 articles. Something in that range sounds about right to me. I think the challenge will be selecting which people and places to highlight. With hundreds upon hundreds of notable leaders, battles, political issues swirling around this topic, I think we're going to have to stick to the mainstream, best-known subjects.
So, a suggestion: we develop (and hash it out here) a list of, say, the top 20 battles, the top 10 Confederate leaders, the top 10 Union leaders and the top 10 political/cultural topics pertaining to the war? Just a thought. I realize this exercise, in and of itself, will be difficult to agree upon. But I think we should give it a shot. What would your top battles/leaders be?
- LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 18:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Hope you don't mind, Bushranger, but I'm moving your suggestion from the project page to this discussion page. I think we should reserve the project page for articles that have definitely been agreed upon. On April 28, The Bushranger suggested we include the Battle of Natural Bridge as a priority article. Historical Perspective ( talk) 20:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I suggest the following battles be included in our scope. I've tried to give roughly equal attention to the years (although '61 and '65 are difficult) and also eastern and western theaters. I'd be interested to hear additional suggestions/thoughts.
Historical Perspective ( talk) 11:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
On a slightly tangential note, I'm assuming that—given that this drive will last several years—the plan here is to turn this into a MILHIST special project, similar to the WWI centenary drive? If that's the case, we ought to come up with an operational codename for it, so that we can keep a consistent naming with the other special projects. Any suggestions for one would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I can think of two at the moment:
The former refers to a nickname for the confederate flag, while the later refers to the departure of the states in the south, symbolized by the stars on the American flag, to create a new country. Both are just suggestions at this point, but I submit them for consideration. TomStar81 ( Talk) 19:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Are any of those decent ideas? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 20:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe that we should adopt an official Userbox for the project as that seems to be one the staples of many well established, active Wikiprojects. Though I must confess whether that is the is a cause or more likely just a symptom of said status is up for debate. That aside having something such as a userbox would go towards convincing potential editors that the project is a serious endeavor in which they would not be laboring alone. Towards that end I went ahead and designed a placeholder userbox for the time being.
![]() | This user is a member of the American Civil War Sesquicentennial Project. |
![]() |
Alright, yeah I know its painfully rudimentary, I too have eyeballs. This is just for illustrative purposes at the momement. I figure that if others agree with me that this is a worthwhile thing to pursue, we might go on over the WikiProject Userboxes and see if someone over there is willing to design one that isn't as ...bad. What do you others think? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 06:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's your userbox - hope you guys like it! Tell me if you have any problems with it and I'll be happy to fix them. I have also made a much more bland version here - if you prefer it, just tell me and I'll switch it over. Forenti talk 09:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC) {{ User:Forenti/Userboxes/ACWSProject}}
![]() ![]() | This user is a member of Operation Brothers at War, a special project of WikiProject Military history. |
Here are my suggestions for articles to cover:
Union Generals | Confederate Generals | Land Battles | Naval Battles | Technological Aspects of the War | Causes of the War | Results of the War | Political Aspects of the War | Notable Politicians | Miscellaneous Aspects of the War |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ulysses S. Grant | Robert E. Lee | Battle of Gettysburg | Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack | Minie Ball | Kansas Nebraska Act | Freedman's Bureau | Anaconda Plan | Abraham Lincoln | |
William T. Sherman | Stonewall Jackson | Battle of Antietam | Battle of Mobile Bay | Ironclads | Jefferson Davis | ||||
George Meade | James Longstreet | Battle of Vicksburg | Second Battle of Sabine Pass | Salmon P. Chase | |||||
Winfield Scott Hancock | J.E.B. Stuart | Battle of Shiloh | Battle of Fort Sumter | Alexander H. Stephens | |||||
Ambrose Burnside | A.P. Hill | First Battle of Manassas | Second Battle of Fort Wagner | William Seward | |||||
George B. McClellan | Joseph E. Johnston | Battle of Fredericksburg | Judah P. Benjamin | ||||||
Joseph Hooker | Nathan Bedford Forrest | Battle of Chancellorsville | |||||||
John Buford | George Pickett | Chattanooga Campaign |
LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 21:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we would be remiss is we didn't include a few female leaders. It would provide a better picture of the war as a whole. On the Union side, I'm thinking Dorothea Dix or Clara Barton. I confess I'm not as up to speed regarding women in the Confederacy. Any suggestions? Historical Perspective ( talk) 11:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Here's a test for the group. A major obstacle to ever having this article reach Featured status is the section on "Causes of secession". Besides the contoversial nature of the issue itself, the article is long and probably needs to be cut someplace. Since this is subject at the moment to a serious debate, why don't y'all weigh in and see what you can do. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 00:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it is premature at this moment to act upon this suggestion, but I believe that is not too early to at least get this idea out their and stir up some discussion on the issue. But I think that we as a project should instate some manner of service award along the lines of Wikipedia's Service Awards. I think that if we were able to slap a offer up on the Wikipedia:Reward board we would get some more traffic on the project page and potentially some more participation in the project.Any thoughts from others? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 22:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Alright I threw some more Generals and such up on the main page. I know that we should typically try to come to a consensus about targeting an article for efforts, but I also think that some of these are givens. (I mean if we could not come to a consensus as to whether Ulysses S. Grant was important enough to target, then we shouldn't be working on these articles as we would be grossly underqualified.) But with the Grant article, he is important enough that we have to work on him. But with his political career and his early life thrown in the mix that would take up some effort that might be better spent elsewhere. So what does everyone think about undertaking a second page exclusively on Grant's military career or in Civil War service? LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 05:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I think that the inclusion of Generals, while now a problematic issue as we have no clear policy as to when those articles are to be targeted for Featured Article, actually gives this project a needed degree of flexibility. If an article on a specific battle is not ready in time for its 150th Aniversary, we as project could put an article on a General who was prominent in the course of a given battle. Say for instance, if the article of the Battle of Fredericksburg was not a Featured article by December 13, 2012, but the article on Ambrose Burnside was Featured article class by that date, it could be called a victory as long an editor involved in the project was responsible for raising the quality of the article in question. LeonidasSpartan ( talk) 00:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering about adding the following battles to the project:
Bios:
Also, for the general topics, the Eastern Theater and Western Theater articles could be added. Wild Wolf ( talk) 19:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I just added my name to help contribute and noticed that the Second Battle of Bull Run wasan't on the list. I'm just curious as to why that is.-- Samurai262 ( talk) 00:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Also I can Create a Civil War Time Line if you guys want.-- Samurai262 ( talk) 00:31, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, folks, I gave Fort Sumter the old college try. But too little too late, I'm afraid. There was no interest in my peer review request and only one reviewer commented on it at FAC. Too bad. I do think the article is worth promotion to FA (I can say this unabashedly because I did not write it). If there had been constructive criticism to work with, that would have been one thing...but, given the lack of interest and the lack of time, I think I'm going to throw in the towel on this one. Perhaps we might have more success with other articles with a longer lead time. Sorry for the fail, folks. It was worth a shot. Historical Perspective ( talk) 23:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
The article on the USS New Ironsides, an ironclad that saw action at Ft. Fisher and Charleston is a featured article candidate. Feel free to drop by and review the article to see if it meets the FAC criteria.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 04:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Posting a brief note here to alert anyone watching this page of the discussion I've started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Special projects, regarding the special projects in general. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Portal:American Civil War has been heavily updated, by myself, due to a considerable lack of manual effort to maintain the portal; I have improved the automated rotation of the boxes on the portal, as well as a few tweaks to the appearance and layout - needs a little more work, but for now it should probably be able to retain its "Featured portal" status and keep running okay. Ma®©usBritish [ Chat • RFF 15:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I've also take the opportunity to update Template:American Civil War with links to the portal, task force and special project, to maximise attention for American Civil War articles on MilHist. Ma®©usBritish [ Chat • RFF 15:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Might I suggest adding the following articles?
Battles/Incidents:
Naval Battles/Incidents:
I'd be willing to contribute to these, particularly Mosby, Spotsylvania Court House, or either Naval battles listed. Cheers, Zaldax ( talk) 17:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
So, first off, I will state that this article isn't something that will be 150 years old in the coming years. In fact, the 1913 Gettysburg reunion will only be 100 years old next July. That being said, since the scope of this drive is to include Civil War-related articles, I figured some people might be interested in improving it with the goal of having it as a Featured Article next July. I would be willing to help if anyone wants me to, but I figured I might as well get the ball rolling on this idea. Kevin Rutherford ( talk) 19:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that this project seems to have stalled a bit, with very few (if any) articles reaching FA class. I've changed the project page a bit, arranging the engagements in chronological order and seperating the articles into two sections, depending on if they are past their anniversary date. I also hid the inactive users in the contributors sections (similar to what has been done to the task force pages). I'm also wondering if the previous sections on this talk page should be archived.
Looking ahead for the future anniversaries, any ideas on how to get anyone to start improving these articles to FA status? I haven't noticed any GA, A-class, or FA class reviews started for these (or any other ACW) articles other than the ones I've started (and the ones I started have failed). We probably need some way to encourage more active partitipation in this project. LeonidasSpartan suggested some kind of service medal in this section.
Anyone else have any comments? Wild Wolf ( talk) 18:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
To whom it may concern,
I have asked Nick-D if a "progress bar" for WikiProject Military history/Operation Brothers at War could be set up in relation to the progress of "B class" articles set at 1,000 articles. It would be appreciated if someone who has the knowledge to do this could set it up. Adamdaley ( talk) 06:24, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Okay, maybe I'm being unclear. I'm trying to determine if we need to tag "Brothers at War" articles separately from ACW articles, or if we can use the same tag for both. In other words, are there any ACW articles that are not part of "Brothers at War"? If the answer is yes, then we'll need to create a new tag specific to "Brothers at War" if we want to generate statistics automatically. If the answer is no, then we can use the existing tags/categories for ACW to generate the statistics. Does that make sense? Kirill [talk] 05:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
My contribution is going to be in image restoration. To start off: Quaker Guns and the Battle of Franklin. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 01:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Work continues. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 09:48, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Can a comprehensive list of credible and/or recommended resources be added to the project page at all? As it stands, at my "desk" I have the Illustrated History of the Civil War collection of [three] books by Time-Life Books. -- Vami _IV✠ 13:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)