User talk:Accedie/Archive 1

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Hello, Accedie, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:45, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

List of Confederate Generals; background and suggestion

Hi Accedie: In view of your real job, it seems strange to welcome you to Wikipedia but I noticed you have recently started editing so I will welcome you to that part of the project. I have perhaps not been around long enough, or not a polished enough Wikipedia editor, to give advice or suggestions but I would like to suggest that you use phrases for the most part in adding to the notes on the lists of Civil War generals. I think the overall length of your additions is appropriate but I think we can add a little more, or keep a note briefer, if we do not try to use polished sentences. As I note below, someone higher in the hierarchy, or perhaps even an officious bot, may think the notes we have started adding to the article are too long and that can be aggravating or even interfere with the completion of the article as it is now structured. Since all, or almost all, the generals are the subject of articles, I suppose there may be some point in just linking to the articles but this article was started with notes long before I joined the project, I think high points of the officers' careers in one place is helpful and in fact I have seen brief notes on people or other items in some other lists of a similar nature on Wikipedia. So I am all for the notes that hit the high points, not so much for including a lot of info about brothers-in-laws and the like.

From the history of the original list, as there was just one until recently, it is clear the topic was worked on by a several people over the years but was never finished as they moved on to other work or other pursuits. In fact, when I began to work on it last summer, despite the age of the article, some of the ranks were not even filled in and a few were wrong. So even though there may be a few people (including me) who still might, or would, contribute to this article over time, no one seems to be giving it a top priority again. I add a few notes from time to time and a few others have taken at most minor interest. It may not be necessary for anyone to work on it exclusively or rapidly, but at the rate it is going, we will be lucky to have a complete list with notes in the article by the end of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. So you can advance this.

As I proceeded to try to complete the list last summer, another editor who had been adding brevet Union generals to the list renewed his (I assume) interest which had been dormant for several months and objected to removing these officers from the list. I do not consider them "real" generals and think they should be excluded from this list and put in a separate list. I have one prepared, in fact, but I do not want to post it until I have all columns complete. In any event, I acceded to keeping them in the absence of a list for them. As we added to the single article's list, and I wrote an introduction, which is perhaps still in need of some editing, bots, if not humans, began to post notices that the article might be too long and perhaps should be split. So we split it three ways: an introduction in a separate article and two lists of generals. By the way, I also do not agree with the addition of "might have beens" at the end of the Confederate generals article but I am not prepared to get into a debate about that part of the list, at least right now. The articles with the two lists now have been growing, albeit slowly.

My practice in using phrases to hit the highlights of a general's career and my concern in suggesting this to you is that if the article gets too long again (in terms of kilobytes), further flags will go up. I noticed that the table structure adds quite a few kilobytes but I am not sure how the table lines could be deleted and the readability, if not the character, of the article maintained. That would cut the number of kilobytes dramatically but again, I do not see how an orderly list could be produced without the table lines. I know it is hard to write in phrases and not in sentences, but I have been doing that here in order to add detail but keep down the kilobytes. After awhile, I found it not so strange in a note column like this.

I have begun to add additional sources to the footnotes accompanying each note. Between that and diverting my attention to other articles as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches, I too have given little recent attention to the list. In-line citations in a list of disparate items can be tricky as one tries to provide citations as Wikipedia guidelines state but avoid some issues that using many citations might raise. In any event, I had intended to add multiple sources when the article was finished but I now think that adding them as additions are made is probably better. Reliance of a single source, even on an interim basis, is poor practice, at least, and can raise issues best avoided. I now that it can take more time dealing with them than it does being more complete at the outset. I think the notes and references also add more kilobytes than ordinary text but there is little way around adding them under the guidelines - as near as I can tell.

Take these comments for whatever they appear to be worth. I hope they are more helpful than aggravating. I have found that working on long lists can be both satisfying and frustrating so I hope you will find your contributions to it satisfying. Meanwhile, I will likely be devoting more attention to articles on some of the lesser battles and personalities which are now the subject of stubs, or in a few cases, no articles at all. The larger battles and most important personalities either have good articles about them already or are being looked at by a few of the more accomplished editors on Civil War topics. While I hesitate to hold myself up as any kind of authority on Wikipedia editing, I can probably answer some questions, especially about the history of the generals' lists articles, or at least refer you to a few of the "senior" editors who have worked out some of the big Civil War articles and are still contributing to Wikipedia. There may be others but I have come across a few who really know quite a lot about writing for Wikipedia and about the Civil War. Each of them would acknowledge, I think, that it will take more people working on these articles to get them all up to where we would like them in anything like the next few years.

By the way, you may have better ideas or be more skilled at this than I am. I am just a relative newcomer who may not be a very smooth editor. Indeed, perhaps a more polished approach would be better in these notes and would not excite humans or bots to expound about excess kilobytes. If so, don't hesitate to be bold as the Wikipedia advice states. Donner60 (talk) 09:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Donner60, and thank you for the welcome! I really do feel like I've stumbled into a completely new world, and it's nice to receive my first bit of editor-to-editor interaction, especially since it's positive and constructive, not shouty or bitey :)

I'm glad you're thinking so carefully through various approaches to this list. In true newbie fashion, I blundered right in without giving a second thought to who else might be working on it. Perhaps my own approach might be better elucidated by explaining why I started editing this particular topic in the first place (warning: somewhat embarrassing anecdote ahead): since college (in New Orleans), I've had a habit of naming all my two-wheeled vehicles after Civil War generals. Having recently acquired a new bike and run out of recognizable names, I poked around Wikipedia for something catchy. I wasn't willing to spend the whole day researching people one by one, so I was thrilled to see a long list of all the generals and accompanying, easily skimmable mini-bios. But it's a real shame that this lovely system breaks down as soon as you get down to the Cs. I think we can and should add bios to the list to help other history dilettantes like myself, who might want a general overview of these... err, very colorful characters, but don't have the time to read through all 30459304958045 articles. But I'm inclined to say that the notes should be kept short, punchy, and perhaps even reference-free, since their purpose is more indexical than authoritative. But of course that's entirely up for debate, and the modifications you made to Cleburn really do make his entry look a whole lot better.

Is there a Civil War Wikiproject -- and, if not, could we start one? Enlisting (ha, war pun) just a few more editors could make short work of this somewhat Herculean task, and I'm surprised there's not more interest in the topic beyond the "few senior editors" you mentioned! Where are all the Civil-War-reenactors-cum-Wikipedians? --Accedie (talk) 15:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You might find Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/American Civil War task force interesting... -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I hope to be positive, while realizing that my experience and knowledge may be of some use on the one had, but is really limited on the other hand. I know from e-mail communications, which this is in substance, one can appear to be confrontational or can be misunderstood while having no such intention. Everyone is a volunteer here and, unfortunately I cannot honestly say everyone because of vandals and people with offbeat agendas, but almost everyone, is in good faith, wants to be cooperative and wants to improve Wikipedia. With anything in which people invest a lot of time and effort, and have some strong views, some aggressive points of view can be pressed with some vigor - leading to bad feelings, actually less cooperation and perhaps in people giving up on the project. As it seems to me.

There is an American Civil War task force at the link indicated by FisherQueen. Sixty names are on the list of participants - but not FisherQueen or me or several others who work on Civil War articles. I suppose I did not put my name on the list because I was, and still am, rather new and did not know whether I would be a big contributor. I think people work on whatever interests them so I do not think there is a possibility of being asked to work on something you really are not interested in. The task force identified some tasks to be done and someone may change the page from time to time. In a moment of curiosity several months ago, I checked the contributions of the approximately 60 names at the list. I do not think they have changed much since then. I think only about 10 to 15 of these people are really active Civil War articles. Many show their interest in parentheses and I found that they indeed limited their participation to these narrower topics. In some cases, they have only worked on a few articles within those narrower topics. Others are no longer active. Some never did much work on Civil War articles but actually worked on other topics.

Scott Mingus is an accomplished author of Civil War books - and video games. I think he contributes regularly, but on a reduced basis, probably because he is writing additional books and also has a Civil War web site devoted to the Siege of Petersburg.

One of the senior editors I had in mind is User:RJensen. Dr. Richard Jensen is a retired history professor and author. He is quite knowledgeable and helpful but his interests run across all eras of American history so he does not limit his contributions or comments just to Civil War articles. Another is Hal Jespersen, User:Hjk. He is also recently retired. He is a very accomplished computer map maker, a very good writer and has a great interest in the Civil War. Others are known only by their screen names.

Since no one "owns" a Wikipedia article and anyone can edit one, I think a task force can only do so much. I think that it would be helpful to know if someone is working hard and has done quite a bit on an article offline so that people do not repeat the work. On the other hand, people might not like someone claiming an article or being assigned one. One can see from the history pages whether someone is working rather comprehensively on an article and either work with them or add nonconflicting text that aids the article. Of course, number of edits may not show whether someone is working hard on the substance if their contributions are several rather small additions or corrections, of course. Main contributors, shown by their contribution in kilobytes, usually, may not care about further edits or may have moved on. On the other hand, they may be content with more recent changes and although they may be watching the article, they may not make further changes or comments. I guess what I am trying to say is that articles have different histories and they often, but not always, can show who is working on an article or who is interested in the substance. That is a little far afield from the task force but it may show why some people would not bother with it.

There are now quite a few articles on the Civil War on Wikipedia but there is not an article for every person or minor battle, some of whom or of which are notable and interesting. Also, many of the articles are stubs or incomplete start class articles that need to be filled out. There is indeed a lot to be done even if there are a lot of articles and many major topics now have good coverage.

Please do not let this discourage you from contacting the task force. The leaders may still be active and they may be glad to have a new recruit. Who knows, with some new people and updated information on the task force page(s), perhaps it could take off in the way you suggest. Again, I am just trying to provide you with a little information based on my limited experience or poking around Wikipedia pages.

If you will scroll down the list of Confederate generals, you will see that there are notes for the generals with last names starting with the letters T through Z. I did those first because I thought that most people will always start with A and I would give those with names later in the alphabet some sort of equal opportunity. I believe my thought process is not often unusual but perhaps that was. Nonetheless, it takes some time to gather the information, cut it down to a few lines and type in the source so T through Z and A through much of C was as far as I got. I have added a few here and there, mainly to have the boxes for various letters extend to the end of the page. Another quirk but I think the page looks better if the table lines are uniform. So maybe your quirk of naming vehicles after Civil War generals is not that much of a quirk. Other notes scattered about were added by other people. Most of these do not have sources and I suppose I figured I would add them later. Cleburne caught my attention because of his prominence. I changed the note some in part to show you my approach in an item in which you had taken a little different approach for comparison. I think that the main thing is to keep these notes shorts or criticism may arise.

I also am surprised there is not more interest in Civil War articles but I suppose that some people might only be interested in the big battles and big name generals. Others are interested in narrow topics as the notes on the task force page show. Some articles have become the subject of contention. Some people may be held back by the need to add code to their writing and the somewhat conflicting guidelines on citations and sources. I am sure that those who drew up or administer these guidelines do not think they are conflicting but I have found that in practice they can be interpreted as such, especially in articles such as lists.

Your feeling on the usefulness of the list is the same as mine, which is why I started working on it and why I think it is good to have a few highlights on each general in the same place. I know that it is possible others might think that notes simply duplicate information from an article and if the name is linked, readers can go to the article. I would rather not have that debate and that is why I would like to keep the kilobytes as low as possible. On the other hand, as I mentioned, the largest number of kilobytes is used on the table structure, but I do not any good way to do away with that without producing a jumble of words or hard to follow entries.

In any event, I did want to encourage you to add to the article(s) while at the same time telling you some of the history of the articles and what I sense about them and their future. I may make some additions but I have been writing additions to a number of other articles and want to keep up with revisions to some of the neglected articles that are only stubs as we reached the 150th anniversary of the events. I also have my brevet general list offline. So if you can complete the notes, or most of them, I am glad that someone has the interest. Donner60 (talk) 02:24, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

150th anniversary!! I didn't even think about that! That's exciting — and all the more reason to bring these articles up to snuff. I'm going to go poke around in the Civil War task force list and see if I can't drum up some extra enthusiasm that might spill over to the less frequently edited articles.

I added a few more notes... please take a look when you have a moment (e.g., the Cocke and Cockrell entries) and let me know if that seems better. You keep mentioning that you haven't been around long, but you've been editing for almost a year! (I checked.) I defer to your veteran wisdom. --Accedie (talk) 06:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Generals lists

Greetings and a welcome are in order, I suppose. I noticed that your to-do list includes the Union and Confederate Generals listings; you'll also notice that in the case of the Union list, the "A" section is formatted differently; I will be (very) gradually changing each section to that format, and will do my best to preserve any notes you add in the process. If I inadvertently drop any, just let me know.
IcarusPhoenix (talk) 04:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! I'll take a look at how you did the "A"s and format accordingly. If I ever make it over to the Union side, that is :) --Accedie (talk) 05:24, 9 April 2011 (UTC)