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Floating a drive proposal

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Strategy#Backlog reduction drive. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Question about archive linking after talk page consolidation

If anyone hasn't seen it, a question about links to the task force discussion archives has been brought up at WT:MILHIST#Consolidation of talk pages; any suggestions for a neat way to deal with this would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

On a related note, it seems that the archive box's auto-listing only works for archives up to #100; we're currently archiving the main talk page to #99, so we're going to switch over to a manual listing fairly soon anyways. Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Can/should we contact the archive bot owner? It seems like a trivial modification... @task force archives, should we organize them on a central page and just link that in the nav template? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
The bot will handle it just fine; it's {{archive}} that can't display them automatically. I think the issue is due to template limits on the server, so it's not something we can directly fix. Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Task force restructuring

We've reached the point on our task force restructuring where we need to begin contacting other projects about task forces that are considered part of MILHIST but are held under other projects' space. These can be noted by looking at the table created by Kirill above - those marked with "not sure" are the projects we need to contact. Here is a proposed text for contacting these projects:

Greetings from the Military History WikiProject! In recent months, we have been working on transfering our project task forces into a standardized style, in order to make them more readable and user friendly, especially for new editors. We have also been redirecting the talk pages of those task forces to our main project talk page. The latter is partially because many of the posts on the task force pages are duplicates of those on the main talk page. It is also partially because the main talk page has many more watchers than the individual task force pages, and so discussions will have more input and queries will be less likely to become "lost" or otherwise go unanswered. You can see a sample of the new style and the talk page redirection at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific military history task force or many of our other task forces. We would like to do the same to [insert task force name here]. However, as this is located at [enter location], which is part of this project's space, we would like to make sure there is no objection to us changing the style or redirecting the talk page. We would also be willing to move the task force into our project's space, with a redirect from your project's space, if that is preferable. [signature], on behalf of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject.

Please feel free to tweak, add, delete or otherwise change as you see fit. Once we have this where we like it, it needs to be posted to the main talk page of the half dozen or so projects affected and any resulting discussion monitored. Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 03:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you and Kirill for putting so much effort into this. I think the boilerplate is great as-is. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
What Ed said - thank you both very much, and that looks great. EyeSerenetalk 18:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I have posted the above message on the talk pages of the four projects that host portions of the MILHIST task force structure. If a few of you could watchlist the project talk pages (they are the ones marked as "not sure" in the table near the top of this page) and help with any resulting discussion it would be much appreciated. Thanks! Dana boomer (talk) 22:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
For reference, the four threads are:
So far, no objections have been raised; I suppose we'll let things run another week or two and go from there. Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:13, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we can proceed with this now. None of the other projects has raised objections; comments at the Film and Middle Ages projects suggested moving the TF pages into our space, although I'm not sure how strongly anyone there feels about the matter. Thoughts on how we should move forward? Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Task force Page restructured Talk page redirected Notes
Korean military history  Done  Done
Military biography  Done  Done
War films  Done  Done Open to moving page to location within MILHIST -  Done
Crusades  Done  Done Open to moving page to location within MILHIST -  Done

Great work! Thanks to all those who made this happen; sorry I wasn't much help. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:13, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

World War II article

Following the completion of the recent arbitration case (decision here for those who haven't seen; all findings concerned Communicat (talk · contribs) who has since stated that he or she intends to leave Wikipedia in protest), I'm planning to reduce my involvement in the World War II article as it's been eating up a lot of my editing time. I became involved in this article during my time as a coordinator, and I think that it's important that some of this project's coordinators continue to keep a watching brief on it as for some reason it's a magnet for POV pushers and cranks. On the flip side, it can be a really fun article to work on - due to its very high profile and need to maintain it at GA standard its regular editors are very collegial and knowledgeable. Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I've just taken a coupla' dozen pages off my watchlist recently so I guess I can afford to add this one... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
IMO, the coordinators assigned to the WWII task force would be watching the page for the very reasons Nick-D outlined above; we need a sentry minding the material there if only to ensure that everyone remains civil with regards to the information present. I've no reservations about helping, though at the moment I am somewhat involved with the updating of the Iowa class battleship articles. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I've added it to my watchlist as well. Nick, thanks for keeping a watch on it for so long! Dana boomer (talk) 12:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. I should have also acknowledged Kirill and Tom's important contributions to the arbitration case in my original post. Nick-D (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

This would be a really good time for uninvolved editors to keep an eye on the article and it's talk page - there's been a sudden influx of editors involved with some of the Eastern European arbitration cases, all discussing Eastern Europe. I can't see any problems so far, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Nick-D (talk) 07:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Question

Would it be possible to create a template similar to {{Cent}} that could list the ongoing SST discussions and other large scale discussions that relate to the project? I know we have the main milhist page which lists open tasks and to a lesser extent general discussions, but it seems to me that the SST discussions are getting low participation, and I think if we had a template like the milhist review alerts one that people could park in their userspace that listed these matters we could get some additional feedback in these matters. As a bonus, we could list major discussions of note in such a template as well (such as the proposed drive) to get people's attention. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. I'd imagine something like that would also be very helpful in tracking and coordinating discussions across the project. EyeSerenetalk 15:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that using a template would be the best approach; recall that we were originally listing such items in {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}, but moved them directly onto the top of WT:MILHIST to take advantage of the higher watchlist presence of that page. Perhaps we simply need to be more thorough in adding links there when we start new strategy discussions? Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Speaking purely for myself, I'd find something like the very compact version of {{cent}} useful; the only real reason I don't use use {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} is due to the space it takes up (which was of course greater when we included discussions as well). I think you're right that we should be more thorough in updating the notice at the top of WT:MILHIST, and perhaps using a template would also help with that. The template would be available for those that want it in their userspace and could also be displayed at the top of WT:MILHIST. Having more eyes on the discussion links via wherever the template is transcluded, it would hopefully be more likely to get timely updates. EyeSerenetalk 10:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
That makes sense. In terms of size, are you thinking of something like {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}}? Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
For my user space that would be ideal. I guess others might want something more substantial though and we might for WT:MILHIST too. Can we have user-defined size parameters? EyeSerenetalk 17:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Let me play with it a bit and see what I can do. Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Discussion alerts

Okay, I think I may have something workable here:

I'd appreciate any comments on either the overall approach or the specifics of the technical setup, as well as help with testing all of this to make sure it works as expected. Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

So, has anyone had a chance to try this out yet? Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I've been adding material to the groundhog day blizzard article rather religiously the last few days, so I've only just noticed this now. I think its awesome; I've already placed it in my user space, and I'm looking forward to making use of it in the future. I'd suggest we mention this in the January Newsletter (which, incidentally, should be moving out soon) to spread the word faster. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
I've added a link to the template to the navigation box; we should probably mention it in the upcoming Bugle issue as well.
(More to the point, we should probably add some links to actual discussions there, although I'm not sure what's pressing at the moment. I'll try to go over the things remaining on the strategy talk page sometime in the next few days; most of them can probably be archived at this point, and some new discussions started from the idea list.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:18, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
It all looks great to me. Thanks Kirill! EyeSerenetalk 15:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Placement of portal icons

Does anyone care which endsection the portal link is in when there's no "See also" section? WP:LAYOUT and WP:PORTAL only say it should be in the "See also" section, and don't say what to do when there isn't one. If there's no such section, Sandy has objected for years at FAC if the portal link isn't in the top endsection. I'll keep an eye on this if no one cares. - Dank (push to talk) 02:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. 4 FAC promotions tonight, good job everyone. - Dank (push to talk) 02:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
I tend to put it in with external links, but I don't think I've ever had a reason for that beyond "it's where the Commons box goes, too". It's certainly not something I've encountered strong opinions on! Shimgray | talk | 03:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
Sandy believes that it goes in the Notes section, though there's nothing in the MOS that specifies exactly where if there's no "see also" section. Personally, I prefer the external links or bibliography sections as those usually have lots of space on the right side.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Funny you would bring this up because I made mention of this (and other portal matters) and my suggestions on some the problematic elements of the current portal scheme a full month ago and at the time no one seemed all that interested in the matter. Despite moving the discussion to the strategy center and leaving a link here where the thread originated the only reply I got was from Kirill. Just some food for thought. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Tom, I must have missed that discussion. Dank: no preference from me, but I suppose if there is no See also section, that it should be placed at the top of the Notes/References section. Maybe we should add something to WP:MILMOS? AustralianRupert (talk) 12:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
My credo: whatever is less work for me is the right decision :) - Dank (push to talk) 15:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
That's one to live by, especially on WP... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Copy editors

I'm hoping to get more copy editors involved in our A-class review. That's why I'm referring to specific sections of the checklist after some of my comments ... it's code for "I think it's reasonable to ask you to do better with this in the future ... there are only (currently) 11 points in the checklist, and they're not trivial to learn but they're not that hard either." In theory, I'll start opposing if I don't see improvement over time, not to enshrine myself as the Big Daddy of A-class review, but to even out the workload and make A-class a more attractive place for competent copy editors to work. The checklist is aimed at those things that are either hard for a copy editor to fix without your input (WP:MHCL#clarity, WP:MHCL#conciseness) or tedious to fix (for example, simple comma errors repeated many times in the same article, or using different names for the same thing throughout an article). If I leave a note on the A-class page but don't follow it with a checklist point, I'm making a judgment call that that's not something copy editors will expect you to know, I'm just giving my rationale in case I'm wrong and in case writers or copy editors want to discuss the point. - Dank (push to talk) 17:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Dank. This seems fine to me, although I do have one possible concern. "Conciseness" seems subjective to me. I guess what I'm saying here is at what point does this become a question of writing styles? For instance, some writers use more words than others to say the same thing. If that is their natural style, then when they proof read their own work they are not really going to see the issue. It would only be when it is on review that it might become apparent to them when specific examples are pointed out. Additionally, even during the review, it may not be readily apparent to a writer why their words are being changed. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
When some Wikipedians say "conciseness", they're talking about using 2 words instead of 3 ... that's not what I'm talking about. There are at least 4 writers whose paragraphs I've cut down by half or more, without losing any information that I could tell. One of the big differences between spoken and written language is that the words are gone once they're spoken, so we tend to throw in extra words to make sure that the listener gets what we're saying, and we carry that habit over to written language. But a lot of extra words with no extra meaning in formal writing isn't just inefficient, it's actually confusing; since good writers don't usually repeat themselves for no reason, some readers ... and some copy editors ... start wondering if the extra words actually mean something subtly different, and they have to work harder to make sense of the paragraph. And this isn't usually a difficult a problem to solve ... if your first sentence repeats your second sentence except for just a few words, then delete the first sentence and move the few words to the second sentence. - Dank (push to talk) 22:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
A little more, because this is more important than a lot of writers realize. I'm currently copyediting an article that mentions the Einstein–Szilárd letter, the letter that warned FDR that Nazi Germany might develop nuclear weapons, and encouraged funding for what became the Manhattan Project. Interestingly, the letter wasn't delivered to FDR for more than two months after Einstein signed it. I don't know why; the letter should have sounded like a high-priority message even then. Perhaps it's because the letter wasn't concise ... it repeated itself several times with different shades of meaning each time, leaving the reader to wonder whether the writers had thought through what they were saying. - Dank (push to talk) 22:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
All fair points, of course, but I suppose my main concern is that many writers are too close to their work to see conciseness issues unless they are specifically highlighted. As such, I think we should be careful in opposing a promotion on this basis alone without pointing out specifically where the issues are. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
I can do that. - Dank (push to talk) 00:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well ... just like that, we've got a test case; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Manhattan Project. Consider this a request for dispute resolution. This may be the age-old non-American-English vs. AmEng thing ... I need to give a little background here. In the 1970s, any American writer who carefully followed style guides of the time wasn't taken seriously; it was understood that in order to be hip, you had to break the rules, and break them well. That was the culture, and the style guides were also to blame ... like many products of academia, they were stuffy and out of touch. And of course, American English itself was hopelessly fragmented; different writers wrote for completely different reasons for completely different readerships. I don't recall that anyone at the time expected any of this to change, and my sense is that all of that is still true to some extent for BritEng style guides. But over time, a miracle happened ... publishers, copy editors and writers largely decided to start valuing conformity over individualism, in the interest of "sounding professional". Stuffy academics were ignored. And style guides in general, and in particular Chicago, got much, much better at describing the language as it's actually written by professionals. There are still specific style guides for specific purposes, but 99% of what's in the latest edition of Chicago isn't being actively opposed by anyone in the industry (that I can see from a quick tour of relevant blogs) ... in fact, they're all purring over it, even writers who are required to follow a different style guide.

I've seen this cultural divide on Wikipedia for years, including in our style guidelines themselves. AmEng writers, on average, tend to be more positive on the idea that we can and should just look things up or sample sources and figure it out. NonAmEng (I don't want to single the Brits out here) editors are more likely to shout, "Ignore the fussy copy editors! Do whatever looks good to you!" NonAmEng editors are also the ones who are more likely to believe that we can make it work if our style guidelines are different than current American style guides; Americans who have some professional experience are more likely to believe that most style issues are more or less settled and Wikipedians aren't in a position to change them. - Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Dank, what is the crux of this situation? From your point of view what is it that you would like to see happen here? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Top on my wish list is to maintain standards for our A-class articles that reach FAC. FAC reviewers, like pretty much everyone, don't want to get surprised or bogged down in their volunteer work. If they are consistently happy with our A-class articles, it makes it much more likely that we'll always have enough FAC reviewers to pass FAC.
One option here might be for me not to review Hawkeye's articles at A-class. I started work on this one since it's AmEng, but Hawkeye is Australian, the article doesn't follow AmEng conventions, and he's reverted many of my edits. But if I don't work on his AmEng articles, the odds I'll be able to support them at FAC are slim. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to start opposing some of our articles at FAC, on the theory that putting a warning sign on the few MILHIST articles that might suck up copy editor time at FAC is almost as good (from the FAC reviewers' point of view, anyway) as never giving them troublesome articles to deal with. - Dank (push to talk) 05:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi, Dank, sorry for the late reply (I went out to watch the cricket). I think I understand where you are coming from. You are concerned that the promotion of articles from ACR with difficult prose might decrease the willingness of people to review at FAC when they arrive there. Ultimately, I think the only thing I can say here is that you have to stay true to yourself. If you don't think something is up to scratch, then you are perfectly within your rights to oppose either at A or FA (so long as it is criteria based). In regards to the Manhatten Project article, it is well passed its closing time (21 January), so I feel it should be listed for closing. If you still have concerns about the prose quality, I feel that you should oppose and then the closing co-ord can make a judgement call on whether it has the appropriate amount of support for promotion. Currently it seems to have two supports, two comments which may or may not have been addressed and your own comments which you are saying haven't been completely addressed. This probably doesn't constitute enough support for promotion (caveat here: I'm one of the supports, but as I've said before I have trouble with American English). In terms of possibly getting a successful outcome for the article, have you and Hawkeye had any interaction that indicates that there is some way to resolve the situation to your mutual satisfaction? If yes, then perhaps the issues might be solved by careful discussion the specific areas of concern in the open forum of the ACR (which could possibly be left open for a little bit longer, maybe another two days). If not, then I think you should probably state on the review that you don't feel it meets the criteria, and we can list it for closing by an uninvolved co-ord who will have to make a judgement call. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen that any shame was attached to failing at A-class; the nominator can always work on it a bit and then re-submit it. We need more time to explain the issues and give everyone a chance to weigh in, so I'm going to oppose this one, and the closer can make the call. - Dank (push to talk) 13:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

500 FA milestone

Since we've now reached (and immediately passed!) the 500 FA milestone mark, two questions occur to me:

  1. Other than the message on the project talk page, should we recognize this somehow (e.g. Bugle coverage, Signpost coverage, etc.)?
  2. What should the next milestone number for FAs be?

Comments would be appreciated! Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

There's something to be said for leaving the milestone at 500 for a little while, perhaps - let people admire the sight of an all-green bar and bask in their laurels for a bit! I'm not sure where we should put the next milestone, though; I can see the argument for gradual steps, and I can see the argument for leaping straight to a thousand. Hmm.
Looking at future milestones in general, we produced (=had reviewed) just under forty GAs in the last month; an average of about 1 1/4 a day. At that rate, we'll hit the 1500 GA mark in just under six months time... Shimgray | talk | 02:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I like Shimgray's idea of just letting it set for a while (a month? maybe through the March Madness contest?) and letting everyone "bask in their laurels". Then, why not 1,000? I don't think it makes the milestone quite as special if we only bump it up by a little each time. With the other milestones we have (GA, B, individual workgroup ones), there are plenty of other milestones to meet along the way to 1,000 FAs. And I think a Bugle article would be great, and signpost too, if we can get it in there. Dana boomer (talk) 03:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I think that the Signpost would definitely cover this, so it would be well worth dropping them a line. It's an important milestone, and the fact that it's already been exceeded is pretty significant as well. Nick-D (talk) 06:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed with Nick. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
A couple of numbers, while I remember - we now have 0.45% of all our articles at FA level. If we include FLs, of which we've another 85, the proportion becomes 0.53%. This compares to a project-wide average of 0.09% FAs and 0.14% FAs & FLs; in other words, a non-list MILHIST article is five times more likely to have been brought to FA level than one in a different field. (!) Our "total rated content", GA+A+FA+FL, is approximately 1.9% (I think this figure has avoided double-counting GA/A articles), compared to a project-wide average of 0.45% - again, it's about four times higher.
This isn't the highest of any project - the hurricanes project has 2% "rated content" - but it's pretty impressive when considering we're looking at a base of 110,000 articles! Shimgray | talk | 14:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Is there any way we can break down the 500+ FAs we have to see where they fall with regards to task forces and working groups and such? I'd bet that the highest percentage would either be World War II or Ships related articles, but my curiosity demands a more precise answer :) TomStar81 (Talk) 20:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure how meaningful the breakdown would be, given that most of the articles will be listed in multiple task forces, but the raw counts are in the tables here. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
(ec with Kirill) I think that the only way to get just FAs would be to go through the list one by one, because of the way we put all featured content under "FA-class" in the banner. However, for all featured content, the US milhist taskforce takes first place with 182 pieces, World War II is second with 180 and Maritime warfare is third with 174. They are followed by Military biographies (154 FA, 11 FL, split in banner due to partnership with Biography WP), British milhist(154), World War I (114), German milhist (84) and Australia/New Zealand (75). Obviously some are double or triple counted, but this gives you a good idea of where the majority of the work is being put (or has been put in the past). Perhaps this also gives us some idea of where we would like to focus mini-drives in the future? There are over a dozen taskforces that have less than 10 pieces of featured content, which is a huge difference from the powerhouse taskforces listed above. I realize this is mainly a feature of editor focus and we can't make anyone work where they don't want to, but it's food for thought... Dana boomer (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Agree with most of the above. However, as it's taken five years to get to 500 FAs I wonder if a lower milestone might be better for the next one - maybe we should ask the project?. Shimgray's analysis is interesting, though I agree with Dana that we are lacking in certain topic areas. Incidentally has anyone contacted the Signpost yet? EyeSerenetalk 15:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
750, perhaps? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

750 would be reasonable, I think; it's likely to take another year or two to reach that number, in any case.

Has anyone contacted the Signpost about this yet, incidentally? Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I haven't, sorry. I'm not exactly sure what is required. What needs to be done? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
I would assume that we'd need to post something at either Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions or Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/WikiProject desk (or both?), but quite honestly I'm not entirely certain what the current procedure for submitting a story idea might be. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I think it's the first one, as we're not going to write up a whole WikiProject report for it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I left them a note, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#WP:MILHIST's FAs Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost doesn't seem to have gone with this, which is unfortunate. In any case, as we're now setting up for the March drive, I've gone ahead and set the next FA target to 750 per the discussion above. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Cleaning up the old working groups

Since we're almost done with the task force restructuring work—the last four task forces are just waiting on comments from the other parent projects, at this point—I think we can now deal with the old working group system. We currently have 11 working groups, most of which are terminally inactive; I would propose that we deal with them as follows:

Working group Action to be taken Done?
Airborne warfare Absorb into aviation TF/WWII TF  Done
Battle of Jutland Move to incubator or absorb into WP:OMT  Done
Black projects Move to incubator  Done
Iraq War Absorb into US TF  Done
Italian Wars Move to incubator  Done
Japanese swords Absorb into Japanese TF  Done
Large cruiser classes Absorb into maritime TF  Done
Militias Absorb into US TF  Done
Napoleonic fiction Move to incubator  Done
Paraguay Absorb into South American TF  Done
Submarine Move to incubator  Done

Any comments on the overall approach or the individual proposals would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

"Airborne warfare" is almost entirely focused on WWII, so that might be a better home for it than aviation. Shimgray | talk | 11:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Jutland could be merged into the Majestic Titan project; the battle was principally between battleships and battlecruisers, and I think we would be in the best position to manage this working group. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I hadn't thought to merge that group, since it did seem to be at least minimally active; but if OMT would like to absorb it in some fashion, I don't think anyone would object. Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Agree with all the suggestions including Shimgray's and Tom's. Airborne warfare is a tricky one though :) EyeSerenetalk 12:27, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Gratz on finishing it up, Kirill. - Dank (push to talk) 02:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Encouraging editors from elsewhere

Hello, folks, I've not been around much recently, but hopefully my name will still look vaguely familiar to one or two of the coords. I recently raised an issue on the main WT:MILHIST, relating to problems at George S. Patton and the Battle of Cambrai (1917). Now it seems there are quite a few sources out there that say that Patton had some sort of involvement at Cambrai, though apaprently his own papers make no mention of this, and the most comprehensive biog is pretty clear he wasn't there. To some extent this kicked off as a "ha-ha look at hopeless Wikipedia and the rubbish in it" on various WWI related forums, and one member dived in to try and correct things (came across this via the Great War Forum). Now obviously he was inexperienced and made some fairly typical newbie mistakes, but I don't think the attitude of members here was particularly great. Now, a lot of the people on these forums are incredibly knowledgeable, and usually generous with that knowledge (and several are published authors in their own right). At the moment, most don't have a particularly high opinion of Wikipedia, and as a result of this episode are having those prejudices reinforced, but ti seems to me taht there's an opportunity to win some of these guys over by showing that the process can work, if you understand how it works, and given a bit of help and encouragement. David Underdown (talk) 21:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Notice of possible absence

I've just been informed that due to the incompetence of the El Paso Electric Company we are now in stage 2 mandatory water restrictions as a result of the blizzard that passed through. If the water service can not be restored fully in the next two weeks than I may have no choice but to evacuate the city and seek shelter with relatives elsewhere. God willing it doesn't come to that, but in the event it does I wanted to let you all know about it in advance so you would not wonder where I've been. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Good luck Tom. I just googled this and it looks like a pretty awful situation. Nick-D (talk) 05:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for letting us know, Tom. I hope it gets sorted soon. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
The best to you, Tom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Update: after 48 grueling hours of uncertainty, the Water Utility has reported that they have managed to raise most of the local reservoir water levels to a point where the city has elected to declare an end to the water shortage emergency; however, we've another winter storm knocking on our door out here, and with the electric grid still not 100% restored and the Water and Gas companies both reeling from the recent blizzard this second wave, if it impacts us as hard as the first one, could result in similar damage and similar restrictions. I should know by Friday if I am going to have to take shelter elsewhere or whether I'll be able to remain here in the city. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, its official: I'm not going to have to leave. We've managed to restore enough of everything over the last week that I can safely say that short of some unforeseen catastrophe the city and its people should be in the clear. As a funny and interesting little side note though: the failure of the electric company during the storm is now under federal investigation, and I for one am looking forward to hearing the results. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:42, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
That's great news Tom - you must all be very relieved. Nick-D (talk) 11:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh yeah. I like El Paso, and I must say my dad picked a good strong house that has ridden out hurricane force winds, floods of biblical proportions, and a winter storm unlike anything we typically see out here, along with everything in between, but the local government and the people in general out here take our 350 days of good weather for granted and never plan for the bad days. I'm overjoyed we got through this without a problem though, especially since some of the people I know were not so lucky. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko's Gone

Apparently, Kumioko (talk · contribs) got dragged into a messy ANI situation over AWB usage and has opted to retire from Wikipedia altogether. I have no other details to report at the moment, save that I sent him an e-mail urging him to reconsider. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

That's quite unfortunate. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

March 2011 backlog reduction drive

The preparations for the drive are just about complete, but there are still a couple of matters that could use more input; if anyone has a bit of free time, please stop by Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Strategy#Starting the drive and comment. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Reviving the outreach department

Given the various discussions taking place regarding collaborations with museums and other external entities (first the GLAM partnership with the National Maritime Museum, and now the discussion about establishing an ambassador program to the US military), would it be worthwhile to revive the old outreach department as a place to host these sorts of external-facing efforts (or links to them, in the case of efforts located outside our project space)? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that is an excellent idea. I don't think we'll need to include many, if any, of its old functions, but a central page that has all of these listed could be useful. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Outstanding ACM nomination

The current ACM nomination for Sturmvogel 66 has been sitting for a few days now, and could use a few more comments. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Awarded EyeSerenetalk 08:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards

Apologies if this is a silly question but it's one I've been meaning to ask for a while: is there a reason we use such a complicated way of recording diffs on the above page? EyeSerenetalk 08:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

For clarification, I mean why this: 

(Awarded [{{fullurl:User_talk:MBK004|diff=194884683&oldid=194883213}} February 2008])

rather than this: 

(Awarded [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MBK004&diff=194884683&oldid=194883213 January 2009])
The original reason for doing so was to allow the diffs to work through either the secure or unsecure servers, since people would find themselves logged out if they followed the "wrong" type of link. I remember someone mentioning that this might eventually be handled by MediaWiki itself, but I'm pretty sure that this particular formatting is still necessary at the moment. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:41, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, missed the reply. Thanks Kirill - I guess we're stuck with it then until the devs come up with a solution. EyeSerenetalk 11:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Adding FAC to the quarterly review tallies

I'd like to suggest counting FAC reviews along with the peer reviews and A-class reviews in the next quarterly tallies and awards. My feeling is that whether we want to encourage reviews at FAC depends entirely on how things are going at FAC ... and things are going pretty well. An objection that's raised from time to time at WT:FAC is that incentives to review result in drive-by reviews, but that doesn't seem like a problem for our wikiproject; no one is racking up skimpy reviews at peer review or A-class just to try to win a contest, so I don't see why they'd suddenly start doing that at FAC (and anyway, I'll notice if they do). Encouraging people to review at FAC may mean that those people get more experienced and more comfortable with nominating their A-class articles for FAC. FAC reviews can be as limited or as expansive as you like; I have a standard disclaimer on what I cover, and I encourage others to do the same, so that the FAC delegates will know what your "support" vote means. - Dank (push to talk) 05:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to the idea in principle, but how would we track these reviews in practice? For PRs and ACRs, the reviews:
  1. Are essentially conducted only by project members; and
  2. Are all archived within the project.
The first issue could, I suppose, simply be ignored—we can hand out awards to anyone who reviews a military history article, regardless of whether they're formally affiliated with the project or not—but the second would require either retaining a local FAC archive, or trying to parse through random FACs after the fact. Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I've thought about this too, and counting FACs (and GARs) towards reviewer awards would be consistent with our inclusion of them in the Monthly Contest, an innovation a couple of years ago that's been fully embraced. That said, the difference between the reviewer awards and the Monthly Contest is that the latter is voluntary and participants are responsible for updating their entries in a master table, so at the end of the month the coord simply verifies and tallies the scores, hands out awards, and writes up the Bugle blurb. The reviewer awards are supposed to be undertaken whether people are interested or not and including more items would, as Kirill says, add to the workload. I'm not suggesting necessarily that the reviewer awards should become a contest like the monthly writing one, where "entrants" help maintain a master list, but there are ways we could include FAC/GAR while cutting down some of the labour. Firstly we could maintain a FAC archive as Kirill says, adding one extra task to the MilHist FAC closure process. Secondly we could reduce the threshhold number for reviewer awards. At the moment you get service stripes for just one or two reviews. I think it could stand to be a minimum of three to qualify, particularly as that total is over a three-month period. Obviously that doesn't cut down the coords' tallying time, but it does cut down the awarding phase, which is itself a fair old effort. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I'd recommend, at least to start, that we only tally FAC comments/reviews for people who have done at least 3 reviews that would count under the previous rules (PR and A-class). In the past, some FAC reviewers have had mixed feelings about getting wikiproject-specific awards on their talk pages for their FAC reviews. I can do the tally, if someone can do the tally for me and someone else can do the awards. (I'd be even happier not doing the tally, if someone else wants to do it ... it would help if you already know who's been offering reviews at PR and A-class, though. Just look at the history of our review page to see which FACs got added during the relevant period, click on those FACs, and see who offered substantial comments.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Okay, if there are no more comments, I propose that I do what I said in the last sentence above at the end of this month and pass on the totals to the people who are handing out awards. - Dank (push to talk) 17:43, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I apologize in advance, because this is one of those "Do as I say not as I do" things ... I only do copyediting, and rarely check sources, at our A-class review. Nevertheless: I'd like to ask reviewers to be more careful in light of one current FAC and another recent one. I want to use the words "copyright" and "plagiarism" carefully, because a few people have left the project after the words were thrown around carelessly. Technically, you have committed "copyright infringement" only at the point where a court says you've committed copyright infringement; everyone's guesses about what a court would or wouldn't say if they heard the case are just that, guesses. But I think everyone around here would agree that the last 3 points Cunard makes in the current FAC are what we call a copyright problem: they all point to text that's identical or very similar to 2 copyrighted sources and one CC-BY-SA-NC (noncommercial) source. Some of the text changed a lot since the A-class review of that article 10 months ago, and I'm not assigning any blame to the nominator or reviewers. (Speaking of which ... should we add advice to A-class nominators that if significant changes are made to an article that passes A-class, they may want to run it through peer review again to address the changes before taking it to FAC?) I'm also happy to point out that this is the first time I've seen this in a MILHIST FAC ... and hopefully it won't happen again.

The other FAC I linked above didn't have any copyright problems, because the sources were all public domain. The problem was that text lifted word-for-word from the PD sources wasn't cited to those sources, it was cited to different sources. The nominator said that he had been told that was okay ... and if anyone has been saying that, please don't. Taking something word-for-word from one text, even a PD text, and citing it to somewhere else has at least the appearance of plagiarism. Again, I think we can be proud of our record on this at FAC ... I've only seen it happen this once.

Check out the "In the news" section of today's WP:Signpost ... it's got several accusations of copyright infringement and plagiarism on Wikipedia, and these are hot-button issues. Be afraid. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest being very careful about the use of the word 'plagarism'; many editors are current or recent students and regard the use of this word in relation to their contributions as being a much more serious allegation than is intended. My understanding is that it's legally OK to use PD text in any way, but it's bad form to not reference this appropriately. Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Excellent point. - Dank (push to talk) 12:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Mobile Devices

First I want to thank the team here for bringing out "The Bugle" every month. I am not sure if one of you has noticed this too, but the current format is practically unreadable on a mobile device such as the iPhone. Only when you switch the viewing mode to its native Wikipedia view can you read it. I think the problem is with the table to the right of the "The Bugle" image. The mobile site tends to serialize images and text which doesn't seem to work correctly here. Moving forward I want to suggest that it might be good practice to include reviewing articles for A-Class for its readability from a mobile device. Just an idea. MisterBee1966 (talk) 07:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Damn nbsp's

Sorry to be dumb about this, I don't pay any attention to number and unit issues, but at the moment, I have to. Who has a script to add nbsp's (non-breaking spaces) to at least dates? Sandy has asked for them in one of my FACs, and I'm not going to take 30 minutes to insert them by hand. - Dank (push to talk) 20:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I believe the Advisor script can do it. Anotherclown (talk) 21:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
This is Speedy? I'll do it just now... Shimgray | talk | 21:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Looks like my trick wasn't quite as neat as I thought... will fix it up. Shimgray | talk | 21:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
...and done. (I had tried to save time by simply running a search and replace on, eg, " May ", but it hadn't occured to me how many false positives there'd be... still, all fixed now! Shimgray | talk | 21:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
AC: "Advisor found no issues". Per the documentation, it only gets the nbsp's before dashes. (And it seems to run every time I push the edit button, so I've disabled it for now.) Shimgray: Thanks so much. Does anyone have a "script guy" they go to? I hate doing this stuff manually. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I think Advisor only runs when you press the 'fix' buttons above the edit window. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

More Credo Reference accounts available

Just to let you all know that there are more credo reference accounts available for content contributors, 400 to be precise. See Wikipedia:Credo accounts for more information and for the eligibility criteria. I've left a note on the main talkpage at WT:MILHIST#More Credo Reference accounts available.

If anybody here thinks an account would be useful to them make sure you add your name to the list. Regards, Woody (talk) 19:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly content review tallies/awards

Hi everyone, the quarterly content review tallies and awards are now due. In the past this has been just focused on ACRs and PRs, but I think (per the above conversation) we are now tallying FAs as well. Does anyone feel like volunteering to do tally up the contributions? If someone wants to have a go, I am able to help hand out the awards once the tallies have been done (usually a couple of people help with the awards as it can be time consuming). For reference, a link to the last tally is here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Archive 34#Content review awards. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll be happy to tally the FACs, and it would be great if someone is free to check my work. Do I tally for comments made this quarter, or comments made in FACs that closed this quarter? - Dank (push to talk) 11:58, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Those that were closed in this quarter. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I'll get to it right after the quarterly WP:Update. - Dank (push to talk) 12:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've tallied up the peer review and ACR contributions for January to end of March. Dank, if you can add the FAC contributions and total, we can then start handing out the awards. I think I've gotten all contributions, but my eyes glazed over halfway through (it took about four hours), so if I missed one or two, I do apologise. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:02, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the numbers; working on it now. As we mentioned above, I'm only going to be crediting people for FAC reviews who are active Milhist reviewers, in the sense that you're showing at least 3 reviews in Rupert's numbers below. Maybe I'm being too careful, but there have been a few times in the past when reviewers didn't like getting special awards from specific wikiprojects for their FAC reviews; it felt to them like asking for special treatment. Btw I'm relying on the edit summaries at WP:WikiProject_Military_history/Review to tell me when FACs were removed from the list between Jan 1 and March 31; the edit summaries have been accurate every time I've noticed. - Dank (push to talk) 03:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
My list of FAC reviews for this quarter is temporarily at User:Dank/Sandbox3. I gave you credit if you said something as simple as "I reviewed this and it looked fine". - Dank (push to talk) 23:41, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


Username PR
Jan–Mar 2011		 ACR
Jan–Mar 2011		 FAC
Jan–Mar 2011		 Total
Jan–Mar 2011
Anotherclown 14 14
Auntieruth55 1 1
AustralianRupert 4 31 1 36
bahamut0013 1 2 3
Brad101 1 1
Buckshot06 1 1
Cla68 1 1
Cam 1 1
Cs32en 1 1
Cuprum17 1 1
D2306 2 2
Dana boomer 2 2
Dank 11 33 12 56
David Fuchs 1 1
Demiurge1000 1 1
Ed! 4 4
Fifelfoo 3 14 3 20
Georgejdorner 1 1
GregorB 1 1
Hawkeye7 1 1
Hchc2009 2 4 1 7
HJ Mitchell 1 1
Ian Rose 9 5 14
Intothatdarkness 1 2 3
Jim Sweeney 1 1 2
Justice and Arbitration 1 1
Kebeta 1 1
Kirk 6 3 9
Kumioko 1 1
Kyteto 1 1
MisterBee1966 3 1 4
Nev1 1 1
Newm30 2 2
Nick-D 7 13 4 24
Nikkimaria 1 1
PINTofCARLING 1 1
Protonk 1 1
P. S. Burton 1 1
Rumiton 1 4 1 6
Spinningspark 1 1
Sturmvogel 66 6 3 9
The Bushranger 1 1
Ed 1 1
The Land 1 2 1 4
TomStar81 1 2 3
UltimaRatio 1 1
WikiCopter 1 1
XavierGreen 2 3 5


The award templates are here. In the past the awards have been handed out as follows: WikiChevrons to those completing 10 or more reviews, Content Review Medal to those with 3-9, two stripes for 2 reviews, and one stripe for 1 review. I will start handing out the chevrons now (but can someone else please award mine - it wouldn't be good form to award something to myself). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Done, and well done. - Dank (push to talk) 11:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've awarded all the chevrons (except mine), all the CRMs and the two-stripes. All that is left now are the one stripes. Is anyone able to help with these? AustralianRupert (talk) 08:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Yep, just got back from my w/e away, I'll do it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Think that's done now -- tks Rupert/Dank for your efforts. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:33, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Sorry, I was busy the past couple of days and wasn't able to get online to finish it off. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

March 2011 backlog reduction drive scoring

If anyone has a bit of free time, the entries for the March 2011 backlog reduction drive need to be scored, and appropriate announcements made and awards handed out. Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've tallied the points for the contest, as per below. There were a couple of editors listed as participants, but who did not submit worklists, so I haven't included them here. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Username Points
MacMed 80
Arcaad 15
SMasters 125
Wild Wolf 65
Macarenses 30
Wegates 0
Kirill Lokshin 40
AustralianRupert 260
Kirk 2910
PINTofCARLING 90
Sturmvogel 66 4525
WikiCopter 0


Is anyone able to start handing out the awards for this? I'm still working on the content review awards and need to take a break (she who must be obeyed is laying down the law). AustralianRupert (talk) 10:55, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I have added the awards template here. I will begin handing out the awards momentarily. AustralianRupert (talk) 15:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've handed out all the awards except mine. Could another co-ordinator please do this for me? As I scored 260 pts and came third overall, I believe I should be awarded a 1 stripe, a 2 stripe, a 3 stripe and the Bronze Wiki. The mark up coding is on the link provided above. BTW, for the next time that a backlog reduction drive is run, can I suggest not making the awards culmulative. I think that there is a real possibility of them being meaningless. For instance some entrants received as many as eight awards. This seems a bit excessive to me. That's just my opinion, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 15:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/102nd Intelligence Wing

Okay this has been at peer review for a while without any new comments. It passed our A-class review last spring, and bombed recently at FAC. Since it's not getting peer reviews, I think I'd recommend some other review process before it heads back to FAC, either WP:PR or an A-class reassessment at WP:MHRA. Suggestions? - Dank (push to talk) 18:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Dank, I've added some comments to the current peer review, I'm not sure if they help at all. Given the current shortage of reviewers, an outside opinion might be a good idea so maybe WP:PR might be the next step. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I have returned

After a long hiatus, a brutal second semester and enough writing to render most normal people inoperable, I am pleased to announce that I will be coming back in force to MilHist over the next 4-5 months (and hopefully beyond). My sincerest apologies for the sparse activity of the past four months; I hope I can make up for it by redoubling my efforts over the summer. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 21:31, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This is excellent news. Welcome back! Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, welcome back! I'm sure lots of articles await! Woody (talk) 22:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Are you implying you're not normal Cam? Welcome back, though I'm in the middle of an enforced Wikibreak myself at the moment (hopefully not for much longer; work is very busy and we're renewing the computer system so internet access is sporadic at best). EyeSerenetalk 09:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It lives!

A rather sheepish hello all. Apologies for my rather sudden and total departure from the scene. Its quite a long story that I'd rather not go into (not in any way bad, just boring), but I'm pleased to say that the better half and I are now very happily settled in our new home, complete with a whole wall dedicated to books and another to music. I will slowly start reintegrating myself into the online world again soon, but I do expect it to be sporadic for a short while.

This is hardly a good approach for a coordinator though. I've spent the last few hours going through some of the discussions I've missed, and there do seem to be a lot. If everyone would prefer it I could resign, or I could carry on until the end of this term and do the best I can. Opinions either way are welcome! Ranger Steve Talk 09:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Steve, good to hear you are getting settled again. I can only talk for myself, but I'd be happy to see you stay on in whatever capacity you are able to do so. I don't think there's much to gain from you resigning. We could co-opt someone, but I think we're managing (although it has been a bit of a struggle in some areas - particularly closing ACRs and peer reviews with MBK gone, and maybe with writing editorials for the newsletter), so if you want to stay on as a co-ord, I'd be happy for you to do so. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
This is really for the current coords, but my understanding is that you keep the coordinator hat until a) your term ends b) you resign or c) you do something really, really awful and get sacked. Taking a break for a good reason doesn't seem to fill categories a) or c) :) Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
What Nick said. We all go through phases of interaction here at Wikipedia, be that in general or in the backroom milhist stuff. I certainly think you should stay on as a coord and get stuck in as and when you can. Woody (talk) 11:56, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
It's been said before that having a less-active but experienced editor as coordinator is always a net gain -- it goes for you too... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree, and it's good to see you back. That's part of the reason we have such a large number of coordinators, so the majority can handle the workload in the event that a few need to focus on real life for a while. I know how you feel though, I've been much busier this year than I planned, and haven't had a ton of time to devote to coord duties. Parsecboy (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Welcome back! I've been in largely the same boat; my second semester ended up being a lot more intense than I had expected, but with the prospect of boring 9-5 work for the next four months, i'll have more of my own time to write. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 15:52, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks folks, I'll keep plugging away! Ranger Steve Talk 09:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:AALERTS?

Since MBKbot is down, could we sign up for WP:AALERTS? It's a bit tedious to manually format and add and remove FACs from Template:WPMILHIST Announcements and WP:MHR (or is there an easier way?) - Dank (push to talk) 21:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Dank, unless I've misunderstood, I think we already have something like that at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Article alerts. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Great, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 01:01, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, we are signed up as a project already. (I've been meaning to set up individual subscriptions for each task force as well; but unfortunately I haven't had the time.)
The AA system can't fully replace the "manual" updates—the bot doesn't produce the correct type of listing for either the template or the main review page—but it's great as a source for such updates. Most of the time, I'll just compare the bot listing and the manual one, and simply update the latter with any new entries the bot has picked up. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:59, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Editorial on reviewing for FAC

I asked a bunch of people, "Is there anything that new reviewers could do at FAC that you would find particularly helpful?" I got more replies than I was expecting, and I've posted the results at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/March 2011/Editorials. Any massaging anyone wants to do would be great. I got interrupted halfway through posting questions; apologies to all the people I didn't get around to asking, and please, add your responses to the list so that we can take everyone's viewpoint into account. I'm thinking we'll have enough for this month's and next month's editorials ... maybe we can start off with a column for people who aren't at all familiar with FAC, perhaps giving them advice on how they can help some of the frequent reviewers with simple tasks, then graduate to more difficult reviewing tasks next month. - Dank (push to talk) 23:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

IMO the editorial is ready to go, if anyone is ready to publish. - Dank (push to talk) 13:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Erm, Cbrown is on a wikibreak until the 25th, so the newsletter can't be sent out... Kirill or someone with institutional memory, did we ever have an alternate bot on retainer? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Anyone? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
There was some discussion about having an alternate bot in the past, but we've never actually selected one. In practical terms, the easiest thing to do might be to simply post on the bot request noticeboard; there are a number of fairly standard newsletter delivery bots running now, and any of them should be suitable for our needs. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Well that didn't work so well when I was gone for three days. I've left a message and email with Cbrown now that he should be back. Apologies everyone. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Load times for WP:MHR, our review page

... are long, even when Wikipedia is running fast, which isn't often. We have a lot more articles being reviewed at the same time than we used to, and I'm wondering if it's time to put A-class reviews on their own page, FACs on their own page, etc. (either instead of or in addition to our current review page). - Dank (push to talk) 21:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not really any longer than any of the other major review pages, is it? I'm not convinced that splitting up the page would be beneficial; most people accessing specific reviews do so through links in announcements/templates/etc., while people who want to see everything would obviously find a single page more convenient than a set of subpages. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Fine by me, as long as someone adds new FACs to the review page. My prefs are set to automatically display page text when I pull up the editing screen, so I can't add anything to the page without waiting a while; if someone who doesn't have this pref set wants to keep the FAC section updated, that would be great. I'm happy adding FACs to Template:WPMILHIST Announcements that get tagged for Milhist after they arrive at FAC; I just added Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/May Revolution/archive1. - Dank (push to talk) 22:23, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Frank Buckles A-Class Review problem

On the Frank Buckles A-Class review, User:Brad101 is being insanely unhelpful, giving short answers as to what is wrong with the article, not being forthcoming with information, and generally not responding to posts. My first two posts were ignored essentially, and my third was a pure frustration post for his post to the A-Class review page that read simply: "Oppose Overlinked article per MoS. Good luck at FAC." I asked MuZemike what to do, as I unsure how to respond any other way to this user and really feel they are holding up the review by not being helpful or responding. Mike asked what the overlinking problem was and Brad101 responded back with this, saying it was his last post on the subject.

I am afraid with the oppose, it will keep the article from going to A-Class and on top of that, I feel I am going to have to go through this all over again on FAC. I have posted to others for this final opinions and have three "supports" (to the one "oppose"), the only ones left that haven't responded are GraemeLeggett and HJ (the latter can't respond due to computer problems). What should I do? -

Ask Brad one more time which links he objects to, and trust the closers. - Dank (push to talk) 23:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Done, though I honestly don't expect a better response than before. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I think that Brad's concerns have been adequately addressed, even if he disagrees. The level of linking seems appropriate. Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
I've closed the review as successful. I realise there are a few days to run until the 28 are up, but as Brad has now disengaged I don't think anything would be achieved by allowing the full time for the oppose to be addressed. Consensus seems to support promotion and there's nothing in the A-Class criteria that would override the supports and make Brad's oppose a promotion-blocker. EyeSerenetalk 10:30, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Something (slightly) rotten in the state of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/ACM/Eligibility tracking

While, as an Australian, I am driven largely by a desire to collect things which aren't actually mine (as far as I can tell, both sides of my family arrived in Australia after being convicted of stealing cutlery from their employers), I think that I should be at 0 points at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/ACM/Eligibility tracking rather than 2 points as I've since had another ACR pass (John Treloar (museum administrator)) and was awarded the Military history A-Class medal with oak leaves for this. Nick-D (talk) 10:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right - I've corrected the tracking page. Here's a little something for your ancestral collection as compensation. EyeSerenetalk 10:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Excellent, more cutlery! Nick-D (talk) 10:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
That was my mistake - I apparently forgot to remove them when I promoted John Treloar. Regardless, I think these will be more to your liking. Parsecboy (talk) 10:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Strewth, all my ancester ended up with (temporarily no doubt, as well!) was a lousy overcoat in exchange for his 7 years... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

300 A-Class articles

Just noting that we're currently 3 articles away from this milestone... :) EyeSerenetalk 11:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Considering how much the A-Class count oscillates as newly promoted articles go straight to FAC, I'm not sure it's a particularly meaningful number for us; if we ignore the subsequent promotions, we've long since passed the 300-article threshold. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point. And we've currently got 7 articles at FAC that have (to my recollection) all passed MILHIST ACRs, so we'll probably dance around the 300 mark for some time. Parsecboy (talk) 18:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
...I'll get me coat. EyeSerenetalk 20:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
12 Milhist articles currently at FAC, 6 went through A-class review I think. - Dank (push to talk) 22:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Bin Laden Dead

Its up on the main page, and will be a major pics of news for the next few weeks. I expect that there will be some major developments with US forces and the with the war on terror articles we have, so if a few good coordinators could make a point to keep those watchlisted for the next couple of weeks that would be awesome. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, at the moment we've got a new page for the subject: Death of Osama bin Laden. I've tagged the page as being within our scope, and have watched the article being updated slowly but surely. Info is still sketching, and the article's got an OR tag at the moment, but I think if we keep an eye on it the article will shape up over the next week or two. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
There's lots of speculative stuff popping up on related articles. Nick-D (talk) 06:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Saw it coming. I think we made need to break out the protection before the others get into a RICO situation. On the other hand, its joyous news, so maybe a little speculation on other articles would be ok for a few hours anyway :) TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Nothing I've seen justifies protection for now. Pre-emptive protection is strongly frowned on, except in unusual circumstances and where large-scale violations of WP:BLP is highly likely. Nick-D (talk) 06:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I know, but I'm thinking ahead to tomorrow when the rest of the world will learn of this. I expect this will be one of the great moments in Wikihistory, but it falls to us to be responsible with such matters. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:40, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Alright, at the moment I've got two problematic pages: The main US Navy SEAL page, where the information on Bin Laden's death is being reported at times in multiple sections, and at the page United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (aka SEAL team 6), where its being alleged that this unit was selected to storm the compound. The former is a simple matter of ensuring that the info stays in one section, but the latter is an issue because no one has said Seal Team 6 in any official capacity, and the source provided took me a web cite with a 404 error. I removed the section, but there is a good chance it will end up in the article again with questionable cites (unless something changes between now and when I wake up again). As to the death article, it looks like there is a push to get one of our conflict infoboxes into the article, but there is not yet enough info to justify adding one yet. That'll likely change in the next few hours though. In addition, there have been some efforts to add a death image to the article, but that keeps getting thrown out at the moment. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

What a wonderful problem to wake up to. I've been reading the new "death of" article, and while it's not up to project standards, it's pretty impressive to watch the rapid evolution (both in real time and in page history). IMHO, this sort of pagespace action demonstrates a growing level of sophistication within Wikipedia. The pedia is not set up as a newspaper, but today reflects well on the capabilities of the pedia and the project. BusterD (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
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