Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 8

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Battle of Ulundi; a bit of a polish?

I've been getting the Battles of the Anglo-Zulu War category up to date (I've done Siege of Eshowe, Battle of Hlobane, Battle of Kambula so far) and have just finished the second to last one we need - the Battle of Ulundi. If someone could just have a read through and catch any typos and wikify anything that should be but isn't (I'm pretty useless when it comes to that =D) I would much appreciate it. I have some pictures which I'll get into it soon, also.

Cheers, Loopy 03:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll see what i can do. After all I'd expect someone to go over my stuff too. Spawn Man 01:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope. It's pretty good. No need for anything else, apart from maybe the long paragraphs being cut up into littl'er paragraphs & maybe every so often a zulu being linked. Spawn Man 03:48, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree fully Spawn, Man. It looks great, and there is nothing really major to change. Well done Loopy!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 12:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm it seems we are not the only ones who think so, Ulundi has made it to DYK. Condrats Loopy!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 12:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Cheers guys for the comments and the polishes chaps, much appreciated! --Loopy 20:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

All Aisnes Are Up & Going...

Yay!! I've finally finished all of the battles of the Aisne in WWI: (Not that anyone cares, sob)

• First Battle of the Aisne.
• Second Battle of the Aisne.
• Third Battle of the Aisne.

Plus some extra, off-articles to do with these:

• Nivelle Offensive.
• Moronvilliers.
• Pontfraverger-Moronvilliers.
• Charles Mangin.

I would love for everyone to check them out & possibly polish them a bit... Anyway it was hard work, but it was well worth it... Spawn Man 07:22, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Some minor pimpage

I submitted the article on General Richard O'Connor, Leithp and I've been working on for Feature Status. Please take a look at it then go HERE to cast your votes. Thanks for your indulgance, --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 12:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Stub?

Seems pretty comperhensive, despite the massive To Do list. --Member 01:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Moved Warbox discussion

In the hopes of getting more replies, I have revived the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wars, or WP:WARS. They were inactive, but had the goal of standardizing war articles. I have added the warboxes to it.

Also, i have uncovered a proposal of colour schemes on Talk:Military_history_of_the_United_States, which i have included there. It looks interesting.

Again, if anybody could give some feedback on what you think of these ideas, feel free. We're kind of working in the dark like this, and any and all input would be greatly appreciated. --The Minister of War 06:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

New portal

I've created Portal:War to present a cohesive facade to the various war-related projects. Any comments, suggestions, ideas, or offers of help would be extremely welcome. Kirill Lokshin 01:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Infoboxes are evil

I realize that the infoboxes are viewed as a standard for battle articles by now, but I must point out that they are questionable just like a lot of other infoboxes out there (biographies for example). Battles are first and foremost historical events and using what amounts to standardized tables to describe these events is inherently problematic and unfair to the article topic. It's one thing to use them for articles about separate species, geographical locations or languages, since these have generally accepted taxonomy and hence are a lot easier to systematically classify and describe in table format. Applying the same train of though to historical events is a completely different thing. It requires an over-simplification of complex and often disputed facts. Some article topics are simply not suitable to use infoboxes on, and historical events definetly belong in this category.

Also, the infobox is very bulky and disruptive next to any lead that is shorter than the infobox. This amounts to include pretty much every single battle article out there.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

As it says on the project page in bold letters, A battlebox is not compulsory. Gdr 10:30, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

On WP:WARS, we're working on an infobox which tries to remedy this. It started with the fact that Troop Strength and Casualties were almost always just guesses, so we were looking for a way to makt the addition of that into a battle box optional. The result is an entirely customizable box with only the name of the battle and the date as compulsory, then other things are optional.

However, the idea only materialized recently, and a critical view on things is certainly welcome! Take a look on WP:WARS, any suggestions are more than welcome! --The Minister of War 10:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Noting that, yes, "A battlebox is not compulsory", I'm not quite certain why it would not be suitable for almost every battle. While certain figures (troop numbers, casualties, etc.) may be unknown or disputed (and will be able to be left out in a cleaner way under the new WP:WARS design), battles do, in general, have certain common characteristics (place, date, outcome, two sides involved in the fighting) that the battlebox attempts to summarize. Is the objection to the summary as such, or to a particular element of the box? Kirill Lokshin 12:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Infoboxes are really only suitable for articles that contain plenty of easily quantifiable facts, (something history articles per definition don't). Other than that, they should be avoided altogether. If they summarize nothing but the date and name of the battle, they are completely pointless. They just collide with article series templates (which are usually a hellofalot more useful) and in terms of layout, it's much better to just have an image next to lead.

And let's not forget the very real threat of user disputes. I really don't like dismissing features merely because they can turn into bones of contention in meta-conflicts, but considering that these fights tend to get really huge and quite bitter after a while, it has to be taken into consideration. I've also gotten the sense that people think that the deletion of a template is no different from deleting an article, which leads to very bizarre forms of template inclusionism.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:44, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you have a different definition of quantifiable than I do. I certainly think that battles have plenty of easily quantifiable facts: troop numbers, casualties, participating countries, commanders. Suggesting that all types of history articles lack such facts seems, to me, as incorrect as saying that all articles must include infoboxes.

As far as user disputes go, if the facts of the battle are disputed, then they'll be disputed — whether the dispute occurs in the template or straight in the article text isn't particularly important. Kirill Lokshin 23:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Editors should use their judgement. For something like Battle of Jutland where the article is very long and the numbers are well-studied and non-controversial, a battlebox does no harm and can provide a useful summary of a complex engagement. For a short article on a battle where the numbers are uncertain or come from unreliable sources, or where the uncertainties are very large, a battlebox is no good. For example, the battlebox for Battle of the Weser River is quite pointless. Gdr 13:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, even in this case i think the battlebox has its use. Obviously the troop strength and casualty numbers are pointless, but the simple fact that it took place in 16 AD between Rome and Germanic tribes is worth putting into view. Without a battlebox, you have to scour through the text before you even understand the context and century it took place in.

And to be honest, i can understand arguing they dont have added value (though i disagree). But i can hardly see the negative value; as far as i have seen, they never hurt an article. --The Minister of War 15:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The pointless slots are an issue, since many battles (particularly ancient and medieval ones) will be "Unknown" for the forseeable future; but this is a flaw due to the inflexibility of {{battlebox}} (which, hopefully, can be eliminated with the new warbox/battlebox scheme), rather than with the presence of the template itself.

If nothing else, battleboxes provide a standard way to add campaignboxes to battle pages. Kirill Lokshin 15:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

My 2 cents (used to be 5 but with inflation)- Battleboxes, all info boxes, are tools...nothing more. A useless battlebox is, at best, harmless. It gives the reader an overall summary of a battle, along with maybe a neat map or illustration. Campaign boxes, on the other hand, can be very useful. Especially for long, complex wars with many engagements. If you want to kill some useless battleboxs, such as the one mentioned above..by all means please do. I, for one, have no objections.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 07:34, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Wars

There's a discussion occurring here on whether WikiProject Wars (1) needs its own stub type, or should use {{battle-stub}}, and (2) needs to be a separate project, or should be merged into WikiProject Battles. Any advice or comments on either topic would be very welcome. Kirill Lokshin 10:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

French revolutionary / Napoleonic stubs

Bonjour! I'm part of the Stub Sorting WikiProject, and I'm working on getting some additional stub types to help organize things there. A fair number of your stubs happen to fall into the period of the Great French War, and I'm planning on proposing either one or two stubs to cover the period. (For battle stubs, this would cause an additional stub to be placed, rather than replacing {{battle-stub}}). Since this group is likely to be most affected/benefitting from this, I wanted to ask your opinion. on what the parameters of such stubs should be.

1. Should there be a single {{Napoleonic-stub}} to cover the whole period or would you prefer to have a separate {{France-revolution-stub}} to cover the earlier part of this era?
2. If prefer two stubs, where should the dividing line be drawn between the two eras?
3. Should the Anglo-Indian Wars be considered as part of the Napoleonic Wars?
4. Should the War of 1812 be considered part of the Napoleonic Wars?

Personally I prefer a single stub that would only cover what happened between the European powers, but I am open to persuasion, and will check back here before I make my proposal to the Stub Sorting WikiProject. I am currently doing a census of all the military related stubs to see what wars have enough stub articles to justify creating a stub type for them, and that census will probably take me at least a week and probably longer to complete. Caerwine 04:13, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Having two stubs is a very, very bad idea; there's really no universally agreed upon dividing line between the two, and there's nothing worse than edit-warring over which of the two stub tags is more "correct" for a given battle. I personally prefer having a single {{Napoleonic-Wars-stub}} and limiting it to European powers, but broadly defining its timeframe (1792–1815). I'm not sure how many articles the Anglo-Indian Wars have; it would be possible to include them if there were a significant benefit, but I doubt there are more than a few stubs in question there.

As far as other possible stub types, I haven't counted recently, but I suspect that {{American-Civil-War-stub}} and {{Sengoku-stub}} would fill up quite rapidly. Kirill Lokshin 04:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Je suis en d'accord avec mon camarade d'armes, Kirill. Un seul type du stub, c'est suffisant pour l'époque Revolutionaire et Napoléonien les deux meme. Quelqu'uns ont de l'opinion, que les Guerres Napoléoniennes, vraiment commencer en 1804 avec le fin du Consulate. Les autres, en 1799 avec le 18 Brumaire. Par example, lequel stub ce qui devrait être bien placé à ceci: Battle of Hochstadt (1800)? C'est problématique, à cause de ceci différence d'opinion, n'est pas? Oh oui c'est une dure! Donc un type seul du stub. Et pour le dessin, permettez moi suggérer le tricolore avec deux sabres crossé.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 07:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC) Le fantôme dans la machine;>

I agree with Kirill and R.D.H.. Perhaps the stub could be titled as the (lengthy) French-Revolutionary-&-Napoleonic-Wars-stub to avoid any controversy/confusion? Regarding the Anglo-Indian wars, I feel the stub should include them - after all, the Indian forces who fought the British were usually led and supported by the French. SoLando (Talk) 19:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• I prefer two stubs. The dividing line between the stubs The First and Second Coalitions Frnch-Rvltnry-Wr; Third-Seventh Npln-Wr. Which is also how the articles are broken down see (Napoleonic Wars).
• Not sure about Indian wars. In Britain at that time they were seen as separate, eg the snub against Wesley that he was a sepoy general, and most of the post war analysis tends to treat them as separate in the same way that World War II theatres are seem as separate. So on balance I think a third stub is in order for them.
• War of 1812 be not be considered part of the Napoleonic Wars. Philip Baird Shearer 21:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

And why not? The US and France were allied. Many of Napoleon's generals served as military advisers to the US. General Moreau was even briefly considered for commander of American forces. A meta catigory and stub covering Battles Of The Napoleonic era 1792-1815 would make things a lot easier. I've always found dividing the wars up by Coalition number to be somewhat confusing and inaccurate. It was, essentially, the same group of nations, opposed to France and led by Britain. With some of them dropping out, or getting knocked out, or switching sides. It was a highly dynamic diplomatic/political situation. But the one constant was their opposition to French hegemony. Napoleon may not have started the wars of the first two coalitions, but through his victories in his two Italian campaigns, he effectively ended them. There's a reason why so many historians have stamped his name on the era. And I still say (mais cette fois en Anglais:) a good design for the stub of this meta era would be a Tricolor with two crossed sabres.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 07:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiments above; one stub would be more useful. Also, as far as i have seen, the clutter in military stubs are not so much caused by wars (which may or may not be stubbed themselves in the future :-) ), but rather by basic info such as rank, equipment (non-weapon) and maneuvers. Perhaps a more functionally oriented split, such as {{rank-mil-stub}}, {{equip-mil-stub}} and {{doctrine-mil-stub}} would help tidy things up. The Minister of War 08:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

What you say is very true. Mil-stub has a couple of dozen "wars", one or two "campaigns", and quite a few "operations" (though that itself covers a lot of ground, in terms of different scales and durations). A mil-hist- stub would presumably include all those, act as a super-cat for the existing battle-, WWI- and WWII- stub categories, and hopefully fit the proposed project down to a tee. But largely, it's a whole assortment of other stuff, of which the largest single contribution would be military units. That, and rank-stub, I've in fact already proposed on WP:WSS/P. "equip-" is probably a bit too broad: there are existing categories for weapons, and for firearms in particular, and a recently created one for military vehicles. Doctrine might be an interesting one, as is jargon and terminology more generally (haven't tried to count those). I've also been splitting by country, but that's no longer a feasible option, due to acute bittiness of the remainder. (Scraping the bottom of the barrel, "Europe-mil-" and "Commonwealth-mil-" are currently on the table.) Alai 23:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought we were talking stubs not categories. Philip Baird Shearer 09:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Every stub type (e.g. {{Battle-stub}}) has an associated stub category (e.g. Category:Battle stubs). Kirill Lokshin 18:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Project renaming/merger proposal

After some (rather lengthy) discussion at WikiProject Wars, we've come up with a proposal to merge that project into this one. In detail:

1. WikiProject Battles would be renamed to WikiProject Military history (this would include renaming any relevant sub-pages as well).
2. Any useful material from WikiProject Wars would be added to the renamed project page.
3. WikiProject Wars would be redirected to WikiProject Military history.

This would, in effect, extend the scope of this project to cover all levels of military conflicts from battles up to entire wars.

Some of the main advantages of such an approach are as follows:

1. The renamed project would provide a central place for discussions that are currently fractured between the projects; this is, basically, in line with what WikiProject Battles is already used for.
2. Combining the projects eliminates the need to divide responsibility for certain templates (e.g. stub tags or warboxes) between two projects.
3. Expanding the project eliminates the need to determine which project a complicated campaign (e.g. Battle of Normandy) belongs to.

We hope, barring significant opposition, to perform the rename & merge in the near future; thus, any questions, comments (both supportive and otherwise), or criticisms of this approach would be very welcome. Kirill Lokshin 12:54, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the capitalisation given above; the proper capitalisation, according to the MoS, is "Military history" rather than "Military History". Kirill Lokshin 18:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I gladly support the merge, as many of the items I work on (Japanese samurai feudal history) are called in Japanese 'incidents' or 'rebellions', and consist of just one primary battle and a handful of small skirmishes. Can one even truly call that a war? In any case, I look forward to standardization of procedures and formats, and a greater unified community for all. I suppose as part of the merger we might need to have new discussions (or new executive decisions) as to which continents are which colors in the battle/warboxes and where different continents end, but that's a more or less minor consideration. If there is any way I can help out, plz feel free to ask. LordAmeth 20:10, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought we decided not to have colours in the battleboxes anymore. Adam Bishop 21:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we should just have coloured battle boxes, but only for different time periods. E.G. Ancient battles, medievil battles, modern battles. This would co ordinate them somewhat, but take out the annoyance of trying to colour co ordinate boxes to every continent. And yes, I say merge the two projects. But couldn't you think up a better name than Military History? Spawn Man 23:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Haha, deciding when "ancient", "medieval" and "modern" begin and end is much more difficult than figuring out what continent something is in...I think we should just leave them all one colour or uncoloured. The colours have no meaning to anyone outside of the people who use this page. Adam Bishop 00:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, "Military history" is the best we could come up with, considering the need to have a reasonably short description; the only other option that comes to mind is "Wars and battles", but that would be, in my opinion, needlessly specific (are campaigns included? are groups of multiple wars? etc.). If you have any better ideas, though, feel free to propose them. Kirill Lokshin 01:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The proposal seems fine to me. And I prefer "Military history" or something similarly encompassing as a title -- if the scope of WP:Battles is going to be expanded, you might as well go the whole way. Geoff/Gsl 02:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

What about History of conflict? Or Conflict history? I suppose, military history is okay.... Spawn Man 03:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Conflict" is much too vague, since even non-military conflicts would be included, attracting the same sort of people who, for instance, categorized War on Drugs under Category:Wars. "History of military conflicts" would be correct, but sounds rather more ponderous than "Military history". Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

STRONG SUPPORT This proposal makes sense on every level. And Kirill's plan for implementing it should be easy and painless. Military history encompasses all our work here. For instance, in my journeys through blood-soaked (or FULL-CONTACT/EXTREAME) history, I find myself not only working on battles and wars but on biographies, units/organizations, and weapons. Oftentimes working on a particular battle or bio leads me to something else. Regarding the "Conflict" thing, in Political Science and International Relations, a distinction is drawn between a Conflict and a Confrontation. The Cold War was a conflict, the Korean war, a confrontation. Likewise there's the Arab-Isreali Conflict, and the Egyptian-Isreali War of Attrition confrontation. So technically, WP:Battles and WP:Wars deal with military confrontations. But aside from sounding vague and clinical (Not to mention potentially extending our focus into contemporary events) it does not encompass all the military related topics I just mentioned. So in short, in closing HUZZAH for WP:MILITARY HISTORY!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 05:49, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Biographies! I find that for some military figures it is very convenient to have their career laid out as a timeline (C.V. (Résumé) style), because when reading a major article it is convenient to follow a link and see were colonel (for example) was when etc, but some in Wikipedia insist in wrapping up the bulletpoints/list into paragraphs (eg see D'Erlon). This makes it tricky to see at a glance were they were when and how their career progressed. For example if a staff officer was at staff collage in a particular year and you see in another biography article that their divisional commander was commander of the staff collage during that time, then it does not take a genius to work out that the commander probably asked for the man. Either way it is something which can be investigated and is something easily missed if a skeleton biography is put into paragraphs. So if others agree I would like to collaborate on a guideline about how to lay out biographies of minor military figures. But we can come back to this topic at a later date, once we have a military histroy project.Philip Baird Shearer

No objections from me; we could certainly work on biography guidelines under the new umbrella project. Kirill Lokshin 18:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to wrap the two into one. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Wars has been moribund for a long time. Also the new proposed title will allow wriggle room for support articles like the Laws of War which fall through the gaps at the moment. If the project page becomes too large (which I doubt) then we can always revive the Battle or Wars page as a sub topic.

The name WikiProject Military History, seems like a good name but I have one worry with the name. How soon does current affairs finish and history take over? The current names do not restrict the projects to historical events, and can cover long on-going conflicts. Philip Baird Shearer 09:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought of the same problem, but i'm not so sure we'd want to include current affairs too much. Would hate to do the Iraq war for example. Alternatively, i also like the simpler name WikiProject:War. The Minister of War 18:24, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject War seems a little too vague to me. Kirill Lokshin 18:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I doubt the current affairs issue will be too great a problem; there are (relatively) few articles that fall into that group, and I think it would be easier to treat them as special cases. More practically, I doubt that a more precise project name will be of comfort to anyone here brave enough to wade into the flamefests that prevail on articles like Iraq War ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

We should have guidelines for some sort of "cut-off dates" however. So let us say a war must be officially and/or effectively over for at least 5 years. This will allow time for the smoke to clear, the dust to settle, most of the bodies to be counted and decent accounts to be written for research. With ongoing conflicts, let us say they must have started at least 10 years prior. So we could, potentially, deal with Chechnya, or at least the First Chechen War. But not yet with the Congo civil war or Iraqi War part II (Although at the rate things are going in these cases, sadly, it seems it will only be a matter of time). I agree, though, recent conflagrations always generate more heat than light. Besides, as we all know the older a war or battle, the cooler it is :>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 00:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Good idea, I'm in favour - wars & battles are closely linked together and it make sense to combine the two projects. Looking forward to it. --Loopy 03:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems there is ample consensus to go ahead. Or would anyone care for a formal vote? The Minister of War 10:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Let's have a vote and make it official. That way no one can claim later they never had a chance to be heard.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 12:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Do we really need it? I was actually hoping to go ahead and go through the merging sometime later today, but if people feel we need a formal vote, I'll wait for that. I doubt anyone who hasn't commented already will show up, though. Kirill Lokshin 14:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Votes do not make anything official. There is a true consensus, so I do not think a vote will help build it further. Philip Baird Shearer 14:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)