Talk:Chief of the Defence Force (Australia)

name and need

The name of this article is vague could clash with present of future articles. Chief of the Australian Defence Force would be a more suitable title. Also the information can also be found at Australian Defence Force Hossens27 09:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Chief of the Defence Force is the title - not Chief of the Australian Defence Force. That's just plain incorrect.

If we must make it nation specific (which I don't see why, at this point) - it should be Chief of the Defence Force - Australia or similar. But again, at this stage there are no other pages that clash with it, so I don't see the problem. Justinbrett 15:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Under the relevant Wikipedia naming conventions (see, for example, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military units)) this article should definetly have 'Australia' in the title as it is only about the Australian Chief of the Defence Force, and not the generic position which exists in a number of countries.. It's bad enough that Americans often pretend that no other countries exist when writing articles here - us Australians should try to set an example! I strongly suggest that this article be renamed Chief of the Defence Force (Australia) as this is consistant with both the name of the actual position in question and the Wikipedia naming conventions (which, IMO, make lots of sense, especially as it's inevitable that there will be other articles about Chiefs of Defence Forces). --Nick Dowling 12:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if Chief of Defence Staff had a similar issue (it's a redirect), or if it's a later adaptation of Chief of the Defence Staff, which is a disambig. I support Nick's proposed name if a change is required, but see no need yet. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to Chief of the Defence Force (Australia) per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers).--cj | talk 15:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thomas Blamey

Should Thomas Blamey be on this page, as he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces during WW2? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tuba marc (talk • contribs) 03:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

No. The term Australian Military Forces meant the Army. There was a push to give him authority over all three services, but this was not approved by the government.

New Zealand Order of Merit

Is Peter Cosgrove entitled to post-nominals for the New Zealand Order of Merit? Normally you are not entitled to post-nominals for a foreign decoration. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

External links modified

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Officeholder template

So here there is this table called the Officeholder template, for different kinds of officeholders, such as a Chief of the Defence for example. This template is great for showing the pictures of all the officeholders, if available. It is easy to edit, add new parameters, shows their birth/death date, shows their number , good at sortable and is great for showing acting officeholders. In general I would say that is a pretty good template. But it seems like there is a different opinion here. How come? Skjoldbro (talk)
Example shown below:

No.	Portrait	Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee	Took office	Left office	Time in office	Defence branch
1		Wells, HenryLieutenant General Sir Henry Wells KBE, CB, DSO (1898–1973)	23 March 1958	22 March 1959	364 days	Australian Army

How come? - Several reasons, most related to sort functionality. Here's my list:

1. The "officeholder" field contains rank, name, postnominals, birth year and death year, but is only sortable by one field: "officeholder_sort".

2. You set it up as three separate tables, not one. This negates the functionality of the sort of all of the data.

3. Overlinking. (The "defence_branch" column does not need every row linked.)

4. Overbolding. No value is added by bolding title and post-nominals, and the "need" for the bolding of the name suggests poor layout design.

5. Duplication of phootographs.

Pdfpdf (talk) 00:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@Pdfpdf:

1. Why would you want to sort by anything other than name? Seems weird to sort by rank or postnominals, as there is no inherent order to either of those.

2. It is three different positions, so it would make sense to make it three different tables, but putting them together is not difficult.

3. Then it is easy to remove the overlinking in the defence column

4. Fair enough, can't really do anything about that one.

5. Then extra photos can be removed.

Apart from the bolding of the name, I have tried to address all of your concernces here. Regards Skjoldbro (talk) 11:40, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

1. Why? Because I am weird?

2. If it was three different positions, there would be three different articles. Anyway, you seem to have solved that problem, and at the same time I've learnt something about using that template. Thanks.

3. Good.

4. Hmmm. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with one a single column that contains so much data that you need to bold some of it to create subfields. In my opinion, it would be much better to have separate columns. (But yes, that's opinion.)

5. Good.

Note, however, that I was not the one who reverted your edits. You may wish to solicit opinions and/or reasons from the editors who did. Pdfpdf (talk) 05:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Other comments:

6. Putting () around a number makes it a negative number. When you sort by the No. column you get the rows in the order: (10), (6), blank, 1, 2, etc.

7. Frank Hassett wasn't knighted until June 1976.

Pdfpdf (talk) 05:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

4. I get that. In principal, the postnominals could be moved to a separate column, however, the column would be placed before or after the defence branch, moving it too far away in my opinion.

Note, @Nford24:'s major issue, was that it should be one table, which I believe has been solved.

6&7. Done and thanks.

Would you otherwise feel like your issues have been solved, and would be comfortable with the new table?

Skjoldbro (talk) 09:43, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

4. I now notice you've made the postnominals smaller, and hence they now do not dominate the name.

8. I don't like the flag icons, particularly the replication of them. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

P.S. You really need to clarify with @Abraham, B.S.: why he reverted your edits. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

4. Fixed thing whole small template thing, cheers for that. Changed it to 75%, I think that is sufficient.

8. I can understand that, but if the flags are removed, and you sort by defence branch, you will have the flags in the top with the rest below them. I guess the defence branches could be made like the current one, I just personally feel like it would lack "something". Skjoldbro (talk)

8. No sort problem if you remove all the flags! ;-). (We should probably get other opinions and/or see if there's a policy.) Pdfpdf (talk) 13:49, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, but in the mean time, I am sure that we can just have it without the flags. Seeing as the other people who seemed to have issues with the table, have not contributed to the discussion, I would assume that they are fine with the changes and would be willing to have the new table in place. Would you not agree? Skjoldbro (talk) 11:24, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I have been quite busy of late. If the data can all be kept in one neat table then I'm satisfied. You and Pdfpdf seem to have sorted this out pretty well. Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 13:03, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Commander in Chief

On this page it is stated "Prior to 1958 there was no CDF or equivalent", but is that really true? Since, both Thomas Blamey and Vernon Sturdee were named Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces. Skjoldbro (talk) 14:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

The "Australian Military Forces" was the official name of the Army. Nick-D (talk) 07:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)