Talk:Civil awards and decorations

Proposal to delete this article.

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I am familiar with British Commonwealth honours and the term civil decoration which led me to this page and for that matter the term military decoration are unfamiliar terms. British Commonwealth countries refer to Orders, Medals and Decoration but do not quality them as either civilian or military. This is because most honours are awarded to both military and civilians. The Victoria Cross is almost always awarded to military personnel but there have been seven awards to civilians acting under military or naval command. Five officially and two to merchant seaman in the First World War posthumously enlisted in the Royal Navy and then posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Exactly the same process of posthumous enlistment, this time in the US Army, occurred in 1989 when the Medal of Honor awards of William Cody and four scouts were restored, their names having been deleted from the Medal of Honor Roll created in 1917 because they were civilian scouts.

The definition that ‘Civil awards and decorations are awarded to civilians ...’ puts the emphasis on the recipient whereas it should be on the award. One of the examples given is the military and civil divisions such as the Order of the British Empire. There is one order with two divisions, five levels and although the British Empire Medal is not issue today in the UK it is still issued in Commonwealth counties including the Cook Islands which received two in the 2013 New Year Honours. Many military have received awards in the civilian division and some civilians have received awards in the military division. My favourite example is Ruby Olive Boye-Jones (1891–1990) see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/boye-jones-ruby-olive-12242 who received a British Empire Medal (civil division).

One of the State orders that are not Orders of Chivalry quoted is Congressional Gold Medal which has been awarded to a number of military personal.

The British George Cross is quoted as an example of awards and decorations for bravery of civilians (including law enforcement and firefighting personnel) but probably half have been awarded to military personnel. The warrant for the George Cross states it is for civilians and also military personal for actions not covered by military honours.

Commemorative, coronation and jubilee medals are awarded to both civilians and military and to label the award as either a civil or military decoration is unhelpful since in fact they are medals and not decorations.

The example ‘Awards and decorations for long service in government, law enforcement, firefighting and other services’ do not need to be categorised as civil when they are already categorised as ‘long service’ awards and again are medals and not decorations.

I suggest that the terms civil and military decorations are not terms in general use and that the terms Orders, Medals and Decorations should be used in lieu. Anthony Staunton (talk) 13:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I am presently reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion and will shortly follow the suggested procedure for the page. Anthony Staunton (talk) 01:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that, as it stands, this article misrepresents the reality of how such distinctions operate (it has not fundamentally been re-written since the original IP editor in 2004 and subsequent editors appear only to have expanded upon the framework established by the original editor). I suspect that this is not the only ODM taxonomy article that suffers from this weakness. Perhaps what we need is a broader discussion at WP:ODM on an overhaul of the taxonomy articles. AusTerrapin (talk) 13:07, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:State decoration which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:31, 13 November 2019 (UTC)