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The Bugle: Issue CXXXV, July 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at planning for the unthinkable Op-ed: TomStar81 on Russia's Provisional Government in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

• The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

• Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
• A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

Miscellaneous

• A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
• A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
• Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Quarterly Milhist Reviewing Award

		The WikiChevrons
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, I hereby award you the WikiChevrons for reviewing a total of 17 Milhist articles during the period April to June 2017. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:24, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Can you protect the page of Libya?

The page of Libya is vandalized and unprotected. Please protect it.2605:6001:EB50:A900:5C5B:463:FC1:EEDE (talk) 05:14, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

G'day, from looking at the history of the article I don't feel that semi protection is necessary at this stage. The most recent edits seem constructive to me on face value, unless I'm missing something. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:29, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive IP185.121.173.172

I saw where you have protected other articles from IP185.121.173.172. Would you consider protecting this one?. I do not believe this IP is here to build an encyclopedia, when their edits remove references and referenced information from articles.[1] --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:12, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I have blocked them for a short period as they are continuing to edit in a disruptive manner. I have left a message encouraging them to discuss their proposed edits on the talkpage. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:41, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Question

Hi,

When blocking the account User talk:Awesome man11, did you mean to allow account creation for their block settings? I thought that it was general practice to not allow account creation in order to avoid vandals from re-creating other accounts, block evasion, etc. Regards. 2601:1C0:104:689:E1F7:52EF:6B00:8545 (talk) 08:57, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

G'day, yes that was my intention. In this case, I did not wish to indef the IP that the account was linked to as well as the account, so I softblocked the account. This is because hardblocking might essentially block a shared IP, which might catch out innocent editors as well and this should really only be done in extreme circumstances (in my opinion, anyway). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:06, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I see. Although, I'm pretty sure when accounts are blocked, the underlying IP is only autoblocked temporarily (I think it's a 24 hour block), so the collateral damage would only potentially arise for just a little bit... 2601:1C0:104:689:E1F7:52EF:6B00:8545 (talk) 09:23, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that autoblocks can be problematic due to the potential collateral (and I believe that there are some potential legal issues with it in certain countries). Wikipedia:Autoblock provides a good example of the collateral damage that can occur. As such, I try to remember to turn off autoblock. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Another question

Don't worry, I'm not stalking your edits, I just happened to notice this report at WP:AIV :-). For instance, with this IP that you just blocked, 183.179.5.21 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), you can see the block log for them here which shows an escalation in block duration, and the editing pattern doesn't suggest that it is a shared IP, and belongs to a single person. So I would figure that a longer block would be in order (1 or 2 weeks) and since the editing pattern has been consistently from the same user over a significant period of time, preventing them from creating an account may be needed, too. Regards. 2601:1C0:104:689:E1F7:52EF:6B00:8545 (talk) 09:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I had considered increasing the length of the block in the circumstances, however, I am usually reluctant to block an IP address for longer than 36 hours due to the potential collateral damage so I chose to err on the side of caution with this one. Blocks are not meant to be punitive, though, and we should at least hope that editors can turn over a new leaf. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Balfour

Hi Rupert, a few months ago you offered to close Wikipedia:Peer review/Balfour Declaration/archive1 for me. I think we're almost done now, so if you're still happy to do so it would be great. Also if you could do the same at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Balfour Declaration/1 I would appreciate it. We're almost ready to put it up for WP:FAR now. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:17, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I've closed the peer review (and hopefully fixed the html coding for a couple of other PRs while I was at it). Regarding the GAR, I'd suggest waiting another week or so to request a close as it has only been open since 16 July and that probably isn't long enough for it to be considered to have run its course. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:20, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, that makes sense. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:33, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2017).

Administrator changes

Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 ^{(first RfA to reach WP:300)}

Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

• Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
• A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
• An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

• LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
• The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Sock?

User:DemocraticSocialism I wonder if this editor is the same one who kept putting numbers of troops in infoboxes despite no RS and got into trouble for being a nuisance? Keith-264 (talk) 16:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Keith-264: G'day Keith, not sure to be honest, but it is possible. Thanks for posting on the Battle of Loos talkpage. I don't think your ping to Democratic worked, though, so it might help to ping them again. If you have ongoing concerns, you might consider posting at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:58, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Have you been watching the page views for Third Battle of Ypres? It's rather gratifying. Keith-264 (talk) 14:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

G'day, wow that is a lot of views for a single day. I think most of my articles hover around five views a day, and they are probably mostly misclicks ... ;-) Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:32, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Trouble is, the views of Pilckem Ridge aren't as impressive....;o)Keith-264 (talk) 07:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

From User:DemocraticSocialism If you mean the Russian Civil War infobox incident, I wasn't intending to mislead anyone. I merely made a mistake. If this isn't about that, I had nothing to do with it.

Roger Chaffee

'lo

I just noticed you had more comments, and I addressed them. Thought I would let you know, thanks for the comments! Kees08 (Talk) 02:54, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

New user look familiar?

Do the edits of this "new user" appear familiar? [2]

I would have expected the IP/new user to know to use the talk page. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:10, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: G'day, you are most probably right. One suggestion I have is for you to start a post on the talk page (for instance on Granada War) outlining your concerns about the Clodfelter source and on Battle of Río Salado regarding the White source). If you ping the new editor, that might at least help them to engage. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXXXVI, August 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the Battle of Messines and recent Australian Army leadership; Nick-D on South African armour Op-ed: Nick-D talks photography Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:37, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

IP 94.254.238.106

Thank you for reversing edits made by IP 94.254.238.106 who is vandalizing various Vietnam War pages. regards Mztourist (talk) 04:47, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you for blocking IP:172.58.139.63. I appreciate your effort to keeping Wikipedia clean from vandalism. NYBrook098 (talk) 03:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

No worries, sorry you had to put up with that harassment. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:36, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn't let it bother me either or but Wikipedia has to be kept a clean and reliable encyclopedia. So you were really helpful. Thanks much. NYBrook098 (talk) 03:38, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi AustralianRupert, please revoke 172.58.139.63 (talk · contribs)'s talk page access. Check edit history of their talk page for reasons. Thanks. -★- PlyrStar93. _{→Message me. 🖉←} 03:59, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I've done this now. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Gallipoli Campaign

I'm new to wikipedia, could you please advise the correct procedure for undoing the reversion? so that the additional content can be added with references. I know not to load the lengthy quotes, but include below herein some of the evidence that my addition has references, but got interrupted before loading them.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164199308/19110464 Observer Sat 11 Sep 1915 p 44 WATTLE DAY. A Patriotic Effort. —The Governor-General.— ... The Wattle Day League, by its initiative, had caused Adelaide to be the first city in the Commonwealth to erect a memorial to the landing of the troops at Gallipoli, and he had great pleasure in unveiling the obelisk.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105486179 Daily Herald Tue 17 Aug 1915 p7 WAR DAY BY DAY-NATIONAL MEMORIAL TO AUSTRALIAN HEROISM A WATTLE GROVE PROPOSED http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105486179?searchTerm=Gallipoli%20memorial%20Grove&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc ... Believing that the gallant deeds of the Australasian Imperial Force which landed near Gaba Tepe, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, on April 25, should be commemorated, Mr. Walter Torode has suggested a splendid method. He has proposed that a portion of the south parklands should be converted into a grove, with an obelisk in the centre. To make the memorial thoroughly national he has suggested that the grove shall be of wattles.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105486388 Daily Herald Wed 18 Aug 1915 p 3 PROPOSED NATIONAL MEMORIAL Mr. Walter Torode, who is promoting a national memorial to the Australian soldiers, who landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25, has received generous offers of assistance in providing the material for the grove on the parklands which he has designed.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59419367 The Register Mon 30 Aug 1915 p4 "WATTLE GROVE" AND "OUR BOYS" ... the Patriotic Wattle Grove, which is to be formally opened by his Excellency the Governor-General on Wattle Day, Tuesday. September 7, in the presence of His Excellency Sir Henry Galway and Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson and Lady Galway, all of whom will take part in the ceremony. ...a path leads to the central feature of the design; a pergola-covered obelisk intended to mark the first entrance of Australians into European conflict. Upon this will be placed in raised and burnished letters, an inscription to the effect that it commemorates the achievements of Australasian troops at Gallipoli on April 25. 1915. The unveiling of the memorial will be the principal portion of the ceremonial on Wattle Day; but the other proceedings will be full of significance. The obelisk pergola will be circled by special trees representing each of the Allied nations, and these again by others meant to symbolize the forces of the Imperial Dominions engaged in the war. The planting of these trees will be done by prominent citizens, including a representative of the Federal Government.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59388746 The Mail Sat 4 Sep 1915 p5 PERSONAL The Governor-General (Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson ), Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson, Lady Doris Blackwood, and Capt. C. G. Foxton will reach Adelaide by the Melbourne express on Tuesday ... At 3 o'clock the Governor-General will unveil the obelisk in Wattle Grove, south park, in memory of the landing of the Australians at the Dardanelles, and will also dedicate the grove, in which the Governor-General, Her Excellency, Sir Henry, and Lady Galway will each plant a tree.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26955327 The West Australian (Perth, WA) Wed 8 Sep 1915 p5 WATTLE DAY, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CELEBRATIONS. GALLIPOLI LANDING MEMORIAL UNVEILED. In the afternoon a distinguished gathering assembled at Wattle Grove, situated in the South Park lands, where the Governor-General unveiled a granite obelisk erected to commemorate the landing of the Australians at Gallipoli. In doing so his Excellency made an impressive speech, in which he paid a fine tribute to the late General Bridges. The State Governor (Sir Henry Galway), the Federal and State president of the Wattle Day League (Mr. W. J. Sowden), the Mayor (Mr. Simpson), the Minister for Home Affairs (Mr. Archibald), the Leader of the State Opposition (Mr. Peake), and the Military Commandant delivered speeches, and all referred to the memorable deeds of the Australians at the Dardanelles. Trees, indicating the six States of the Commonwealth, were planted by, respectively, his Excellency the Governor-General and Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson, Sir Henry Galway, [Lady Galway,] the Premier (Mr. C. Vaughan), and the Mayor.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1557860 The Argus (Melbourne, VIC) Wed 8 Sep 1915 p8 WATTLE DAY IN ADELAIDE. GALLIPOLI LANDING MEMORIAL. ADELAIDE. Tuesday. ... In the afternoon a distinguished gathering assembled at Wattle Grove, situated in the south park lands, where the Governor- General unveiled a granite obelisk erected to commemorate the landing of the Australians at Gallipoli. In doing so, His Excellency made a happy speech, in which he paid a fine tribute to the late General Bridges.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105489811 Daily Herald Wed 8 Sep 1915 p6 GLORY OF GALLIPOLI WATTLE GROVE MEMORIAL UNVEILED BY GOVERNOR-GENERAL ... It was particularly appropriate that the first official act of the Governor-General should be in connection with Wattle Day, as his interest in and knowledge of forestry was well known the wide world over. (Cheers.) They had also with them, representing the State Parliament, the Premier (Hon. Crawford Vaughan) and the Leader of the Opposition (Hon. A. H. Peake), the Minister of Home Affairs (Mr. Archibald) representing the Federal Government, the heads of the military and naval forces, and the Mayor and other members of the City Council, so that they had a thoroughly representative official gathering to do honor to their Gallipol heroes. The Minister of Defence (Senator Pearce) had been a good friend to the wattle movement from the beginning, and he had sent an apology wishing them every success. Similarly good wishes had been received from the Prime Minister (Mr. Andrew Fisher). ... Mr. Torode ... explained the motif. The pergola at the entrance would in time be covered by wistaria or some suitable flowering climber. A path led them to the central pergola, in time to be covered with roses, under which there was the obelisk of solid granite. The lower part was rough, rugged, and unpolished, and was typical of the rough landing they had to face, and the polished top was emblematical of successful achievement. The deeds of the Australian soldiers were commemmorated in the words:—"Australasian Soldiers, The Dardanelles, April 25, 1915." The distance between posts was 4 ft., typifying the fourth month of the year in which the landing occurred, and the number of trees in each quadrangle (25) represented the date of the month. In the years to come the roses on the pergola would form a wreath to honor annually the achievements of their dear ones. ... A Permanent Reminder [His Excellency the Governor-General] "I think it is a great honour to unveil this memorial to the troops who landed on Gallipoli, for it will ever be a tribute to the gallantry of our boys and the record they have established in worthily maintaining the best traditions of the British arms ... to honour the spirits of the departed what more beautiful grove could there be than a wattle grove, which would be in bloom all the year round?

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63191720 The Register Thu 21 Jul 1921 p 8 PERPETUATING HEROISM [Sir William Sowden]... established in the park lands the first memorial to the fallen on Gallipoli.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122197254 The Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate (NSW) Thu 20 Apr 1916 p4 Still the Echo. Test of Patriotism. MUST FIND THE MONEY "ANZAC AVENUE" ... Next --Tuesday is Anzac Day ... in the afternoon will, come a public, demonstration at which the flag will be saluted, speeches delivered, and trees planted to commemorate the glorious Australian achievement at Gallipoli on 25th of April of last year. The avenue of trees will run from the Park gate up to Sheridan-street —a 50ft. road of what, in a few years will be the pride of the district. It will be known as 'ANZAC AVENUE,'1 And the boys who fell at Gallipoli will be remembered, too. Inside the Park has been fashioned a Maltese cross, which will be planted with Cootamundra wattle, and a tree will be put down in memory, of each dead hero. As wattle-planting time is not yet with us, the ground for Wattle Grove will be dedicated on Tuesday next by the Mayor, and in June another function will be held, it which the nearest relative of each Gundagai and ex-Gundagai boy who has given his life for us will be asked to plant a tree ...

The Register Mon 24 Apr 1915 p 4 IN MEMORY OF FALLEN SOLDIERS http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59631253 and Daily Herald Mon 24 Apr 1916 p 4 IN MEMORY OF FALLEN SOLDIERS http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/124874958 and http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8715555 The Advertiser Mon 24 April 1916 p6 HONOURING THE NATION'S DEAD Last September, when his Excellency the Governor-General and Lady Helen Munro Ferguson were in Adelaide they took a leading-part in the dedication of a wattle grove on the South Park lands, in honor of the heroes of Gallipoli, in whose memory is inscribed a record on the obelisk that forms the central feature of the grove. The trees and shrubs have thriven well under the care of the city gardener and his staff, and a commemorative tablet has been affixed to the pergola through the liberality of Mrs. Harry Bickford. The originator of the idea and of the design of the grove was Mr. W. C. Torode and again, at his suggestion, the committee of the Wattle Day League, at their latest meeting, have decided to provide facilities to-morrow (Anzac Day) for friends and admirers of the departed heroes to show respect for their memory by depositing memorial wreaths or flowers in an enclosure prepared for the purpose under the pergola. It is suggested that the flowers should be left between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and arrangements have been made for the proper safe-guarding of the wreaths. When the grove was dedicated it was too late in the season for roses to be planted over the pergola, but this pleasant duty is now being performed by Mr. Pelzer and his assistants, and already the grove is beginning to suggest the beauty it will possess when the wattles bloom.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59633855 The Register Wed 26 Apr 1916 p7 THE GALLANT ANZACS... At Wattle Grove. —At Wattle Grove.— The Wattle Day League, with the hearty co-operation of the City Gardener and his staff, prepared the obelisk under the pergola in Wattle Grove, on the south-west park lands, for the reception of wreaths in memory of soldiers who fell at Gallipoli, to whom the grove and the memorial were dedicated by the Governor-General on September 7, 1915— a fact commemorated by a brass tablet, since erected. The work on Tuesday was done under the superintendence of Mr. Walter C. Torode, the originator and designer of the grove. A number of wreaths were affixed to the obelisk by mothers and other relatives of deceased soldiers, and to each was attached an inscription, some of them of a pathetic nature. In spite of the inclement weather, the grove was visited at intervals during the day by those who were evidently interested in the soldiers whom it was intended to commemorate, and who doubtless felt it their duty to pay due homage to those who had fallen.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/139041325 The Tumut and Adelong Times Thu 27 Apr 1916 p2 ANZAC DAY. In celebrating Anzac Day tho Gundagai folk held special church services in the morning, and in the afternoon, a public demonstration at which the flag was saluted, speeches delivered, and trees planted to commemorate the glorious Australian achievement at Gallipoli on 25th April of last year. The avenue of trees will run from the Park gate up to Sheridan-street — a 50ft- road of what, in a few years will be the pride of the district. It will be known as 'Anzac Avenue,' and the boys who fell at Gallipoli will be remembered too. Inside the Park has been fashioned a Maltese cross, which will be planted with Cootamundra wattle, and a tree will be put down in memory of each dead hero. The ground for Wattle Grove will be dedicated on Tuesday next by the Mayor. In June another function will be held, at which the nearest relative of each Gundagai and ex-Gundagai boy who has given his life for us will be asked to plant a tree.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/123529453 The Gundagai Times and Tumut, Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser Tue 30 May 1916 p2 IN HONOUR OF THE ANZACS. DEDICATION OF ANZAC AVENUE. Wattle Grove Planted. An Impressive Ceremony.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/124882884 Daily Herald Wed 14 Jun 1916 p 4 ANZAC SOUVENIR State War Council issued an "Anzac Souvenir," which was an official record of celebrations held in Adelaide on "Anzac Day" to commemorate the landing of the Australians and New Zealand Army Corps on Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915. The souvenir contains ... references to the celebration at Wattle Grove ... etc. Zbunyip (talk) 05:24, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I have added my response on the article talk page. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:24, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

FAC Review request

Hey, I know naval articles aren't really your thing, but I was wondering if you'd be willing to review my German destroyer Z39 article FAC, because you helped review it for A class. Cheers! -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Blocked user doesn't have talk page message

The user was the IP 172.56.13.224. Is adding the talk page message something that has to be done manually? I asked someone why he or she said the IP was blocked when I couldn't see any evidence, and the person pointed me to the log.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

G'day, that IP was blocked for vandalism (addition of pornographic images in an inappropriate manner) on to a TFA (Lundomys). They had previously added the same content to the previous days' TFA (Bone Wars) using a different but related IP [3], and had used their talk page the first time to continue to post the same inappropriate image. As such, I revoked their talk page access and per WP:DENY saw no point in posting the block notice as they appear to be trolling. The evidence of vandalism is in their contributions log: [4] and the edit filter log: [5] Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:49, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Right. I didn't know how to find the evidence the IP had been blocked. I had seen the vandalism myself after a request on the Help Desk, and I wanted to see what the IP's talk page might look like after that. I was surprised not to see a block.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:30, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Precious five years!

Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:34, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Talk page abuse

User:101.174.192.127 is abusing her talk page right now. CLCStudent (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I've revoked their talkpage access for the length of the block. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Just a quick thank you note for cleaning Leon Smith (naval commander) - my work is often a bit messy (grammar, punctuation, spelling, mangled phrases), and this was no exception. Icewhiz (talk) 10:15, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Cheers, I do like a nice cold beer. Thanks! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:16, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Artúr Görgei

Hello, AustralianRupert – In response to a request for a copy-edit by Norden1990 at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, I just finished copy-editing Artúr Görgei. In the initial request, Norden1990 made it clear that a non-native speaker of English had expanded the article, so I knew what to expect when I accepted the request. It took me a while to put the article into standard English, as you'll see if you look at the revision history. I'm sure I've missed a few things along the way, but I've spent so much time on the article that I don't feel like reading through it again. I'm wondering, though, if you have time, if you would mind reading the article to check things from the point of view of a military historian. I have just a few concerns, but you may see other things. Norden1990 and the Hungarian-speaking editor, you are welcome to add your comments here, or at User talk:Norden1990#Artúr Görgei copy-edit.

1) I wondered about the various terms for Görgei and others. I saw "main commander", "high commander", "supreme commander", etc. I wonder if these should be made more consistent (and the correct term used).

2) I was a bit stumped by the frequent references to "two/three/four times lesser/smaller/greater/superior" armies – comparing the size of opposing armies – used adjectivally (before the noun). The wording seemed awkward to me, but I wasn't sure how to fix it. I was thinking of the more colloquial form "an army a third the size", but couldn't figure out how to re-arrange the sentence. (Maybe I was tired by that time.)

3) I have two questions about the table:

(a) Should the commentary in the far right-hand column be written in present tense or past tense? It's not consistent now, but I wasn't sure which tense to use.

(b) I think the formatting of the table needs to be fixed. It seems to me that the cells of the table are too tall. There seems to be a lot of blank space in the cells under the initial figures/text. I've asked Redrose64 if s/he can fix it, but I haven't heard back yet.

Would it be possible to make the far right-hand column wider, since that is the column with the most text in it, and one or more of the other columns narrower? I think that would make possible a reduction in the height of the cells.

4) Although I removed some words that I thought were repetitive and unnecessary, I still think the article is a bit wordy. I think there may be a few sections that could be shortened and made more concise, but I'm not sure what could be removed. It just seems like there may be a little too much detail in some places. What do you think?

I realize that some of these things would be addressed in a peer review, or GA review, but I'm sure these two editors would appreciate anything you can do to help get the article into shape.  – Corinne (talk) 02:32, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Corinne: G'day Corinne, thanks for your work on this article. I have tried to copy edit Hungarian translations before and struggled, unfortunately. Regarding your questions about the table, I would suggest past tense is best here. Additionally, I think if the column widths were set, it would fix the height problem. I'm not a table guru (nor do I use them much), but I think Help:Table#Setting_column_widths provides the appropriate coding. I will take a look at the writing over the weekend, but unfortunately I'm a bit under the weather at the moment so I might not be able to achieve much. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:59, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Setting column widths is rarely a good idea. What works on your setup (device, screen, operating system, browser, fonts installed, etc.) may actually make it worse for other people. Where no widths are specified, the browser uses its own algorithm, and although these differ between browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera etc.) they usually work quite well to optimise the layout. I have more observations at User talk:Redrose64#Artúr Görgei. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:03, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Ack, understood, thanks for this information. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:21, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your great copy-edits. I probably could have caught some of them if I had read through the article again – which I usually do – but after spending so much time on it, I didn't want to, so I appreciate your attention to the prose. I wondered about "maneuver" vs. "manoeuvre/manoeuver". It seemed to me that the article was written in British English (at least it used the day-month-year date format), and I thought the latter were British spellings, but if not, that's fine.  – Corinne (talk) 18:07, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, Corinne, I went with the US spelling of "maneuver" because I also saw "honor" and "defense", which are also US spelling variations. The dates can be a give away sometimes, too, but not usually in military articles as the US military largely uses ddmmyyyy. That said, there is also some British English variation,e.g "centimetre", so there is a potential I got this wrong. I will keep working on the article today (on and off) unless there are objections, but I think it would be a good candidate for a peer review and then GAN. Before that, though, the lead probably needs cleaning up as some of the wording gives a little bit of a promotional vibe. Any, all the best. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:15, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Solid advice

I very much appreciate your absolutely rock-solid advice today at DRV. I will try to keep my frustrations in check. Johnvr4 (talk) 17:24, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2017).

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

• ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
• Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
• Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
• In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

• Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Happy Father's Day in Oz Comment

Here's wishing you a Happy Father's Day, mate...and...spring is just around the corner for you as we head into autumn in Kansas. Hope you and yours are doing fine. I don't do nearly the amount of editing on here as I used to but I check in at least once a day...or so! Cheers! Cuprum17 (talk) 21:44, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, mate, Happy Father's Day to you too. All well here...my wife and I are expecting another child in a matter of weeks so we are going through the fake contractions stage. I expect after the little one comes along I will have a lot less time online for a bit. That is probably a good thing. Glad to hear you are still around, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:56, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the HD suggestion to the editor

Hi Rupert, hope you're doing well. Wanted to quickly thank you for the guidance to the editor's query at HD. (On a side note, remember the Van Diemen's Land v Port Phillip, 1851 where you had chipped in, in 2016? With massive contributions from Sarastro1, it finally got to FA! Phew...) Cheers and see you around. Lourdes 14:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, no worries, nice work on the Van Diemen's Land v Port Phillip article. I remember finding it a very interesting topic. Great to hear that it has finally made it to FA. Well done. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:11, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Talk:USS John S. McCain (DDG-56)#Freedom of navigation in ship articles

Hi AR, you may have seen the issue raised at Milhist talk. I have expressed an opinion there as an uninvolved third party (but by doing so, have become involved). I also took steps to facilitate the discussion in a more appropriate place. I am concerned by edits that have been made to the article page that have followed - USS John S. McCain (DDG-56). On the other matter, I am giving it some consideration. Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 02:32, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I'm afraid I probably don't know enough about the topic to offer an informed opinion. Sorry. I'd probably suggest going for a link to the term "freedom of navigation" and using that article to discuss the political ramifications in a more generic sense, rather than specifically on the individual ship article. But I'm not 100 percent on that approach and can see that where the fall out of a specific incident is lastingly significant that some more context might be appropriate in the ship article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I was being deliberately vague. There have been a couple of edits to the article today and some comments on the talk page. It makes me think that any resolution to this is not going to happen without pain and this is the concern I was intimating at. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:26, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I see. Sometimes we have to assess whether the meat is worth the chew. I'd argue its potentially not in this case, but if you do the best advice I can give is continue to try to establish consensus on the talk page. If that doesn't work, dispute resolution might be best. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:51, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXXXVII, September 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at two recent releases Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on ANZACs in the Third Ypres Offensive Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 23:32, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

2017 NRL season

You protected this article. But it appears that a confirmed user is one of the editwarriors and by researching the official website, the IP clearly seems to be right. I looked up the sources the IP mentioned and found out exactly that and so edited according to official sources. So this kind of protection seems not the perfect one.--Anaxagoras13 (talk) 09:07, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree, partially, however, IMO, the problem is not so much with whether they are right, but the fact that they were using multiple IPs to continue to make the edit once reverted. Once reverted, the edit should have been discussed on the talk page and consensus established. Instead, the editor chose to edit in a disruptive fashion using multiple IPs, hence why I chose to semi protect the article. The alternative of full protection did not seem like a good option as there are still constructive edits being made by other editors. If you feel that the IP's edit should be implemented, please start a discussion on the article's talk page discussing its merits. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:16, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Balfour Declaration

Hi Rupert, you kindly commented on and later closed the peer review of Balfour Declaration. The article is now at WP:FAC, in case you'd like to add further comments. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:03, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a quick update – not long after I posted this here, I was informed that the FAC had been archived and so the article wasn't promoted. I have however opened another peer review, so if you do have the time and inclination to review the article again, you can do so there. Many thanks, Onceinawhile (talk) 23:15, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi AustralianRupert, in case you still have an interest in this topic, I wanted to let you know that the article has now been back at WP:FAC for three weeks. Over the same period there has been a flurry of press coverage on the upcoming centenary.

The new FAC has had a few supportive reviews already, but in case you have the inclination and time to spare, I think it still needs a few more experienced editors to take a look. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:43, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rupert, thank you again for your help and support here. If you are supportive of the article’s promotion, please could you kindly say so at the FAC page? Onceinawhile (talk) 06:55, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Administrator confidence survey form

Hello AustralianRupert,

Thank you for signing up to take the Administrator confidence survey.

In order for me to send you the survey form could you either enable your email in Preferences or send me your email address.

Thanks, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 14:59, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@SPoore (WMF): G'day, I've enabled email now. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:33, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, sent. SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 15:01, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Something for you

This user knows which way to point a claymore mine without having to read it.

Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 09:07, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, Cinderella. That made my day! Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:08, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

This user knows that this is a FRED and has eaten way too many meals with one.

I am adding some user boxes. Here is another. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:22, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi, given our discussions about your plans for the new year, I was wondering how you would feel about being nominated as an emeritus co-ordinator and if it would be appropriate for me to make such a nomination? Or would you rather just go with the process? Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 04:07, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, mate, I probably haven't been around long enough for that yet. I appreciate the thought, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

2017 Military history WikiProject Coordinator election

Greetings from the Military history WikiProject! Elections for the Military history WikiProject Coordinators are currently underway. As a member of the WikiProject you are cordially invited to take part by casting your vote(s) for the candidates on the election page. This year's election will conclude at 23:59 UTC 29 September. Thank you for your time. For the current tranche of Coordinators, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:39, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Battle of Rossbach citations and notes

Brian Boulton is frustrated in explaining the problems with my citation and note styles. I think I've got them right. Would you please have a look and see? auntieruth (talk) 22:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Lead Coordinator of the Military History Project, September 2017 – September 2018

In recognition of your election to the position of Lead Coordinator of the Military History Project, I take great pleasure in presenting you with the Lead Coordinator's stars, and wish you the best luck in the coming year! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:10, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Ian. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your Rabaul update

Rupert, thanks for your Rabaul edits. I am no historian; I only found it odd that the intro to the Rabaul page didn't touch on one of the most bittersweet aspects of its WW2 history. I see you went on to say even more. I thank you, sir. Even if I wish a little of my poetic writing could have remained, laugh.

This page seems somewhat Australo-centric, but I am sure it's all true. Do victors write history? I wonder how many Japanese have edited this page?

An idle question. Yours in history,

- RedKnight7 (talk) 22:40, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day, Kengoro Tanaka's work Operations of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in the Papua New Guinea Theater During World War II has some information on pp. 101-109 which I will look to add into the article eventually. Even he, though, bases a lot of his narrative off Australian documents, I believe, to reconcile some of the inconsistencies in the various accounts. Steven Bullard has also translated some Japanese accounts (footnote 14) in the article at the moment. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:02, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

It is astonishing to think how much effort is wasted to war. How so many brave men and so much materiel is now simple food for fishes and rust.

Put a little poetry into your writing!

Between the hardiness of determined Japanese and the wisdom of Allied commanders, its honeycombed hills full of tunnels, and its harbor full of rusting relics, it is a testament to the ferocity of World War II.

<wink> - RedKnight7 (talk) 03:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

A challenge to you, sir, to put more poetry into this page and perhaps others. Let me know if you need help with the swoop of history and gliding out on wings as the fuel meter heads toward zero on long-reach campaigns, by men who did their best. And on occasion accomplished it.

History is not dry. It is wet crashing horrific metal fragments suddenly hyperbolic, and occasionally survived. My dad lived through it. Untold dedicated Japanese did not. Am I over emphatic? Are you under emphatic?

Put a little more blasted guts into your words, fine historian.

RedKnight7 (talk) 10:13, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

G'day, as an encyclopedia I believe we need to be careful about hyperbole and poetic turns of phrase as they can create the impression of a non neutral point of view. They can also lead to concerns of synthesis if the writing infers more than the sources actually say. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:53, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rupert,

Yes, you're right, of course. History needs to be straight facts. Poetry should be somewhere else. Oh well. Thank you for tolerating me, smile. And thanks for all your great writing!

-RedKnight7 (talk) 15:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2017).

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
• Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

• You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

Arbitration

• Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
• A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Jul to Sep 2017 Milhist article reviewing

		The WikiChevrons
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons for reviewing a total of 15 Milhist articles at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period Jul to Sep 2017. Thank you for supporting Wikipedia's quality content processes. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Ian. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:01, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest

Hi. Thankyou for your participation in the challenge series or/and contests. In November The Women in Red World Contest is being held to try to produce new articles for as many countries worldwide and occupations as possible. There will be over $4000 in prizes to win, including Amazon vouchers and paid subscriptions. If this would appeal to you and you think you'd be interested in contributing new articles on women during this month for your region or wherever please sign up in the participants section. The articles done may also count towards the ongoing challenge. If you're not interested in prize money yourself but are willing to participate and raise money to buy books about women for others to use, this is also fine. Help would also be appreciated in drawing up the lists of missing articles. If you think of any missing articles please add them to the sub lists by continent at Missing articles. Thankyou, and if taking part, good luck!♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:04, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXXXVIII, October 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at Australian involvement on the Western Front in 1918 and in post-war New Guinea Op-ed: TomStar81 on the October Revolution Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 23:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

108.178.186.242

Hi. Re [6], they are continuing as Mcvonbraun. Cheers. -- Begoon 05:33, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Felix Römer

Hi, thank you for your assessment of the article. You've mentioned that the article would need more info on Römer's early life to qualify for B-class. I don't believe that early lives of academics are covered in detail since they are not that interesting :-). Compare with Jens Westemeier which was recently assessed as B-class. If you could share more feedback, or revisit the assessment, I would appreciate it. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

G'day, the level of detail depends required depends on what is mentioned in reliable sources; however, at a bare minimum I would expect at least a sentence regarding his date or year and place of birth in the body of the prose, with a citation. I would say the same for Westemeier. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:15, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I added a citation for the place and year of birth: diff. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that. I've updated the assessment now. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:34, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Help!

Greetings! My most recent contribution to Wikipedia has been the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve article; promoted to B-class and now seems ready for the GAN. While I have nominated several articles for GA status, this time, however, after repeated attempts, I just can’t get the job done. So, if you have the time and inclination, could you help me with a sample format? I think old age is catching up with me. In any event, thank you. Pendright (talk) 05:57, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@Pendright: Hope you are well. From what I can see, you have a slight error in the code you are trying to paste. If you paste {{subst:GAN|subtopic=Warfare}} on the talk page of the article, that should do it. Nice work on the article, too, by the way. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:04, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm well and trust you are too. Your kind words are appreciated. Regards! Pendright (talk) 06:39, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2017).

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:49, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXXXIX, November 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on late 1917 naval warfare Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:29, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

"The Badcoe"

Regarding the IP's edit, this grumpy old man thinks you are being excessively tolerant. To me, the paragraph reeks of wp:peacock and is bereft of anything to support the numerous assertions therein. Nevertheless, please feel free to revert my edit should you wish - given your past reliable editing history, I couldn't possibly be offended by your edits. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 09:51, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

G'day, no worries. I don't have any concerns with the paragraph being removed. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Taivo and my photo EGardner on the British Merchant Seamen of WW2 contribution

Please excuse me, I am seriously out of touch with how to operate this system after I gave up contributing to Wiki well over a year ago. I noted that I'd had a message from somebody called Taivo saying that they wish to delete a photo (EGardner.jpg) which I uploaded with my "British merchant Seamen of WW2" contribution to Wiki. Apparently there is a perceived issue with copyright ? The photo was taken by my Grandfather, I have its original here in front of me. I gave up on Wiki due to people continually messing with stuff I'd contributed - I leave it to the "editors" to decide if they no longer want it, or for that matter the entire subject for that matter...... the mind boggles ! Barnstars are handed out with one hand while "editors" butcher valid material with the other hand. I'd pondered giving it another go on here but I reckon I'd made the right decision after all. Researcher1944Researcher1944 (talk) 12:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

@Researcher1944: G'day, good to hear from you. I hope you are well. I'm sorry to hear that you are not enjoying your Wikipedia experience. I can certainly understand your frustration. It is best to assume good faith, though. The vast majority of contributors are only trying to do what they think is best. Most editors will try to work with you if try to discuss your concerns, so long as you can point to site policy that supports your position. If you think you have grounds, you can appeal the deletion of your image. As it was deleted off Commons (not Wikipedia), you will have to appeal it there. The link is here: [7]. All the best. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:04, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, AustralianRupert. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

MHOTY

Hi, I noticed the MHOTY awards isn't receiving a great deal of attention. Doesn't the MilHist project have a mailbot that could post a notice of the event to its active members, like User:MediaWiki message delivery uses the User:The_ed17/sandbox3 list for The Bugle, to help gather interest? Unless you think there might be a late rush to add nominations? Just a thought. — Marcus^(talk) 00:37, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

G'day, Marcus, yes this could be used to send a notification. I would suggest waiting until maybe 10 Dec before sending that out, though, to see how everything is going (so we potentially don't bother people unnecessarily). We could also put something in the upcoming Bugle also (I've put a placeholder comment there already). @WP:MILHIST coordinators: AustralianRupert (talk) 03:23, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of sending a notification on the first day of voting to reach as many people as possible, not unlike the Arbcom notifications. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:56, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Ordinarily I'd send a notification out asap on this, however this coincided with a weekend start to the month, so we can forgive being a little slow here. I'd suggest a mass message to the project at the same time that we send-out the bugle so we can touch call corners to ensure the project members be notified. Thats my suggestion. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:39, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Ed, I was more concerned that there aren't many nominations being made, rather than about how many will eventually vote. Given that a lot of editors work on MilHist articles but don't all keep a watchful eye on the project, we could be missing out on a lot of potential recognition. If a message is going to be sent out, it should be done sooner, allowing editors the opportunity to both nominate and vote. If you only send it once voting begins editors may get upset that they weren't advised of the event in time to nominate someone. — Marcus^(talk) 04:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I could work on something today if it is desired. I would mention both nominations and voting, so it would only need to be sent once. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I have drafted the following message:

"G'day ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end of the year, the Military History project is looking to recognise editors who have made a real difference to the project. Each year we do this by bestowing two awards: the Military Historian of the Year and the Military History Newcomer of the Year. The co-ordinators invite all project members to get involved by nominating any editor they feel merits recognition for their contributions to the project. Nominations for both awards are open between 00:01 on 2 December 2017 and 23:59 on 15 December 2017. After this, a 14-day voting period will follow commencing at 00:01 on 16 December 2017. Nominations and voting will take place on the main project talkpage: here and here. Thank you for your time. For the co-ordinators,"

Are there any concerns with sending this out today or tomorrow via mass message? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@MarcusBritish: @WP:MILHIST coordinators: Thoughts/concerns? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I think just do it, Rupert. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Looks fine. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds alright, though I'd be tempted to start it with a more standard/generic "Dear member", as I think "G'day ladies and gentleman" is a touch speechified for a Wiki-project communication. — Marcus^(talk) 01:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Battle of Madang

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Battle of Madang you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 09:41, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

2017 Military Historian of the Year and Newcomer of the Year nominations and voting

As we approach the end of the year, the Military History project is looking to recognise editors who have made a real difference. Each year we do this by bestowing two awards: the Military Historian of the Year and the Military History Newcomer of the Year. The co-ordinators invite all project members to get involved by nominating any editor they feel merits recognition for their contributions to the project. Nominations for both awards are open between 00:01 on 2 December 2017 and 23:59 on 15 December 2017. After this, a 14-day voting period will follow commencing at 00:01 on 16 December 2017. Nominations and voting will take place on the main project talkpage: here and here. Thank you for your time. For the co-ordinators, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Spitifre

G'day. What should I do to make the referencing style more consistent? Thank you. Cheers, FriyMan ^{Per aspera ad astra} 15:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: G'day, decide whether you want to use clickable refs, or non clickable refs and then convert all of them to whichever you decide to use. I would argue that in this case, the non-clickable refs are more prevalent, so it is probably easier for you to just convert the clickable ones to non-clickable. For instance, "<ref name="Green p. 91">[[#refGreen2007|Green 2007]], p. 91.</ref>" would become "<ref name="Green p. 91">Green 2007, p. 91.</ref>". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Hindenburg Programme

Do you mind having a look at the footer as I'm not sure about a portal and commons category. I've been pretty remiss about this for most of the year, what with real life getting in the way and I need to tighten up; apropos, can you offer a link to an advice page so that I can check for myself? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@Keith-264: G'day, Keith, hope you are well. Unfortunately this isn't an area I know much about, I'm afraid. That said, I had a quick look and can offer the following: Portal:Contents/Portals and Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects as the policy links. My suggestions would be {{commons category|Military industry in Germany in World War I}} and {{Portal|World War I}}. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Prety good, thanks, hope you are too. Thanks and regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:00, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Battle of Madang

The article Battle of Madang you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Battle of Madang for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXL, December 2017

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Halifax Explosion of 1917 Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 11:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of New Britain campaign

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article New Britain campaign you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 09:01, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of New Britain campaign

The article New Britain campaign you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:New Britain campaign for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 23:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

	Holiday barnstar
	You deserve a holiday barnstar, but this snowflake was as close as I could come. And best holiday wishes to you. Thank you for making Wikipedia a better place. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

	Happy Holidays
	Wishing you a happy holiday season! Times flies and 2018 is around the corner. Thank you for your contributions. ~ K.e.coffman (talk) 23:43, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Ke, all the best for the new year. Merry Christmas. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:32, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

A question about my article you deleted, is the reference a problem?

Hi,I wrote an article about a Chinese institution, but you deleted it . I just wanna know the reason, All the reference are Chinese, is it a problem? 17：55 21st December 2017 （GMT+8）

@Zy12900: G'day, it was deleted because at 03:02 UTC on 21 December 2017 you added "{{db-self}}" to the top of the page. Adding this results in an automated request for deletion per WP:CSD#G7. If deletion was not your intent, I can undelete it for you, but can I please ask why you added this code if you weren't requesting deletion? Regarding references, non-English references can be used per WP:NONENG. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Ah，got it. So could you please help me undelete it？Thanks a lot. I was making some changes to my article， that was a negligence，sorry for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zy12900 (talk • contribs) 11:26, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

@Zy12900: No worries, I have restored the draft for you and removed the db-self code. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:32, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

User group for Military Historians

Greetings,

"Military history" is one of the most important subjects when speak of sum of all human knowledge. To support contributors interested in the area over various language Wikipedias, we intend to form a user group. It also provides a platform to share the best practices between military historians, and various military related projects on Wikipedias. An initial discussion was has been done between the coordinators and members of WikiProject Military History on English Wikipedia. Now this discussion has been taken to Meta-Wiki. Contributors intrested in the area of military history are requested to share their feedback and give suggestions at Talk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2018!

Hello AustralianRupert, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2018. Happy editing, Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Thank you. Merry Christmas to you as well! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:22, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Operation Safari

Hi Australian Rupert

Please keep me informed of your developing article on Operation Safari - if you need Danish translations, I can give it a go. Viking1808 (talk) 08:57, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@Viking1808: G'day, Viking, thanks for the offer. Skjoldbro is doing most of the heavy lifting, I am mainly just helping to tidy the draft up a little prior to publishing. I think it is pretty close to being ready to be moved to the mainspace, but the draft is here if you are interested in adding anything: Draft:Operation Safari. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:06, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Landings at Cape Torokina

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Landings at Cape Torokina you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 09:21, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Seasons' Greetings

...to you and yours, from the Great White North! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:05, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Bzuk. Merry Christmas to you, too! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Greetings

Dear AustralianRupert


I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and, a very Happy New Year.
Thanks for all your help and contributions.
Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 03:19, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Krishna, all the best to you and your family, too. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:34, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Query re: distribution list

G'day Rupert, when we send out a message to all members, does it go to just the active list, or both lists? BTW, I'm slowly working through the active list and moving inactive ones as I go. I was pleased to actually move one back today (I'm up to K now). Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:38, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

G'day, PM, thanks for this, it's not a fun, quick or easy job. Re messages: in the past I've only sent them to the active list. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:46, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Copy, I thought so. Makes the work worth doing anyway. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:49, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Landings at Cape Torokina

The article Landings at Cape Torokina you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Landings at Cape Torokina for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Anotherclown -- Anotherclown (talk) 10:22, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2018!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2018!

Hello AustralianRupert, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2018. Happy editing, Chris Troutman (talk) 23:53, 27 December 2017 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Thanks, Chris, all the best to you and your family also. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:50, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Mass Message

G'day Rupert, the MHOTY has thus far been pretty underwhelming in terms of number of votes. Is it worth sending out another message do you think? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:34, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: G'day, I'm a bit cautious about potentially being seen to pester people with this one. I'm pretty disappointed with the lack of engagement with the process and I can't understand why project members haven't taken the opportunity to highlight the efforts of those they think deserve recognition, but I don't think this is because people don't know about the process. For whatever reason editors have chosen not to engage with the process. I am also confused as to why most of the co-ord team have chosen not to engage with the process, but I guess they must have their reasons. Moving forward, I think next year we may need to have a think about whether or not the project actually wants this process, and if they do, whether it needs modification either in terms of timing, outcomes, or methodology. Anyway, with apologies to SGT Oddball, sorry for the negative waves. Thanks for all that you do for the project and Wikipedia. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:06, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Mate, that's fair enough and I agree. Not sure that people are that enamoured with the whole thing. Maybe it has done its dash? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:08, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Ugh, I'm one of the guilty coords not engaging with the process as early as usual, mainly through a busy RL and trying to balance that with several things on WP, and also trying to take the time to actually evaluate the nominees rather than simply vote for those I know well (which I intend to complete before the voting period expires soon). As to a general lack of interest, I'm afraid nothing really leaps out from my perspective, although I notice there's been some healthy discussion on the talk page... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:27, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Cheers, Ian and PM. I'd be disheartened if we did away with some sort of project-wide recognition process, as I think a key part of the project's success has been celebrating the work of our members and promoting a sense of community. But anyway, we can revisit in the New Year, I suppose. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

|nolink=1

Greetings Oz, what does it do? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 12:42, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

It occurs that it might work to undo something when a link in a page redirects to the same page....Keith-264 (talk) 12:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

G'day, Keith, yes it stops an automatic link being generated by certain templates. In the case I used it, I did so to prevent a circular link being generated as the target was a redirect to the list that the link would appear on. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks v much, it's always useful to find out about these little things. Regards and HNY Keith-264 (talk) 00:37, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History references

Hi, Do you know how to get references to The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History to work using the sfn harvard referencing template? (eg, so they appear as something like Dennis et al. 2009, p. 1). If so, could you please show me? I need to convert a bunch of references to it in the Australian Defence Force article, and my attempts to do so didn't work... Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 06:37, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nick-D: G'day, Nick, I think I got it to work with this edit: [8]. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks a lot! Nick-D (talk) 06:56, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

	Wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year 2018!
	A very Happy, Glorious, Prosperous Christmas and New Year! God bless!  — Adityavagarwal (talk) 16:01, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Adityavagarwal. Happy New Year to you, too. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

October to December 2017 Milhist article reviewing

		The WikiChevrons
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons for reviewing an incredible total of 38 Milhist articles at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period October to December 2017. Thank you for your commitment to Wikipedia's quality content processes. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, PM. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

To my Mate in Oz

Thank you for fielding Pendright's concerns on my talk page. Pendright often asks me for advice on articles he is working on. I became familiar with his work when he was working on the Coast Guard's SPARS article. I appreciate your help on his efforts to get the articles he works on to GA or A class. I commend you for your efforts to keep the Milhist Project one of the best projects on Wikipedia. I wasn't aware the I had any page stalkers following my efforts! I have been busy with the after effects of the death of my wife in November, and while her death was not totally unexpected it still changed my daily routine. She had suffered from the effects of multiple sclerosis for the last twenty years. She was a good old gal and always had a sense of humor even in her last days. I shall miss her. My contributions to Wikipedia have fallen off recently as I was caretaker for my wife and had other life concerns to take care of. I mostly patrolled articles for vandalism and simple formatting problems. With the new year I may be able to get back in formation with some more regular contributions like review of articles in the Milhist Project. My jeep restoration project which I originally took of from Wikipedia for has been completed and I plan to take some time this fall for a trip to the Colorado mountains with one of my brothers. He was a Vietnam veteran like myself and we have a lot in common.

I noticed that you have had a change of duty stations at some time in the last year or so. I hope your new duties in the north of Australia are challenging without being too onerous. I trust your family is all well and with you at your new assignment. You have certainly taken on more than your fair share of Wikipedia tasks recently and I hope that you don't have burnout on that score. The Project would miss your contributions and leadership. Again, thanks for standing in my stead for Pendright. Cheers! Cuprum17 (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Cuprum17: G'day, mate, the family is well, thanks for asking. Our three-month-old is keeping us on our toes, though, as is the three-year-old. I am really sorry to hear about your wife passing. Please accept my condolences. It must be very hard to adjust after being with someone for such a long period of time, to not have them around anymore. Equally, it must have been very hard watching someone you love suffer so much. I hope that 2018 will bring you better fortune. Regarding my posting in Darwin, actually this is my fourth year here now. It is very different from my previous postings (which were mainly on the eastern seaboard, and in the south), but it has been quite enjoyable. After a couple of years in a command role, and then ops/plans, I have a new role this year, which will be a bit challenging (battalion/regimental XO and ADJT) so I suspect that I will be pretty busy but in a very different way. I still have a week of leave left, but after that I will be scaling back my time online again. Anyway, all the best. Take care of yourself. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Query about speedy deletion of Halitrephes page

Hi. So I recently edited the page on Halitrephes maasi. I saw a notification on the talk page of the article's creator speedy delete tagging an article they'd created called Halitrephes. The reason was that it was a duplicate article of Halitrephes maasi. This seems incorrect. Halitrephes maasi is the species, while Halitrephes is the genus of that species. They are two different topics. Further I'm skeptical one editor would have created two articles on the exact same thing. I was going to comment on the talk page of the deleting admin requesting undeletion, but I see that the reason you've given for deletion is G7 as opposed to duplicate article. As such I'm wondering if you could check whether there is anything worth salvaging and whether you think undeleting is worthwhile in the circumstances? Brustopher (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

G'day, Brustopher, it was G7ed as it was blanked by its author. From what I can tell it was very similar to Halitrephes maasi page, with the same WORMS reference and pretty much the same opening (and only) sentence (with a slightly different final clause mentioning "East of Socorro Island" rather than "the Peruvian part of the South Pacific Ocean"). Probably not much to gain with undeleting it, IMO. The only real improvement in the deleted article, IMO, was the presence of an extra image (File:Halitrephes Maasi.jpg). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Sir John Monash Centre

Good afternoon, AustralianRupert. I've had a look at the above, following a request from the editor on the AfC Helpdesk. I absolutely agree that the sources as they stood didn't support Notability independent of the Villers–Bretonneux Australian National Memorial. However, I've added about a dozen, and I think they might do now. It's a A$100 million project and also has some Notability due to the centenary opening this April. I didn't want to Accept without giving you an opportunity to express a view, so if you had a chance to take a look, I'd very much appreciate it. Best regards. KJP1 (talk) 12:41, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@KJP1: G'day, thanks for your efforts with the article. I don't have a drama if you wish to publish it. I'm still not sure that it is independently notable from the memorial, but I agree the draft has been significantly improved and is acceptable for publication. There may be more coverage when it's launched, also, which might help expand it a bit more. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Appreciated - I think you're right and we are likely to get some good RS coverage around the opening. Out of interest, do you happen to know if there's any opposition to it in Australia. I came across one blog that described it as a colossal, flag-waving, Tony Abbott vanity-project but it was only a single blog. But there also seems to have been a parliamentary inquiry? And this [9] suggests a degree of controversy. It would be good to reflect any, significant, opposition. Thanks and all the best. KJP1 (talk) 07:48, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

G'day, actually I hadn't heard anything about it, until I saw the draft. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:15, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The Sir John Monash Centre is definitely notable: it will be a fair sized museum housing some of the Australian War Memorial's collections, and has cost a fortune to build. It's received a reasonable amount of coverage, some of which has been critical. The article looks good to go IMO. Nick-D (talk) 09:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks - I've pushed the article through and the originating editor's committed to expanding it further. KJP1 (talk) 10:17, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Would like to have your opinion

Hi,

I would appreciate it if you could give your input regarding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_naval_ship_classes_in_service#Split_this_article_into_multiple_articles Thanks in advance Dragnadh (talk) 02:00, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I think a split makes sense, but I'm not really familiar enough with the topic to offer much more than that, I'm afraid. It looks like there is already a reaonable consensus that a split is necessary, so I won't pile on. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLI, January 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at tropical medicine and Operation Market Garden Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on US Army doctrine in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Nine years of editing

Hey, AustralianRupert. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133

Hello, Very sorry to trouble you again. But, I would like your opinion as a military project member, when you have the time, thank you. I did the article Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133. I just had an editor delete important external links with no explination. Then they came back and destroyed the image format with no explanation for that either. Prior to my doing this article the battalion had three hotlinks for its History on it's facebook page. When I completed this article the battalion made Wikipedia it's sole history link. Three weeks ago Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11 left a special request on my talk page requesting that I do an article for them similar to the 133's. I have that submitted now. But, I have also done the NMCB 25 article and Seabee Is it a requirement of a Wikipedia article to be visually uninteresting? Can editors just change an article's images willy nilly with no regard to placement? 133 built the entrances to the Marine Corps cemetery on Iwo Jima. It seemed to me that the fitting placement of those images was at the end of the article. Look at what has been done. This editor's talk page states that they review new articles. They edited the NMCB 11 article but, it is still in my sandbox? In that article they removed the image of the only Seabee to be awarded the Medal of Honor along with his medal. Do editor's get reviewed for the editing they do to articles? What has happened here is not the same thing as checking the grammar, spelling or bare URLs. Thank you again for your time.Mcb133aco (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)mcb133Mcb133aco (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@Mcb133aco: G'day, thanks for your efforts so far. Unfortunately, I don't have much time tonight so I haven't had a long look at the articles you reference. However, I think a couple of things need to be considered here. Firstly, please remember that assuming good faith is a key policy here. Please consider that most editors (whether they get it right or not) are usually trying to do what they think is right. Second, please be mindful that other editors have a right to work on the encyclopedia, too. None of us WP:OWN the articles we work on, even those in draft space. This can be a very frustrating element of Wikipedia, but it can also be one of its strengths as it promotes collaboration and diverse opinions and approaches. It is indeed the way all of our featured articles are produced (they go through a formal review process where many editors offer opinions and advice, etc). Anyway, I think the best advice I can give you is if you disagree with a change someone has made, post a message on the article talk page, or on their talk page, asking them to clarify why they've done it. This can help you to understand, and potentially learn, or it can help you establish consensus about why their change may not be for the best (if that is the case). With specific reference to the image situation, it is important to maintain balance within an article. Of course, articles look better with images; however, we cannot always use them (due to licensing issues), and also there are issues of balance. For instance, it is important not to include too many images, because that can take the focus off the prose (which is the main aspect of the article), and to ensure that the way they are placed within an article in an appropriate way. This link might help: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images. Anyway, I'm afraid I have to turn in for tonight. Early start for duty tomorrow. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:10, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. You wrote a great deal that I do not believe is applicable to what I came to you with, but I do want to thank you for your reply. I have some considerable schooling in photo and worked for a publisher at one time. I do have an understanding of article layout, structure and visual presentation. Twice now I have had the same image removed from an unpublished article, the only Seabee to be awarded a Medal of Honor. That is almost a news story. Additional questions I have for you are: Does Wikipedia require that all images be a thumb and preferably be placed on the right? Does Wikipedia presume that readers are visually illiterate and require written text under every image? Thank you again for your time and consideration.Mcb133aco (talk) 16:56, 22 January 2018 (UTC)mcb133acoMcb133aco (talk) 16:56, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

ACR Source Question

Hi. Would you be able to advise on whether lack of author info in sources is a problem for ACR? This question has come up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. I'm not sure where we stand on this. Factotem (talk) 09:33, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

opinion

Hello. May I ask a question? On Landings at Cape Torokina you (or maybe Hawkeye) used oclc's rather than isbn's, even for relatively recent publications. I'm in a little information-gathering period these days. My question is, is there some reason why you prefer oclc's over isbn, or did you just kinda go with one over the other for no big reason. Tks. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I usually use ISBNs if they exist for a source, but I'm not really fussed either way as they both seem to do the job, IMO. Is there are particular entry you'd like changed? I can have a look if you want. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

No, I wasn't hinting anything about changes or anything else. I was actually just gathering info. Tks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

No worries. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
• Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

• A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Wehrmachtbefehlshaber

Hey @AustralianRupert: first of, thanks for the help on Operation Safari. I am currently trying to work a bit on Draft:Wehrmachtbefehlshaber and reached a bit of a wall. If you have time and feel like it, I would appreciate some help/feedback/etc. Regards Skjoldbro (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

@Skjoldbro: G'day, that one isn't really up my ally, unfortunately. My only real suggest would be to expand the lead to summarise the article a bit more. For instance, in the lead you could mention that the were ten positions, you could mention when they were first created, and how many individuals held the appointments, perhaps. You could potentially also clarify what the responsibilities of the position entailed. For instance, were they actively involved in commanding operations in the field, or really just a figurehead? In terms of sourcing, I think you will need to find some more diverse sources as currently it all seems to be from the Axis History website. Anyway, sorry I couldn't be of more help. Thanks for your efforts. Good luck and all the best. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLII, February 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Napoleonic Wars and Hawkeye7 on World War II Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on generalship in 1918 Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Questions

G'day i have two questions for you, first question can i use this icon (below this line) of Britsh or the American or even an other English dialect in some pages without asking someone or do i have to make some requests on their talk pages cause i want to put the icons in the pages who are at least GA-class.

{{British English}}

Second question can i have your opinion are this rebel groups part of a conflict

Breton Region
Breton Revolutionary Army
Breton Liberation Front
Corsican Region
National Liberation Front of Corsica
Armata Corsa
Provençal Region
National Liberation Front of Provence
Catalan Region
Catalan Red Liberation Army
Catalan Liberation Front
Terra Lliure
Catalan People's Army
Galician Region
Resistência Galega
Exército Guerrilheiro do Povo Galego Ceive
Liga Armada Galega
Loita Armada Revolucionaria
Sardinian Region
Sardinian Armed Movement
Fronte Nazionale de Liberazione de sa Sardigna
Movimentu Nazionalista Sardu
Canarian Rigion
Fuerzas Armadas Guanches

I know that most of the groups did killed not a lot of people i just want to know then i'd make a page like the Insurgency in Northeast India a major conflict with some low conflicts. I had an idea to make some pages called Insurgency in Spain, Insurgency in France and one in Italy called Insurgency in Italy then i can put some other groups like left-wing rebel groups and right-wing rebel groups. So i can make some low conflicts like the Galician conflict, Corsican conflict and more. I know it would be a lot of work but i think it's worth it or i'll make some drafts (if there is almost no information) for in the futere before they want to merge or delete it what do you think i think they want war and they need a page if they are really making a conflict there. Anyway cheers and have a gread day. CPA-5 (talk) 21:59, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

G'day, with regards to your first question, it depends. If it is clear cut, then you probably don't need post on the talk page first; however, if it appears to be a bit ambiguous about what variation applies, or there has been some contention in the past, it is best to post on the talk page first. Regarding your second question, I wouldn't suggest creating an overarching article unless it is clear based on sources that such a concept exists, otherwise it would be original research to group them into an overarching conflict. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

G day thanks for the questions however about the second question are those situations really conflicts. I mean, have these situations the characteristics for consideration as a conflict. If it is so then can I make some separate conflicts and not overarching articles, even there are not a lot of people who died in situations or should I make some drafts then we can wait until there are more informations. CPA-5 (talk) 08:42, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer. These aren't organisations or conflicts I have any knowledge of. It might help to post your query on the main MILHIST talk page: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

I see, i'll surly upload this issue on the MILHIST talk page, cause I think they're fighting on an urban guerrilla warfare way. I was even thinking to make some conflict articles for some left-wing rebel groups like the Informal Anarchist Federation, the Action directe, the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups, the Red Army Faction and more. But also for some right-wing rebel groups like Youth Front, Triple A (Spain) and more, since the begin of the Cold War they are fight against the governments, but I am not sure or they are a conflict. Should I put also the left-wing and right-wing rebels issue in the MILHIST talk page? Anyway thanks again and have a great day, cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:49, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Military history A-Class medal with Swords

		The Military history A-Class medal with Swords
		On behalf of the WikiProject Military history coordinators, you are hereby awarded the Military history A-Class medal with Swords for your excellent work on developing Bougainville counterattack, New Britain campaign, and Landings at Cape Torokina to A-Class status. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 09:49, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:10, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations also from me. It was great working with you on the first two of these articles, and the third is a fine piece of work. Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Nick-D: Cheers, Nick. I'd be keen to work with you again. Have been thinking for awhile that 6th Division (Australia) might be that opportunity. I'd need to get a few books through the library first, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:21, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Razing of Friesoythe

G'day Rupert. Many thanks for your comments on this. Just what I was after. "are there any other sources that you could use beyond Stacey that talk about the incident in relation to whether it was a war crime?" One of the things which most fascinated me about this incident when I stumbled across it was the almost complete absence of censure. Stacey is the most critical (and he lied through his teeth in the official history and was economical with the truth in his autobiography) while most accounts even today tend to "they had it coming". Vokes seemed to positively glory in his role. So, sadly, I am struggling to expand this section. I could say a lot more, but would stray into original research and this is too delicate a topic for that. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:26, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

No worries, you can only write what is covered in RS. Your changes look good. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:59, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Nonexistent portal

Can you remove the link to United States Department of the Army Seal.svg portal on Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Kevin Musker (locked page)? It's one of two links to the bogus(?) portal which IMHO doesn't need to exist. I'm about to delete the other. Thanks in advance.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 16:25, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

BTW, there's another one on he same page. I looks like an editor tried to pipe a portal without realizing that "portal" takes multiple parameters. I wonder how many of those are out there?<sigh>--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 17:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I am a bit wary about boldly adjusting this page at this stage, sorry, as it has been fully protected specifically to ensure that "integrity of the archived hoaxes is preserved" as per the note here Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia. Is there a discussion somewhere that you can link me to, to work out the background to your request? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:32, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I understand. There's no discussion anywhere that I know of. I first saw the red link on Steven Dale Green and checked to see how often the page (portal) was linked. There were only two and I removed the one on Green. I figured this was just simple maintenance.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 00:07, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Editor of the Week

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your collaborative and congenial nature. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:7&6=thirteen submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

AustralianRupert has been at the forefront of editing military history and Australian articles. He has been in service for almost 80,000 edits (99+% with edit summaries) and over 8 years. He is courteous and helpful. Many years ago he went out of his way to teach me about electronic foot noting. Give a man a fish... etc. When help was requested he was on it. The very soul of a collaborative and cooperative member of the project. An appreciated and valued mentor. A prolific and precise editor who has been making things better behind the scenes. But don't take my word for it. See here.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}

Of Cornish Desent

AustralianRupert

Editor of the Week for the week beginning February 25, 2018

Courteous and helpful and a leading editor of military history and Australian articles. Collaborative and cooperative.

Recognized for

Mentoring

Submit a nomination

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 21:36, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both for this! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:35, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

• The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
• Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
• A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
• A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

• CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
• The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

• Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

HMS Vanoc (H33)

G'day Rupert. A query. My understanding was that one can self assess an article , even if one has worked on it oneself, up to C class. But your submitting this with a specific request that it only be assessed for C class makes me suspect that I am mistaken. I would be grateful for brief clarification.

My copy editor instincts kicked in I am afraid. Obviously revert anything you aren't happy with. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: No worries, Gog, thanks for your edits. Yes, one can self assess up to C-class, but in this case I felt I'd prefer a second set of eyes as it was quite late and I'd already made a couple of mistakes with my edits on the article. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Check mail

Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 09:49, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Done. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:16, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLIII, March 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at a work by Daniel Ellsberg Op-ed: TomStar81 on the 1918 flu pandemic Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Feb contest results and changes to "rules"

Hi AR,

Firstly, can I express my sincere disappointment at the lack of leadership (silence) demonstrated by this tranche in what is something of a crisis. Pardon me if I appear to exaggerate but by I perceive this is a matter that affects the integrity of the project at a number of levels and should have been resolved by now. There is an issue of natural justice for both Gog and other competitors - specifically, a matter of timeliness. The "result" must be fair and seen to be fair to all concerned (ie, bot Gog and other competitors). I find it hard to believe that in a tranche of 13 members, we have obtained such little input into these two discussions. In my military experience, there is no failure to make what might ultimately prove to be the wrong decision, provided it was well considered in respect to the information available at the time. The most egregious and culpable failure of command is to vacillate and fail to make a decision when circumstances demand action - even if this is a conscious decision to wait and prepare, rather than vacillating and waiting for circumstances to dictate action and steal the initiative. I have made an edit to the contest page to foreshadow potential changes. I think this demanded action and appologise (sort of) if this was inappropriate. On the matter of the Feb results, I have indicated a solution, which is to ask Gog to do a self-reassessment. This is contingent on the foreshadowed changes and without prejudice to how these might pan out. I have been very tempted to approach Gog but am loath to do so as this might exceed my authority to act on behalf of the Tranche without some support. I note PM's support. I have not referred to Gog there by his proper user name, by which he might have received notifications. It was not my intent to exclude Gog from the discussion but, rater, to give the tranche some (short) time to consider the issues and have an informed opinion. With what has transpired (the lack of response), I regret not having pinged Gog. To conclude, I appreciate your leadership. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:58, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: No worries, I appreciate you seeing this through. For what it's worth, I think your edit to the contest page is a good idea as it will keep people in the loop. I probably would have put it on the talk page, but in reality it probably wouldn't be seen there so your solution is probably better. We may have to be bold and forge ahead with the addition to the How it works section. I also think it would be a good idea to just ping Gog and ask his opinion. Sorry, I have to head back out for a bit, so this is a bit of a drive by response. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:04, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Jørgen Jensen

G'day Rupert, I don't know what went on with the pre-loaded template. It just came up with a blank screen. Has anyone been tinkering with the format? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

G'day, PM, yes I adjusted it with this edit: [10] on 16 Feb. I believe it has worked since then, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: G'day, PM, not sure if you saw this response. Sorry, I should have pinged you in the first instance. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:52, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Rupert, I did a dummy run with a different article and it loaded, so perhaps it was just a glitch? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:53, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No worries, I did a couple of dummy runs, too, and it also seemed to work. Hmm, maybe a gremlin... Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Military Medal

Just did a rewrite of the history section. I loved the Richards quote but I have not been able to find a more modern quote that expresses the view that by the Second World War the MM was held in esteem. I dropped the MC is equivalent to the MM which I hope is not controversial. Prior to 1993 Army officer gallantry awards were VC, MC while Army other rank gallantry awards were the VC, DCM and MM. Junior officers received less that 20% of the more prestigious DSO which was a senior officer distinguished leadership award and not a strictly gallantry award. So while a small number of junior officers were given the DSO it was not a real second ranked gallantry award. I ran the DCM/MM ratio query on the British Medal Forum and hopefully Chris Bate will come through with precise numbers. Anthony Staunton (talk) 04:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Anthony Staunton: G'day, Anthony, no worries. Thanks for your efforts to update the article. Would you be able to provide the title of the article and other bibliographic details for the citation (# 5 in the article currently)? Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

That is a worthy phase two. I will see what I can do. Anthony Staunton (talk) 10:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

WAVES

G'day from Southeast Kansas, Mate! Thank you for helping my old buddy Pendright out on the beginning of his ACR with the WAVES article. I guess I didn't quite get done what needed to get done. It has been so long since I have done any serious work on here that I'm a bit rusty on the details of what it takes to make things click. Life issues...anyway, thanks for setting things up for Pendright. Cheers! Cuprum17 (talk) 02:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

No worries at all, mate. I hope things are okay for you. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: With your help, the WAVES article has successfully crossed the ACR finish line. That said, do you think it could stand the scrutiny of a FAR? If you’d rather not say, it’s okay. In any event, if one was considering such a nomination, do you think another copyedit would be useful, as well as a peer review before hand? Again, thank you for your help and support. Pendright (talk) 05:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@Pendright: G'day, to be honest, I don't have much experience with FAC, so I'm not quite sure how it would fare. My suggestion would be to take it to peer review first and see what comments come from that. A WP:GOCE copy edit might be a good idea too, so that you can get some extra eyes to look over it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: Good advice! Pendright (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: The External links of the article WAVES is somewhat of a hodgepodge of styles, as pointed out by Fifelfoo. I would assume that if the web is the source, then cite web would be the appropriate cite? However, in checking other external links I found little consistency. Thanks for anything you can share with me. And thanks too for getting the ball rolling on the peer review. Pendright (talk) 07:04, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pendright: G'day, there is some guidance on presentation at WP:ELCITE. Citation templates aren't really designed for those sections and external links should be presented concisely. I note that some of the entries in the current External links section possibly might be better in the Further reading section. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

• citation styles to use depend on the content we are referencing. Cite web is a fall back. Betty…; VHP; SC use encyclopaedia as they are compilations (template definition covers archive collections). blitzkriegbaby book as it is a whole single author / editor work with chapters. BoNP journal as it is a reprint of a journal article. Chen uses encyclopaedia because it is an encyclopaedia article. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:28, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

April 2018 Milhist Backlog Drive

G'day all, please be advised that throughout April 2018 the Military history Wikiproject is running its annual backlog elimination drive. This will focus on several key areas:

• tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
• adding or improving listed resources on Milhist's task force pages
• updating the open tasks template on Milhist's task force pages
• creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various lists of missing articles.

As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.

The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the scope of military history will be considered eligible. This year, the Military history project would like to extend a specific welcome to members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, and we would like to encourage all participants to consider working on helping to improve our coverage of women in the military. This is not the sole focus of the edit-a-thon, though, and there are aspects that hopefully will appeal to pretty much everyone.

The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 April and runs until 23:59 UTC on 30 April 2018. Those interested in participating can sign up here.

For the Milhist co-ordinators, AustralianRupert and MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

protection for 2017–18 A-League

Hi, thanks for protecting the page recently. The minute the protection expired, the page was changed again. Maybe worth re-adding the protection for another couple of months until the end of the season? --SuperJew (talk) 06:23, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I will keep an eye on it and they come back again, extend the protection a bit longer. As this looks like it might be one of their regular IPs, it might pay to place a warning on their talkpage. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:39, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Christopher Vokes

G'day. Many thanks for your edits on this. Reads like a master-class in how to prepare an article for B class. I shall endeavour to learn from them. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

No worries at all, happy to help. Thanks for your hard work. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Signpost interview

MHIST is being featured again. You are welcome to respond here. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 22:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

French submarine Ajax

I added the two citations on French submarine Ajax (Q148). Could you reassess it please? L293D (☎ • ✎) 02:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, thanks for adding those. As the article is actually already assessed as B class, it shouldn't need updating. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Paul Sanders (athlete)

Hi there - was there any useful content to salvage from the above deletion? Thanks. SFB 22:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, there was about one and a half paragraphs (about 120 words), with no references. It mentions a brief football career at Andover then athletics at Overton, Southern, and Southhampton/Eastleigh where he trained with Mike Smith. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your willingness to highlight the WikiProject Military History in the next issue of the Signpost. I've read the draft, made a few suggestions for titles and added an image. If you don't think my edits are constructive, please feel free to revert/edit/chew me out. Best Regards, Barbara ✐  ✉ 21:53, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Notification

Hello, AustralianRupert. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:54, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: G'day, received the email, for some reason it didn't give me a return address for yourself. Unfortunately, I'd have to decline that offer. July isn't a good month for me due to work commitments, I'm afraid. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:19, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: I am seeking to get a coordinator from WP:MILHIST to sit on the panel, if it is accepted. I will communicate further, if it is.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:58, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

A little local difficulty

@AustralianRupert: Greetings, I mentioned you here [11] so leave this notice as a courtesy. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day Keith, ack, thanks for the ping. Those sorts of disputes are no-win situations for everyone involved, IMO, as they tend to lead to entrenched positions that impact on collaboration. I can't see much to be gained for anyone, just angst. I'd suggest that the best way to resolve the situation would be for everyone involved to take a deep breath and a backward step, and then hold an RFC that allows uninvolved editors to offer an opinion. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:27, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry if I put you in an invidious position but that discussion started to attract bystanders weighing in with speculation and uninformed opinion that got a bit personal. I think that you have credibility with the people who have credibility so your willingness to add a comment was appreciated. I'm glad you want that debate ended and I'm glad at the way you went about it. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 20:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

No worries, Keith, hopefully it will be resolved soon. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:13, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

AWM / URAA problem

Greetings! Eight years ago I uploaded File:3RAR-1950-P01813.jpg from the AWM for use on Archer Denness - at the time it satisfied {{PD-Australia}}. I see that things have changed. Can you point me at someone who knows how to resolve the changed situation? Thanks in advance, Pdfpdf (talk) 07:50, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I have updated the file's license as it seems a pretty clear example of {{PD-AustraliaGov}}, which now means that more files are in the public domain, including many from the Vietnam War (up to 1968). If there are still concerns, the tagging editor should take the file to Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:22, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. The tagging editor has removed all his tags (and is now being self-riteous about a non-AWM PD-Australia photo.) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 10:30, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLIIV, April 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the bombing of Darwin; recent books by female military historians Review essay: K.e.coffman on Wikipedia's representations of the Nazi German military Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Red Baron Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Worklists

Hello, In my attempts to change the formatting in my worklist section for the Backlog Drive I seem to have made the worklist page inaccessible,would you be able to restore an earlier version of the page? Cdtuba (talk) 17:17, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cdtuba: G'day, no worries, it appears GELongstreet has fixed this already. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

War Museums?

G'day Rupert i have a question for you in which project of the MILHIST are war museums welcome? Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 22:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@CPA-5: G'day, I'd say they belong to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military memorials and cemeteries task force. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:28, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• G'day Rupert thanks for answering my question, cause i didn't know in which project it covered. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 08:37, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

IP-hopping block evader

The IP-hopping block evader that you and JamesBWatson previously blocked is back on Battle of Yenangyaung continuing the same thing, including reverting bots. I suggest a longer semi. Kiwifist (talk) 23:55, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, looks like Oshwah has taken care of it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:41, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

A beer for you!

I suspect that you may need one after assessing Children in the military. Thanks for doing it; it is a bit of a monster and I suspected that it might sit for a long time. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:30, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, Gog, it's been a long week, so a virtual beer will go down nicely! Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 14:11, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

1st West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry Regiment

Thank you for looking over 1st West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. I will work on it over the next week, and eventually put it up for GA review. If you ever decide you want to look over an article from "a different world", my latest work is Hoosier cabinet. TwoScars (talk) 17:43, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks again for looking at the 1st West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. You found the overlinked terms very quickly. Were those found by observation, or is there an app or bot that I do not know about? I also noticed you fixed some things on Hoosier cabinet. Thank you so much! That one gets a lot of views. I plan to put it up for peer review in a few weeks. TwoScars (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

@TwoScars:: G'day, no worries, happy to help. I used a script to find the duplicate links. It can be found here: User:Evad37/duplinks-alt. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:38, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Very useful time saver. TwoScars (talk) 16:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Battle of Labuan

Thanks for moving that file. It only occurred to me today that the OTRS correspondence regarding Crown Copyright means that most of the volumes in the World War II official history are clearly PD given that they were commissioned and funded by the government and published by the AWM (despite the AWM still asserting copyright over both them and the World War I series). Regards, Nick-D (talk) 07:51, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

No worries, Nick. I had't realised that about the official histories. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:32, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Coord duties

G'day Rupert, I just wanted to thank you for taking on the heavy lifting (as usual) with coord duties relating to the quarterly reviewing etc. I'm absolutely snowed under with Adelaide ANZAC Day stuff, so I hope it isn't too much extra to deal with. Warm regards, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, PM, thanks. I hope the Adelaide march goes well. My unit is marching through Darwin again this year, so this weekend I will be ironing my pollies and polishing my medals, boots, belt, brass, and sword. So its going to be a busy one. All the best, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:58, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

January to March 2018 Milhist article reviewing

		The WikiChevrons
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons for reviewing a total of 39 Milhist articles at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period Jan to Mar 2018. Thank you for supporting Wikipedia's quality content processes. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 09:40, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Krishna Chaitanya Velaga: Thanks, Krishna, I think we may have accidentally doubled up on a couple of the 1-stripe awards. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:42, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, yes! Removed duplication. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 09:48, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Removed my signature from the tally table as well. Please add yours. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for identifying. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 09:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, Krishna. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:59, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Gog the Mild - various

• Good day to you. Many thanks for your support for the A class nomination of Razing of Friesoythe. I also note that prior to submission the article had been pored over by not one but two of GOCE's brightest and best. They were doing me a favour as a fellow GOCE'er. Yet you managed to pick out nine copy edit issues. I am beyond astonished. And, as the author, chastened and humbled. (Which is probably good for me.)
  • Don't worry too much about this, we all miss things in our own writing. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
• B class assessment of Servilius Nonianus. Apologies for missing the reference. That was sloppy of me. Now inserted and the lead expanded.
  • Thanks, I've assessed it now. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
• Yesterday I got the Content Review Medal of Merit (Military history). I was completely unaware that there were rewards for carrying out reviews. The surprise appreciation made my day, and possibly my week. It is the sort of thing which makes MilHist such a pleasant place to work. I had to search a while to find any information on review rewards; I finally found it on the Coordinators' talk page.
• Could you tell me if signals units, eg 1st Signal Brigade (United States), should be tagged for the Logistics and Medicine Task Force?
  • Probably not, IMO. Signals isn't really logistics, it is combat support. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
• As a part of the Blitz I came across Eastern Zhou tagged as MilHist and so I assessed it. Thinking about it it seems odd that a country should come under MilHist; would I be correct in taking this as an error and de-tagging it? I note that some semi-nomadic groups, such as the Huns or Kutrigurs, are tagged as MilHist. Is this correct? If so I assume that similar groups such as the Khazars or the Hephthalite Empire can also be tagged? (The last in particular seems borderline to me.)
  • I'm not 100 percent on this, sorry, but I think some of those would fit, such as Huns. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oops. What started as a thank you has sprawled. Feel free tpo ignore the last two queries and I'll repost them on the discussion page.

Regards. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The WikiProject Barnstar
		For your service to MILHIST over the past 5 years (maybe more) and helping many new editors like me along the way. Randomness74 (talk) 00:08, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thalapathy62

Hi, sorry I need to remove a sentence in the page 'Thalapathy 62', also known as 'Vijay 62'. Can you please give me permission to remove the sentence. I want to remove the sentence because it is no longer true. Thank you. WarriorCK9499 (talk) 15:33, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, the article is only semi protected, which only limits very new accounts and IP addresses. As you are autoconfirmed, you should in fact still be able to edit the article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:54, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

• From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

• Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

• News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

• In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

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Can you assess this article against the B-criteria for MHIST?

Maritime provinces in the American Revolution. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 23:22, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

G'day, nice work. I have assessed the article as C-class, as there are a couple of places that are missing citations. I have marked these with "cn" tags. If they could be replaced with citations, I will re-assess as B class. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

• I added citations. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you

Just wanted to say thank you for all of your help during the recent April Milist Backlog Drive. It was evident from your messages to multiple editors that you were spending a great deal of your personal time on the drive, but through it all you were patient and kind. Wishing you continued success with your ongoing research and editorial work. (P.S. I'm thrilled with the tireless contributor award. I was just trying to earn a chevron, and was keeping my fingers crossed that at least some of my contributions might qualify.) 47thPennVols (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

No worries, thanks for your efforts. I will be handing out the awards shortly. To be honest, that will probably the last drive that I will run. I have found my enthusiasm for Wikipedia declining steadily for several years. Really just hoping to try to build up a core of editors in the project, so that I can retire from co-ord duties in the knowledge that there are others keen to keep the lights on. Sorry, that sounds a bit depressing, doesn't it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

• The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

• AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
• When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
• The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

• Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Co-option?

G'day Rupert, just back on deck now after ANZAC Day. Thanks for handling the whole drive thing, I have basically been AWOL and haven't had time to scratch myself over the last month. With Anotherclown's retirement, do we need to co-opt another coord? I don't have a strong view either way, just wondering if we need reinforcements through to September. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:13, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

G'day, PM, good question. I'd say it probably depends. If we co-opted someone, I think we would need to find an editor who was keen to get involved in the day-to-day housekeeping stuff for it to have any benefit. Did you have anyone in mind? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I was thinking of Zawed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd be glad of the extra help, and Zawed as a former co-ord, knows the ropes, so I'd say that is a good choice. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:36, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll make an approach. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLIV, May 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at coalitions and logistics in World War II, and Nick-D at Australia's frontier wars Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Can you reassess this article?

I hate to be a bother, but would you mind reassessing Reading Railroad massacre? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

• From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

• Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

• Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

• Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

• News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

• In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

• Traffic report: We love our superheroes

• Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

• Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

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• From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't it seem strange to you

that IP 172.86.241.3 suddenly appears and makes numerous detailed changes to specific pages, showing a deep knowledge of WP policies and procedures? regards Mztourist (talk) 03:47, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Possibly, but a lot of their changes required considerable clean up, too, so it is possible that they are just learning the ropes. It's probably best to AGF unless you have something solid enough to take to SPI. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I have a hard time AGFing when a new IP makes detailed changes to specific pages, especially having just uncovered User:TDN92 as a sock. My sock senses are tingling, but I'm not sure who the Sockmaster is. regards Mztourist (talk) 14:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

HMS Vulture

[12] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Anderson51 (talk • contribs) 02:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC) Upper Gun Deck20 British 6-Pounder

Quarterdeck4 British 4-Pounder Mr51and 02:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Mr51and 02:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC) Mr51and 13:35, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
• Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

• A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

• In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Bougainville counterattack FA nomination?

Hi, What would your views be on jointly nominating Bougainville counterattack for FA over the next week or so? I've just printed it off and read through it, and think it should be good to go after a copy edit (which I'll put in by the end of the weekend). From memory, we've consulted all the relevant sources and the article is clear and well illustrated. Happy to hold off on this if the timing isn't good for you due to other commitments, etc. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:10, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

G'day, Nick, I'm afraid I don't have some of the books used anymore (James and Shindo), and I'm probably not in the right frame of mind to write much. Haven't been for a while, unfortunately. Happy for you to nominate the article when you are ready, though, and I will try my best to help out where I can. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:08, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I just found that I have photocopies of the Shindo and James chapters in my desk drawer! AustralianRupert (talk) 09:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, no worries at all. I'll polish the article up, and start a joint nomination on the weekend. Please don't feel under any obligation to contribute more than you have capacity to do though, of course, and please let me know if you'd rather that we hold off on the nomination until some other time. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, Nick, the weekend will be fine. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:01, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I've started the nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bougainville counterattack/archive1. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Nick. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:47, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid that at short notice I'm going to be travelling for work from Saturday to Thursday, and won't be able to contribute to responding to any comments. Apologies for this - I only found out about the trip today! I'd be happy to pick up on all comments when I return. Nick-D (talk) 12:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

No worries, Nick, have a safe trip. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:17, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I'm going to be out of town for most of next week, and a couple of days the week after. Apologies for this: if I'd known I'd be doing this much travel I would have held off on the nomination. Nick-D (talk) 10:15, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

No worries, Nick. I will keep an eye on the review. I have a pretty hectic time at work the week after next, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm very pleased to see that this nomination has now passed. Thanks again for prompting me to progress this draft, and for then doing most of the work to develop it to FA class. It's been great working with you on it. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 09:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nick-D: Cheers, Nick, it is always a pleasure to work with you. I wouldn't have been keen to tackle that topic alone. Congratulations on the 2nd AIF in the UK article, too. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:50, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXLVI, June 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on a supergun of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Steve Smith

Please expand the "Early life" and "Personal life" sections of this page. This article may meet the criteria for "Good Article". Due to insufficient material and sources I can't do it. Please help.

Thank you so much sir.

Binod Basnet(Talk to me) 08:31, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

G'day, sorry, I'm not that keen on working on this article at the moment, I'm afraid. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Good day, It's ok. Thanks.

Binod Basnet(Talk to me) 09:00, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Writer's Barnstar
	ga day Sir Will you check to see if "user/talk" page was successfully created? RE: Mr51and Please Thanks Mr51and 20:24, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Anderson51: G'day, Mr A, I'm not quite sure what you are trying to add to your user page, sorry, but it looks like you may be having some trouble understanding the html/code required to edit. In this regard, you might find the Wikipedia:Tutorial helpful. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:34, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Mr51and 07:56, 20 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Anderson51 (talk • contribs)

United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve

@AustralianRupert: it’s me again looking for a lifeline. I’ve been preparing the United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve article for an ACR and I’m ready. I’ve read the instructions you recently left on Cuprum17’s talk page regarding the WAVES AC nomination – but still having trouble. When I look at USMCWR talk page (in edit mode), I don’t see or I’m unable to identify the location of the WPMILHIST template, as you mentioned’, what I can locate is the “{{WikiProjectBannerShell|1= “.

Or, are they one and the same? I know this is not rocket science, but it’s turning out that way for me. Thanks for any assistance you are willing to provide. Regards! Pendright (talk) 05:12, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pendright: G'day, the Milhist banner on that page is nested inside the shell. It starts here: "{{WikiProject Military history| class = Start| list = no| A-Class = ". If you are still having trouble, please let me know. I will start the nom process for you. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:25, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pendright: G'day, I have completed the nomination for you, and transcluded the nomination page on WP:MHACR. The review page is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve. Can I please ask that you watchlist this review page, so that you can respond to any reviews that are added there? Anyway, good luck with the review and thanks for your efforts. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:40, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: Done and thank you! Pendright (talk) 21:50, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: Thanks for cleaning up after me, again. While I may have a skill or two, spelling does not seem to be among them. Anyway, your thoughtfulness does not go unappreciated. Best wishes! Pendright (talk) 20:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Australia’s Boer War: The War in South Africa, 1899–1901

Hello, do you have access to a copy of this book? I am asking this because you added information cited to it on the Battle of Elands River (1900) article back in 2012. Currently I am working on the South Australian Mounted Rifles, and don't want to have to rely entirely on 1900s sources for expanding it. Articles such as Queensland Citizen Bushmen include detailed unit information from Wilcox, and I am curious if it includes similarly detailed information on the SAMR. Thanks,Kges1901 (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

G'day, Kges, great work on the SAMR article...the Boer War units aren't well covered on Wikipedia, so you are working in a sorely needed area. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the book anymore. I borrowed it on inter library loan when I was living in Adelaide and returned it long ago. Unfortunately, the library's postal service isn't supporting my area here in Darwin at the moment. I am relocating at the end of the year for work, so should hopefully be able to get it sometime next year. Sorry. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:18, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I intend to borrow it on interlibrary loan as it is held in American libraries as well. Kges1901 (talk) 10:15, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

• From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

• Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

• Op-ed: What do admins do?

• Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

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Souths

You've protected the vandalised version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.150.79.160 (talk) 10:27, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

In content disputes, as a general rule protecting admins are not supposed to pick a preferred version except to remove clear policy violating contributions such as copyright violations, and defamation, for example. In this case, I wasn't sure if it was vandalism, or a content dispute, so I erred on the side of caution. My suggestion would be to start a conversation on the talk page of the article, inviting the other editor to discuss why they are removing the text. If they do not respond, then it is likely that it is just vandalism and an autoconfirmed user can simply revert it back now if they feel inclined, or you can do so once the protection has expired. Ultimately, the point of the protection is to stop the endless cycle of reverts, and promote discussion, not to promote one version over another. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Another case of The Wrong Version being protected! ;) Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 7 July 2018 (UTC)