User talk:Brad101/Archive 2

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Barnstar

		WikiProject Ships Barnstar
		I hereby award this barnstar to you for your numerous and tireless contributions for the benefit of WikiProject Ships. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) Now if only it was the last thing that Ships needed. --Brad (talk) 00:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

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Hard Worker

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For putting in long hours to improve the quality of the article USS Constitution I hereby present you with The Working Man's Barnstar. Keep up the good work! TomStar81 (Talk) 23:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I appreciate that. When we did the peer review back in January I started to dig around for more information to expand the article with. What I hadn't realized is just how much information was missing from the article! I got somewhat discouraged for a few months and then started picking away at it a couple months ago. There's tons of information about Constitution online and of course many books to consult. Currently I'm just laying down chunks of information where its missing from the article and it will all have to be incorporated later on. My punctuation, prose and flow are horrible so it will need heavy copy editing I'm sure. I just had to add the bit about the paddle wheels today as I can imagine how humiliating they looked on a ship such as her, hero of 1812 and all. --Brad (talk) 00:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to my world ! Its always hard to find information on the ships, especially the ones that have long service records or the ones that keep getting recalled to help a country's armed forces. I have faith that if you stick with it and add a little here and a little there then before you know things start to happen. Its all worth it in the end when the bronze star gets added to the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

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Talk:USS Wheeling (PG-14)

Brad - if you see more like this guy (that need more text) let me know and I'll update them or put them on a "to do" list. I just ran across this USS Wheeling (PG-14) now, and will upgrade it with box and more text.````

Yes, I left a message on the talk page there some months ago but will let you know in the future if I find more like it. --Brad (talk) 01:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Consolidated "Ships by navy" category discussion

Because you had commented in one or more of the WP:CFD discussions for Category:Royal Thai Navy ships (discussion here), Category:Imperial Russian Navy ships (discussion here), and Category:Royal New Zealand Navy ships (discussion here), I wanted to let you know that they have been closed, and consolidated into a new discussion with several similar proposed category renames. Please take a look at the new proposal. All comments are welcome. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at

Talk:USS Arcturus (SP-182) Your opinion would help.Wikited (talk) 14:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

B class?

This was a first try at a translation by him. (It came off SpWP.) Pretty good for a first pass, huh? TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 04:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's surprising sometimes what you find if you fill out the B-Class checklist. --Brad (talk) 00:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you can help me.

I just added an image to USS Eurana, but do not know how to get it into the infobox. I'd be grateful if you took a shot at it or passed this request to someone who can. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 00:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the article. Just look at the edit difference to see how to make it work. --Brad (talk) 00:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll check out what you did - but I'm in a mad rush these days - an hour here, 20 minutes there, and can't always work at things the way I'd like to. Anyway, thanks. Einar Carptrash (talk) 02:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yet another Working Man's Barnstar

The Working Man's Barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		You, sir, are an article assessing machine! Fullobeans (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. One of my daily tasks is to look at the new article feed and assess ship articles. --Brad (talk) 20:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Figurehead of Andrew Jackson

Hi! I spotted your query about the Harpers Weekly engraving on the copyright problems page for licensing advice. The image is available on wikimedia Commons Image:General Jackson - Harpers Weekly, news media image (1875c).jpg. Note also Harpers Weekly article for other images and licences and Wikimedia commons Category Harpers Magazine.Richard Harvey (talk) 07:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

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C-class coding

If you need any help changing the banner, let me know. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 21:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make it back over to answer you where I left the question. As of now, Ships needed to know if the checklist could require certain criteria and the subject of a B and C class are under discussion presently. Seems like things will go in the direction of requiring 3-5 for the C rating. --Brad (talk) 22:38, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll start working on it at Template:WikiProject Ships/sandbox. It may take a few days, its a lot of code and I'm working a lot this week. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 19:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. There is no hurry on this but if you can't get to it within a week let me know. --Brad (talk) 23:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

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Ships banner

Just an update, its almost there. It will auto assess to start if the checklist isn't complete, will assess to C only if 3,4, and 5 are yes, and it will assess to B only if all 5 are yes. I just have a few bugs to work out. It won't override the assessment entered, and it won't auto assess if the checklist is complete but the |class= is not entered. You can test it out yourself by putting {{WikiProject Ships/sandbox}} on talk pages and play around with the assessments. It should be ready in the next few days. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok thanks; I'll try it out. One thing that might be an issue is the 467 existing B class articles for the project. Those were assessed B class without the checklist and if we later require a checklist for B class I'm concerned that we'll lose all the B assessments already rated such. Is there a way around that? --Brad (talk) 18:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Not that I can think of offhand, but I'll think some more. The same thing happened to the aviation project, but I took it to be a good thing. If someone really wanted their favorite article to remain B-class, then they had to go and complete the checklist, which is what we want for all articles. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 05:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Most but not all of those B class articles are also in conjunction with MilHist. We had previously only graded B based on their checklist being filled out. Of course this wasn't serving ship articles that weren't military related. If you can't think of a way to avoid zeroing out our B articles then I'll have to go back to ships and ask what we should do. Either let them be zeroed or reassess them afterwards by making a list of them before you change the banner. BTW, I used Talk:USS Nutmeg (AN-33) for the sandbox template and all looks well. --Brad (talk) 11:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

We're going to have a bot go through the B class category and paste in the checklist to our banner which should prevent the loss of B class when you make the changes. I believe this should work unless you think otherwise. This will likely take a few days to complete so will let you know when that is complete. --Brad (talk) 06:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok we have botted in the checklist to the B articles so you may fire when ready Gridley. --Brad (talk) 17:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Tagging

Noted. I've seen dab-class tags supported; I just presumed. I'll backtrack & remove. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 15:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank You

		The WikiChevrons
		For contributing to the Iowa class battleship FAR and helping the article maintain its bronze star I herby award you the WikiChevrons. Thanks for your help, I apreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

HMS Rover

Ahm, I usually reference my articles, but ran into a bit of a quandry with this one. It seems that it grounded off St Lawrence while on the slips in BERMUDA!! Not only that, but the future Admiral Duckworth was its commander at the time...in Channel waters from what I can gather. A busy little ship :)--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 06:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

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Nobska assessment?

Hello Brad101, can you explain the assessment for the Nobska page? If I have it right, you assessed it as start class for ships. Start class is "An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources." Can you expand on how you think the article is incomplete? Can you point out where sources are lacking, and which sources are not reliable? That would help improve the article and Wikipedia as a whole. Thanks!--Wmjames (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

It was assessed using the ships project B-class checklist which you can view by expanding the project banner under "additional information". You have done some work on the article since I first rated it but I've reassessed it just now. I think the brevity of the article coverage is preventing a B-class rating. --Brad (talk) 17:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I will check that out, thanks! Yeah I didn't know about the infobox thing for ships, that is a good addition. Now if only there were a clearly usable photo... I kept it to only things I could cite, so it's a bit short for that reason. --Wmjames (talk) 03:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

RV or R/V

Brad... which is correct as far as prefix for research vessels: RV or R/V? I notice that that are listed both ways in the index, some listed as RV... others as R/V... See RV Thomas G. Thompson (T-AGOR-23) as an example... Can you clarify?Wikited (talk) 18:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The consensus at the ships project is that ship prefixes in article titles should not have punctuation in them. So, RV would be correct and R/V incorrect. Same would apply to MV, FV etc. If you happen to find articles using the / you should move the article to the proper prefix. This does not apply to using the / in the body of the article text however. The reason for the above is that the / in an article title causes problems with the wiki software where they do not sort correctly. --Brad (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. It looks like I'll have to move a bunch of them; however that will help a lot since a searcher doesn't have to look in two places for the same ship. As for the Wiki software problem, having one set of simple rules helps a lot in uniformity of search.Wikited (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

RV Argo

I'm starting to pull my hair out because of incorrect pages I'm running into. It took me an hour or two to just untangle the mistake and links someone made in naming an underwater sled as a ship. Actually there is an Argo sled and an Argo ship. See RV Argo. Please double check me on this guy to make sure I'm not seeing things. Thanks. Ted. Wikited (talk) 01:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw your fix... Thanks.Wikited (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Everything looks ok now. I've also found articles that end up needing a lot of general mistakes cleaned up. I guess it's due to some people not paying enough attention to the subject. --Brad (talk) 16:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

USS Constitution

Hey Brad, I'm not sure if you're almost done working on this article, but I really think you should at least put it up as a GAN since I believe that it would pass easily (plus it would be good practice for the A-Class review which leads to FAC). -MBK₀₀₄ 19:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I do not believe the article is ready for that just yet. I estimate that I'm 75% done with article expansion but the present day section is a travesty of junk and OR that needs cleaning up still. After expansion it needs a thorough copy edit for prose, flow and composition. And I suspect there at least 2 spin-off articles that will need doing. But yes, I intend to go through GA, A and FA and work out problems through each review. --Brad (talk) 23:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

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Help

Can you help me with the following redirect. for Special Missions Program I sent the redirect to Military Sealift Command but I would like the redirect to go to section "Special Missions Program" on the Military Sealift Command page. I know it can be done as I've seen it done previously, but I can't remember how it was done. Thanks. TedWikited (talk) 19:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I moved your comment off of my user page to here. The redirect is fixed; all you have to do is use the #"section" trick. --Brad (talk) 23:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That was very helpful. Thank you. I've copied your example and used it on the Naval Districts and it works great. Thanks again. Wikited (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Good then. Did you see the note I left you about USS Beaufort? I put it in the section on your talk page for articles that need work. --Brad (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

For some reason I didn't see it until now. But I'll take care of ALL THREE Beauforts (one upgrade and two new pages) today or tomorrow.Wikited (talk) 15:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

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USNS template weirdness?

Looking at List of United States Navy ships, A, I see several instances where the {{USNS}} template is putting in spurious linebreaks: USNS Able, USNS American Explorer (T-AOT-165), USNS Antares (T-AKR-294), USNS Apache (T-ATF-172), and USNS Arctic (T-AOE-8). But when I try to copy them to a talk page, they work fine. Is there something wrong with my browser, or can you see them too?
—WWoods (talk) 06:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes I can but I noticed they don't appear during preview mode but show up after the save. Maybe there is something wrong with the {{USNS}} template? If there was you would think all of the pages would be like that. --Brad (talk) 10:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Assessments

Hi. If you are going to downgrade assessments,[1] could you please provide specific criticism so that article writers can make improvements. For instance, B class has six criteria. Could you please identify which criteria is lacking and say why. Our purpose here is to improve articles, not just to keep score. Jehochman ^Talk 12:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ships b-class criteria has 5 points. Please drop down the project template and you will see that I downgraded the article based on criteria 1. There are multiple paragraphs without inline citations. --Brad (talk) 12:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

A request for advice on getting B2 to YES

Dear Brad
I note that you've kindly assessed Alert class sloop as a C-class article, since it lacks B2. How can I get this right, do you think? As far as I can see, almost everything that is known and relevant about the Alert class is already there. Any more about the individual ships would rightly go in their own articles. Grateful for any advice.
Yours, Shem (talk) 18:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes class articles aren't very easy to expand. I guess the best example of a class article would be Iowa class battleship but it all depends on how much information is available on the subject. You certainly would not have to expand the article as much as the example I gave you but there should be at least twice as much as what is there now. Could be possible that Alert class sloop can't be expanded much more which would strand it with the rating it currently has. --Brad (talk) 21:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - that's pretty clear guidance. Yours Shem (talk) 17:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

You've assessed Condor class sloop as not meeting the criteron for B1 - am I missing something? I thought it was comprehensively referenced. What changes do I need to make? Yours, Shem (talk) 09:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

If I recall, there were several paragraphs that did not have an inline citation B-1 Definition is: It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations --Brad (talk) 10:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorted - frankly I'm not really fussed whether you re-assess it or not, just that the article meets the standards. Thanks for your help. Shem (talk) 10:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've reassessed the article to B. --Brad (talk) 16:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

USNS Courier

Is the ID T-AK-5019 correct? The ship data page only shows AK-5019, I had suspicions about the prefix but could not determine what the correct prefix was, otherwise I would have move the page myself. Also suspect the ID is wrong.PB666 ^yap 04:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The "T-" is correct; see NavSource: T-AK-5019 Courier, and Military Sealift Command. It's often left off though. Compare Google: 'courier t-ak-5019' with Google: 'courier ak-5019'

I'm less sure of the prefix, USNS, however. Seems like the ship was never in active service as a naval ship.

—WWoods (talk) 06:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't find the ship in the NVR so used the same navsource page you did. Whether it should have held USNS or not, we still need it for uniformity. --Brad (talk) 10:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

-Cool.I think that USNS is correct, since these are owned by the US and not chartered.PB666 ^yap 16:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

was in service to USN but NOT USNS, see below and the full issue User:Bluenorway

Bluenorway (talk) 16:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Correct Template for vessels?

see User:Bluenorway

Im told by naval authorities that the vessels are to be named their earliest public name, any prior identies (secret or code names) should redirect to the vessel's first official name... For example, the SS Norway goes to the original SS France and vessel USNS Vandenberg goes to i dont remember, 1945

The same applies to Export Courier as listed by Sun as the production name for Exporters company.

Also obviously categories and templates need to be established for all of these and standardized.

User_talk:Bluenorway

Bluenorway (talk) 16:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "Naval Authorities" but for the purposes of WP we name ships by the name they spent the most time under serving a particular Navy or the most well known name while under service to that Navy. The Ship prefix USS = United States Ship and USNS = United States Naval Ship. Both are important to define a commissioned ship of the United States Navy (USS) verses a ship only in service to the United States Navy (USNS). We try to follow as close as possible the naming conventions of Military ships but for the purposes of WP we sometimes have to adjust conventions that fit into the way WP is designed. --Brad (talk) 16:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

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With thanks

		The Content Review Medal of Merit
		In recognition of your help improving Military history articles through the Military history review process in June, July and August 2008, please accept this Content Review Medal of Merit, --ROGER DAVIES talk 13:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

A-class review.

I replied to your concerns here. Could you take another look? Thanks! Cheers, ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 13:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead! ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 00:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I adressed the bathtub concern you raised here, would you check and see if this is better? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed some of the quotes. Does it look any better? ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 00:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

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T&A08 Workshop follow up

I've been mulling over the excellent points you raised in the workshop.

• Quicker input on new articles. The problem here is that the new articles section is separated from the main assessment and tagging area. I'll have a think about how to improve the link between the two, bearing in mind that we don't really want to load the entire new article list everytime the assessment page is accessed.

• Better liaison with ships. This has been much discussed over the years but nothing much has ever come of it. Many ships editors may be put off tagging for Milhist by the complexity of our task force structure. I know many of our editors do tag for Ships, Aviation and Biography but I'm always loathe to mention them in drives because there's so much else to squeeze in. A simple solution (from a Milhist POV) might be a tweak to the Ships template, so that the parameter say of "fighting=yes", adds the article to a category (for instance, Category:Fighting ships for Milhist tagging) we can monitor in Milhist. (A lot of our assessments are based on category monitoring.)

I'd appreciate your two cents. Thanks again for your comments, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the point should always be simplicity in coverage. I couldn't expect the average editor to memorize all the intricacies of the milhist template so if they could at least put down a bare template like {{WPMILHIST}} or {{WikiProject Ships}} then a more experienced person could fill in the blanks. So, if a milhist person finds a ship article, just lay down the bare template if they aren't familiar enough with ship ratings or don't want to bother. And vice versa for a ship person. Adding another field to either of the templates just creates more confusion. At least I think the most important thing is to get an article tagged first. The new article feed is an excellent way to tag articles almost as they're created which, in a perfect world, would eliminate the need for large assessment drives to later catch up with articles that aren't tagged. I figure that you spend a large amount of time gathering all of the necessary information for the drive and then following it through so if there's a way to eliminate the need for a drive you should find one. --Brad (talk) 00:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely with you about the feed. I'll talk to Kirill about it and see to what extent we can customise it. A major part of the problem, by the way, is re-visiting articles which just have the barebones {{WPMILHIST}} tag in order to flesh it out with class and TFs. We haven't done a drive to find new articles for nearly a year. Thanks for your help, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

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Constitution

I replied to your email a couple of days ago. Did you receive it? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did and thanks but the article is currently in GAR so I thought I should delay adding any further references until the review is completed. --Brad (talk) 09:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Whenever you're ready :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ironsides thanks

Thank you for your research and patient skill. Your first GA nomination and success with USS Constitution will serve as an example to me. I applaud you and admire your continued requests for peer review. The ship's captain, in the case of this review, was you. Good work. Sswonk (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I was happy just to reach GA after spending most of the summer working on the article. If you go back into the article history you will see just how far things have come since late May or so. The amount of material available on the subject is overwhelming at times and there still are books I haven't got my hands on yet. Now, would you believe that up until I started working on ship articles last fall that I'd never before heard of Constitution? :) --Brad (talk) 21:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

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USS Constitution

Hello! Is it possible that I found someone who is an even bigger USS Constitution fan than me? Read the refit article, great work! Take care APhilipp29 (talk) 09. Oct. 2008 12:02 p.m. —Preceding undated comment was added at 10:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC).

Thanks for your comment. I'm not a huge fan but I've learned a lot while working the article up to where it should be. --Brad (talk) 00:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Close...

but no cigar! ;) All the best, Benea (talk) 03:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Infobox conversion

Thanks for the kind words. As I told Kjet, this will keep me amused for months! :=) Shinerunner (talk) 20:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

HMS Pictou

You might wanna take a look? APhilipp29 (talk) 05:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

References

I hesitate to comment on this now with your article in FAC (perhaps for your next). However, there is a way to link references, as in a recent FA, Albert Speer. If you look, you will see that the reference notes are clickable and lead you to the Bibliography.

As I recall from the discussion on the FAC page, it is achieved by using a combination of the Harvard referencing <ref>{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|p=7.}}</ref> and the use of {{Citation}} rather than cite xxx, including in the Bibliography. A new editor who contacted me recently about this, managed to accomplish this on his article Joann Peterson. I see you are not using the harvard so it would be a big job for the current article. Just an idea. You might consider it on your next FAC. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 04:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The reason I wouldn't care for this style is the sea of blue it creates in the article. It's rather distracting. My next article will be Chesapeake in order to try and bring all six frigates and the class article up to higher standards. --Brad (talk) 05:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Japanese World War II destroyers

This article has been expanded since you assessed it as "start". If you have time your views on the current version would be appreciated. There's a difference of opinion about its quality rating (at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment#Requests for assessment and I'm hoping to get a consensus. Folks at 137 (talk) 23:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

FYI

FYI, Brad, your edit summary for tagging the many ship redirects indicates you're tagging them for WP:SHIPS. — Bellhalla (talk) 21:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I see that AWB got away from me again. This time I will replace the tags with {{WikiProject Redirect}} so that they don't get picked up again. --Brad (talk) 22:52, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXII (October 2008)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter Issue XXXII (October 2008)
Project news Following a lengthy discussion, three new coordinators – EyeSerene, Maralia and the_ed17 - have been coopted. The purpose of the appointments is partly to fill the place left by the retirement of TomStar81 and partly to provide increased/improved coordinator capacity to cover existing coordinator absences and to help with upcoming major projects. As a reminder, coordinators are merely editors who have committed to go the extra mile for the project and that there are very few processes that require coordinator input. Specifically these are closing A-Class reviews, and endorsing two project award nominations. Any editors who wish to help with the nitty-gritty of this busy project (cross-posting A-Class review, peer review and featured article candidate alerts; responding to member questions and queries, helping with drives) are positively encouraged to do so. A workshop has been set up to redesign and improve the newsletter. In our recent competition, a new name was chosen – The Bugle. All editors are welcome to participate, especially those with graphic and design skills! Administrator and Milhist coordinator, Nick Dowling, has changed his user name to Nick-D.	Articles of note New featured articles: Albert Speer Anglo-Zanzibar War Operation Epsom Operation Tractable SMS Von der Tann TAM USS Nevada (BB-36) New featured lists: List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service List of New Zealand Land Wars Victoria Cross recipients List of Second Afghan War Victoria Cross recipients New A-Class articles: Admiralty Islands campaign Battle of Fort Donelson Battle of Fort Henry Battle of Vigo Bay Clarence Smith Jeffries Frederick III, German Emperor Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette MS West Honaker Percy Herbert Cherry Joseph Maxwell SS Iowan Third Battle of Kharkov USS Constitution
Current proposals and discussions Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with discussions approaching their fourth month of debate. More views are sought on this.
Awards and honors Kyriakos has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from February 2007 to September 2008. LordAmeth has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from August 2006 to September 2008. EyeSerene has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his diligent and excellent copyediting of vast quantities of Military History articles—notably his work on multiple Featured Article Candidates. TomStar81 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of both his long and distinguished service as a coordinator of this project from August 2007 to October 2008, and of his exemplary contributions to articles on the vessels of the U.S. Navy. Bellhalla has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal twice for his six ship-related articles: SS Montanan, SS Ohioan (1914), SS Panaman, MS West Honaker, SS Iowan, and USS West Bridge (ID-2888). Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the Milhist A-Class medal for his three biographies on Australian First World War Victoria Cross recipients: Percy Herbert Cherry, Blair Anderson Wark, and Joseph Maxwell. The Contest department has completed its nineteenth month of competition, which saw 35 entries. The top scorer this month is the_ed17 with 39 points, followed by Bellhalla with 38 points. David Underdown, Abraham, B.S., Woody, Piotrus, Rosiestep, Tartarus, Gaia Octavia Agrippa and Harland1 also fielded entries. Bellhalla is now the overall leader, with 338 points in total. The Chevrons go to the_ed17 and Bellhalla gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
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This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

re: Test run with AWB

Thanks very much for doing that. Overall, it's a great idea and very successful. You're right about doing them in smallish chunks so as not to overwhelm the assessors :) Any ideas for improvements? None that are likely to time-efficient. It does its job and brings them into the project, which is a great start. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:17, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

When I put AWB to ships articles last June I was tagging about 10-15% of the total articles scanned. The two categories I've scanned for milhist bio articles were running over 30% :( Not a good sign. I've found that using AWB to do this isn't a perfect science because using the category as a guide to tagging articles means that any article miscategorized may get mistagged. What I did discover is that setting a bot to this task could result in many errors so I believe doing it this way is the best thing to do. The bot wouldn't read the article title whereas AWB pauses when there is a change to be made and I can read the article title to see if it fits to what I'm tagging. I have AWB set to skip the word MILHIST on talk pages so those already tagged get passed over.

I haven't thought of any way to improve the method that I'm using now except that using |auto=yes will assign a stub rating if there is a stub template on the article. Making sure I have the TF's correct would at least make that part done and all the assessor has to worry about is the class and checklist. I noticed there were over 4000 articles without TF's so maybe that's the most important thing. At ships we're still working on the backlog from last June when I found about 1700 articles without tags. I haven't worried too much over the backlog as you still receive an total article count from the assessment bot. --Brad (talk) 10:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. It's a good idea and easy enough to get others to do the follow up stuff. Thanks again, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note and the latest run. I don't believe auto=yes is enabled for Milhist but I'll check with Kirill. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I see Kirill has already answered you on the template talk page. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

SS Empire Abbey

I'm a bit surprised with your assessment for B class on this article. Why does the article not meet "referencing and citation", "coverage and accuracy" and "structure"? Re the refs, the access date is not displaying correctly due to a bug in the Wikipedia software. This is known and will be fixed in due course. Mjroots (talk) 06:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The first paragraph in the body of the article has no inline citation, the article is a bit on the short side to meet coverage, and the lead section should be a summary of the article text. At the time I rated it, it did not meet those requirements. Coverage is subjective to how much material might be available to expand the article. --Brad (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added a ref to the first para which broadly covers what is given as the background. I think I've pretty much exhausted internet coverage, but further material may be available in book form - Mitchell, William Harry (1990). The Empire Ships: A Record of British-built and Acquired Merchant Ships During the Second World War. Lloyd's of London Press. ISBN 1850442754. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) - which I don't possess. Mjroots (talk) 08:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Signpost updated for November 17, 2008 and before.

Because the Signpost hasn't been sent in a while, to save space, I've condensed all seven issues that were not sent into this archive. Only the three issues from November are below.

The Wikipedia Signpost Weekly Delivery

Volume 4, Issue 42	8 November 2008	About the Signpost

From the editor
News and notes: The Price is Right, milestones	Dispatches: Halloween Main Page contest generates new article content
Features and admins	Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Volume 4, Issue 43	10 November 2008	About the Signpost

Fundraiser opens: Over $500,000 raised in first week	ArbCom elections: Nominations open
Book review: How Wikipedia Works	MediaWiki search engine improved
Four Board resolutions, including financials, approved	News and notes: Vietnamese Wiki Day
Dispatches: Historic election proves groundbreaking on the Main Page	Features and admins
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News	The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Volume 4, Issue 44	17 November 2008	About the Signpost

Lawsuit briefly shuts down Wikipedia.de	GFDL 1.3 released, will allow Wikimedia migration to Creative Commons license
Wikimedia Events Roundup	News and notes: Fundraiser, List Summary Service, milestones
Features and admins	Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Report on Lengthy Litigation

You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. Ralbot (talk) 10:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIII (November 2008)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: The Bugle Issue XXXIII (November 2008)
Project news The Lebanese military history task force has been created. The recent promotion of Tom Crean (explorer) brings the number of featured articles within the scope of the Military History Project to 300. Following a lengthy discussion, a new section - Personal libraries - has been added to the Logistics Department. The aim is to make sourcing and citation checking easier by sharing information about editors' personal book holdings. If you have half an hour to spare, why add a list of your Milhist reference books?	Articles of note New featured articles: Battle of Lipantitlán Battle of Khafji Richard Williams (RAAF officer) Tom Crean Third Battle of Kharkov SS Mauna Loa SS Montanan SS Ohioan (1914) USS Constitution New featured lists: List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service New A-Class articles: 13th Airborne Division (United States) Alaska class battlecruiser Edmund Herring Revolt of the Comuneros Rheinmetall 120 mm gun SS Black Osprey Stanley Goble Tanks in the Spanish Army
Current proposals and discussions Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with discussions approaching their fifth month of debate. More views are sought on this. What is a Pyrrhic victory? There's an interesting and lively discussion on this here. (And the short answer is: follow what the sources say.) Can you design logos? We're looking for a snappy new logo to go with the new title of the newsletter. See the ideas so far at the newsletter workshop.
Awards and honors The Contest department has completed its twentieth month of competition, which saw a record 78 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 143 points, followed by Catalan with 42 points. Georgejdorner, Ian Rose, Abraham, B.S., the_ed17, Skinny87, Rosiestep, ERcheck, David Underdown and Gaia Octavia Agrippa also fielded entries. Bellhalla remains the overall leader with 481 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Catalan gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 15:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)