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Question re lead coord

A minor procedural point (and probably won't apply by the time the election closes), but do we need to consider how to appoint the lead coordinator if, as is currently the case, we have two or more candidates with the same number of votes? EyeSerene^talk 07:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I presume it would/could go to a vote among the coords, or be sorted out by the individuals themselves. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Or by seniority, ie the one with the longer record gets the post. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, though, so lets not borrow trouble we do not have to deal with  :) TomStar81 (Talk) 08:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

True, just idle speculation on my part really. For some reason the memory of an Army milling session popped into my mind (closely followed by the Batley Townswomen's Guild...) EyeSerene^talk 08:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think in the case described above, then it likely should be whoever's been here the longest. If both those who are tied have been here since the same starting tranche, then we arrange a time and place for a to-the-death cagefight. That should settle things fairly quickly ;) Cam ^(Chat) 04:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Edit War Again on the Allies of WW2

Please take a look at the ongoing edit war at the Allies of World War II An Admin needs to get involved Thanks--Woogie10w (talk) 23:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As someone who's been involved with this article, I endorse this. I'd suggest that, as a minimum, the article be locked to allow for dispute resolution. Nick-D (talk) 08:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Article protected for a couple of weeks to give everyone a chance to cool off and resolve things on the talkpage. EyeSerene^talk 10:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that Nick-D (talk) 23:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Emeritus

Perhaps we need to revisit the idea of the Emeritus position; judging from some comments and a gauge of the mood the community is concerned that this may become a standard practice for retiring lead coordinators to be awarded the position of emeritus.

While I am of the opinion that there ought to be an equal chance for all to rise to the position, perhaps we should consider revisiting the process by which an emeritus is suggested. As an alternative to the full blown emeritus position Kirill holds, perhaps we could create a position for tenured coordinators so as to retain these users without an election (as we do for Kirill) but at a level below the currently serve tranche. Also, since Kirill was not immediately elevated to the position of emeritus perhaps we should in the future require that those who would be elevated to this position first wait six months so as to put some distance between their time as lead coordinator and allow for a better reflection of whether their time in office warrants a post-office promotion. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a bit of an over-reaction. More people have supported appointing Roger an emeritus coordinator than have supported any of the candidates for coordinator positions, and if there was the option to oppose the election of individual coordinators most, if not all, of the candidates would doubtlessly have attracted some votes in opposition. Nick-D (talk) 08:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a point worth considering, though this election should be allowed to run its course. I'll certainly be supporting Roger's elevation - I think he's done more than enough to earn the honour - but I also think there's sense in the suggestion that it shouldn't be seen as an automatic next step for retiring lead coords. We should probably visit this again after the election. EyeSerene^talk 09:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe each lead coord case needs to judged on its merits, rather than any rule applied. In Roger's case there was fairly obviously a prompt groundswell of support for this action; given his current office, Kirill's support and accompanying comment should also carry a fair bit of weight. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - we've been very fortunate in our last two lead coordinators, and the project's impromptu support for wishing to both honour their achievements and (perhaps forgivably selfishly) to retain their services is just a recognition of that. EyeSerene^talk 09:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that significant concern with the current situation is warranted at this point; as Nick points out, there isn't really any groundswell of opposition. It's perfectly reasonable for people to oppose a proposal they disagree with; but sometimes the appropriate response may simply be to recognize that a few isolated concerns exist, but to continue moving forward despite them.

More generally, I agree with EyeSerene that we shouldn't necessarily make the position an automatic one. A lot of this will depend on the dynamics of the lead coordinator position itself, I think. This election marks a significant departure from previous ones; before, we'd have one candidate with a very clear lead—even in the case of the last change in lead coordinators—but now the top candidates are separated only by a vote or two. It's possible that whoever becomes the new lead will establish themselves enough to return to the previous pattern by the next election; but it's equally possible that we're entering a period where the position rotates, with a different person edging ahead at each election. In the latter case, certainly, it would be somewhat more difficult for the lead coordinator to establish the substantial track record which could lead them to an emeritus position. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree that this election is unique, and I am not out to deny the position of emeritus to anyone, but I brought this up out of concern that we may one day (well in the future) end up with a situation where we have 15 coordinators, a lead, and a few dozen emeritus coords. My sense in this was not so much to derail the process or undermine Roger's referendum, but to perhaps a little more clearly define our position on the position of emeritus - like note that it will not be awarded to everyone or that more than one person can hold such a position. I agree with you about the rotation; frankly the low vote numbers worry me a little (mostly on grounds that our members may not be taking this election seriously; we've all seen the ACR numbers and know that its largely our little group the does the commenting) but I am open to the idea that the next guy - whoever it will be - will garner a larger following in March. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:13, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's time to talk about reducing the number of elected coordinators for the next tranche... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 00:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about deliberately reducing the number... We had 16 elected last time all up, and there are 16 standing this time, so at best we'll be keeping pace this time round. Given coordinator absences and, in at least one case, complete disappearance in the last 6 months, I think we still need a decent number to cover ourselves. On the other hand, I know we've set precedence for co-opting when things got tough. Cat-amongst-the-pigeons time: if I were to propose an administrative change, it would be to again consider whether we could cope with yearly instead of half-yearly elections. Last time this was raised some were concerned that this would give comfort to potentially lazy or otherwise suspect coordinators but past experience, even losing a coord without explanation, doesn't seem to indicate a big risk, and should be set against the extra administrative effort everyone goes to for the sake of frequent elections. Any bites? ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I know that 15/16 provide a nice security blanket, but I think that it makes us somewhat of a joke to the rest of Wikipedia. Something to the effect of "wow, look at all the unneeded bureaucracy milhist has...a lead, 15 coords and an 'emeritus'?!" I think that the old nine coords with one lead would do just fine; we could always co-opt if needed. This number of coords is just too many, imho. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 00:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, as I say, the co-opting precedence lessens the risk of a lower number of elected coords. Again, however, if bureaucracy and the co-opting alternative are arguments, less frequent elections should also be (re)considered. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe would could reduce the number of coords and lengthen the term to, say, nine or twelve months. :-) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 01:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that having too many coordinators available has ever been a problem ;) Realistically, about half the coordinators are going to have other priorities at any point in time, so the current number doesn't seem excessive. I like six-monthly elections as they're a good way to engage editors who would like to play a larger role in the project; the quality of the new candidates in the current election speaks for itself in my view. Nick-D (talk) 01:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather have too many of us than too few. Realistically, some of us are always going to be busy at one point or another. Tom, MBK, Ed, Bryce & I all have to deal with varying levels of schoolwork throughout the year. It's always better to approach the maximum than toe the minimum (whether that's for marks, volunteer hours or coords). Cam ^(Chat) 04:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's nice to have the extra cover. Perhaps another way to prevent our arteries hardening too much and ensure a turnover of new blood would be to limit the number of consecutive terms a coordinator can serve? EyeSerene^talk 09:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind limiting the number of consecutive terms a coordinator can serve - nothing like time off for good behaviour...! ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Eastern European mailing list arbitration case

I suggest we should keep a close eye on this case, based on this ANI thread. Considering that it regards well known and very active project members (User:Digwuren, User:Piotrus, User:Russavia) I suggest we insist besides arbitrators that we should be provided with a full list of our project members involved in this. I have strong reasons to believe that the group is larger and has a wider scope than initially stated in the ANI thread or Arbcom case. --Eurocopter (talk) 11:42, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

What could we usefully do with such a list if we did receive it, though? If someone's actions warrant sanctioning, then the Arbitration Committee will do so; I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we would pursue the matter beyond that, and there's really no point to our having the list if we're not going to. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course I agree that we should let the arbitrators do their job and it is not our responsibility to pursue the matter. What I'm suggesting is that we should encourage the disclosure of parts of evidence involving our project. --Eurocopter (talk) 12:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly encourage that the matter related to the case be keep off of Wikipedia except on the arbitration case pages. We have formal methods of dispute resolution to prevent Wikiproject from needing to deal with these complex issues that would disrupt the core work that they do...writing articles. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually we don't want to deal with this, but I believe we should be informed of how this issue affected our project. This being done, we would be able to check controversial edits or POV additions on our articles (which is, as you said above, our duty). --Eurocopter (talk) 12:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Just now, I don't think there's anything useful that can be done by us. Even if we had the will, we simply don't have the resources to carefully check thousands of edits in hundreds of articles by dozens of editors in what is already a highly controversial topic. Best is wait for ArbCom to rule and then assess what, if anything, are the implications for the project.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:51, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

As Roger says, at this point there is nothing we can do, and frankly nothing that we really should do at this point. If anything has happened that shouldn't have, let Arbcom deal with it, that is why it exists. Woody (talk) 16:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there's not much we can or should do about this. If the case concerns off-wiki behavior then its certainly out of the project's scope and I have confidence that ArbCom will work through the issues (though it does look like a complex and difficult to resolve matter). That said, the issue of eastern European edit warring, etc, is a serious one for the project, and I think that it may be getting worse again - a lot of WW2 articles are battlegrounds. Nick-D (talk) 23:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Mhm. If it stays off-wiki, then there's really not a lot that the coordinators can do to actually deal with the issue. I do agree with Euro, however, in that we should determine which of the users mentioned are heavy contributors to MilHist articles. If this should spill on-wiki (i.e edit warring) then we don't want to be caught completely off-guard by it. Cam ^(Chat) 04:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There are various injunctions underway, which include sweeping temporary topic bans for certain named parties to control that. For information, I've recused on this case, so I can help here with any problems should they arise. However, as this all has great potential as a drama-fest, we should avoid inadvertently starting any fires :)  Roger Davies ^talk 04:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's all on the net if Eurocopter wants to read YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Digwuren restriction

While I remember, and picking up on Nick's comment above about WWII articles, there's an existing remedy available for uninvolved admins for dealing with general disruption of topics relating to Eastern European, broadly defined. The precise terms are here. Under this, the editor has to be first warned on their talk page about their behaviour. If the behaviour continues, any uninvolved admin can impose discretionary sanctions (page bans, topic bans etc) on that editor. The sanction and the warning that preceded it have to be logged here.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder Roger. There seems to be a fair amount of cross-over between editors involved in the Digwuren case and the current case (which doesn't mean that they're guilty of any misconduct since then, of course). Nick-D (talk) 08:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There's also WP:ARBMAC, which covers some of the same area. EyeSerene^talk 09:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Pending absence

Dunno if I'll make the final cut, but I just wanted to let y'all know that I'll pretty much be offline until 11 October starting tomorrow. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Augh, that's disappointing. :-( No problem, and good luck with whatever you are doing! —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 01:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

A-Class reviews from WP:SHIPS

Brad101 has just cross-listed an A-Class review from WP:SHIPS (Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Assessment/USS Congress (1799)) into our review department. Obviously, there are some logistical issues with directly transcluding the page—at the very least, we'd need to create and use Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS Congress (1799) as a redirect, to allow our own banner to pick up the review status properly—but, more generally, how do we want to handle SHIPS ACRs? Should we accept them in place of MILHIST ones (and, if so, who will be responsible for closing them), or should we require that the article be listed for two separate reviews? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 23:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Usually, when there is a MILHIST ACR that is in the scope of SHIPS I have cross-listed them at their ACR page in the hopes of getting more eyes on the article. I personally would think that it would be cruel to make Brad take the article to our A-Class after especially when we have a more than a few SHIPS members in our coordinator ranks who could legitimately close the review over there to begin with. -MBK₀₀₄ 06:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, I suppose we could agree a cross-closing arrangement? The slight problem with this however is that Ships A-Class review arrangements are slightly different from our own (though it wouldn't be too difficult to sync them).  Roger Davies ^talk 17:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The SHIPS Review page says that one of the project coords should close the review...but SHIPS doesn't seem to have coords? —Ed17 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Kralizec! and Brad101 were. Perhaps I misthought :)  Roger Davies ^talk 18:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Ships copied the ACR instructions from an earlier version of ours. We have no formal coordinators over there to my knowledge or else I would have run for the position as well. -MBK₀₀₄ 20:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

So who normally closes the reviews over there? Would SHIPS have a major problem if those of us who are also members there took responsibility for closing at least the cross-listed reviews? If not, then we can just create the needed links on our side and have a single review that runs concurrently in both departments. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 23:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure, usually every review over there is one of ours cross-posted meaning that we close it. I wouldn't think there would be a problem considering how closely-linked the two projects are to each other, but you might want to ask that question yourself over at WT:SHIPS. -MBK₀₀₄ 00:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I don't see any problem with Kirill's suggestion. MBK and Bellhalla have done the vast majority of closes for Ships anyway. Maralia (talk) 03:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, we'll go with that then. I'll go ahead and set up the needed redirects, and we can let the thing play out normally otherwise. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 06:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Henry Allingham World War I contest

Ok, I've started the initial organization of the contest here. Before creating the main pages of the contest I would like to seek fellow coordinators' approval and suggestions. The contest is similar to Aviation contest, with changes in the scoring and rolling systems. If anyone has ideas for some interesting awards please post them! Any objections/thoughts are welcome and everyone is invited to edit my sandbox! --Eurocopter (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Very nicely done :) It could probably run (and be transcluded into) the special contest section of the Contests Dept. My only reservation is the filtering nature of phases two and three of the competition, which perhaps exposes it to the risk of fizzling out, if key editors drop out (school pressures and other RL reasons). It would also mean that editors who don't get into the higher rounds might drop out and not contribute further at all. Thoughts?  Roger Davies ^talk 17:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Roger. Initially I was thinking to place the contest to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War I task force/Contest with a link in the special contest section of the contest dept. Do you have any changes proposals for the late phases of the contest? Keep in mind that it would be good if we keep an interesting format (a contest with a final round concept should be ok). Perhaps increasing the number of participants in phase two from 8 to 12, and in phase three from 4 to 6? --Eurocopter (talk) 17:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Increasing the numbers would certainly help increase participation. Perhaps do it on the basis of a percentage of initial entrants (then promote it hard to get lots of entrants)?  Roger Davies ^talk 18:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that should do. Another question: considering that each round lasts only one month and generally the ACRs last for 28 days, would it be possible to give somehow a priority to ACR nominations part of the contest (simply "priority" in brackets placed on the main template after each ACR link part of the contest should be enough). --Eurocopter (talk) 18:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that is wise for a number of reasons. Firstly, it would open us up to the accusation that the contest is simply about point-scoring and badge-collecting rather than improving articles. If we give contest articles priority then we are effectively pushing them through at the expense of other articles. Those editors who were not part of the contest would then feel rightly aggrieved at being sidelined. All articles should go through the same A-Class procedure and tallying should be the last consideration in my opinion, the way it has been for the original contest throughout it's lifetime. Regards, Woody (talk) 19:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could lengthen the amount of time each phase runs? That would solve the problem and, if we could avoid burnout, would give more time for more articles to be improved. – Joe N 20:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe it's better that ACRs submitted during a round and promoted in a later round count for the round score during which they were promoted. A month per round is enough in my opinion, we'd start the contest on 15 October and end it on 15 January. --Eurocopter (talk) 21:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

If we want to maximise article improvement, we need to maximise the number of particpants and give them plenty of time to get stuck in. I suggest we open up the initial phase, when most people are participating. This could work along these lines:

• Phase one: 11 Nov - 31 Dec (and then eliminate the bottom third}
• Phase two: 1 Jan - 31 Jan (and then eliminate the bottom third}
• Phase three: 1 Feb - 28 Feb (and pick the winners}

Thoughts?  Roger Davies ^talk 11:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

No complaints from me; it all apears well thought out and logical. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree as well, though I believe we should eliminate half at the end of phase two. --Eurocopter (talk) 10:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've done some cleanup of the footer template code and the associated items. Overall, the sandbox looks good, although the text could use a bit of copyediting before the page goes live.

Is there some reason for having separate "Participants" and "Submissions" subpages, as well as a participant list on the main page? If there's no special need for it, it might be simpler to put the core logistics on the contest page itself, to reduce the number of subpages people need to visit. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 23:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

We won't have two separate pages for submissions and participants for sure. The subpages we will have are: "/Score", "/Submissions", "/Round 1", "/Round 2" and "/Final" (excluding editors submission pages). Although the score subpage will initially duplicate information from other contest pages, it will serve as an archive for all scores in the late phases and after the end of the contest. --Eurocopter (talk) 10:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the contest is a great idea and initiative; well done, Eurocopter! :) However, I do have two comments. Why are Featured Articles not included in the point scoring tables, but several other forms of featured content are? Also, I'm not too sure I'm that comfortable with automatically conferring the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves upon the winner of the contest. What if the winner was a coord, and thus ineligible to receive the award for the time being per the guidelines, or some such? I agree that such a person may be worthy of the award, but I'm just not comfortable with awarding it automatically. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Abraham. FA are included in the Article Creation and Improvement Points table situated just below the scoring table. Regarding the Chevrons, we could add a note saying "with the exception of serving coordinators". I don't think that anyone would oppose if I nominate the contest winner for the Chevrons with Oak Leaves, so why note awarding it automatically? It is just an impetus for taking the final round more seriously (a battle for the first place and therefore, for the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves). --Eurocopter (talk) 10:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know how I missed the FA section in the table; sorry about that! Of course I wouldn't object to you nominating the winner for the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves, but the way it is worded at the moment it seems that they are awarded automatically and without question to the winner. Personally, I think it would be best to create some sort of unique award especially for the winner, and possibly nominate them for the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves. This way, it does not appear that the award is automatic, but also if there is a possible coord winner then it does/will not discriminate against them. Just my thoughts/opinion. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There's also the minor point that serving coords can't be awarded the chevrons+. That might not be an issue, but given the prolificity (is that a word?) of some coords, including those standing in the election, it might. EyeSerene^talk 09:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Already raised above, Eye. :) Lol. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:24, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Despite its resemblance to caramel, the Golden Wiki might make a better first prize?  Roger Davies ^talk 10:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

That might not be a bad idea, but I'm thinking we should modify the Golden Wiki a little to make it specific to the contest, such as adding an artillery piece, aircraft, ship or a photograph of Allingham himself. Thoughts? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps easier said than done. The Golden Wiki is not only contoured but slightly askew and (my) previous attempts at modifying it have looked appalling (though this may be is probably more a reflection of my Neanderthal image skills than anything else).  Roger Davies ^talk 11:04, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, well I'm by no means an expert with graphics and images, so I will definitely take your word for it. :) Would it be possible, though, to superimpose the First World War era photograph of Allingham over the front of the Golden Wiki, or some such? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thinking aloud here ... Depending how big we want to make this drive (and it has potential to be very ambitious), we could probably introduce a modifed service award for all participants, with say the Flander poppy replacing the star (or placing it behind the star). This would tie in with the 11 November theme. For the main prize, we could then superimpose the wiki over a poppy (which is easy). Thoughts?  Roger Davies ^talk 11:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The poppy sounds good, being a generic symbol an' all (...and apologies Bryce :P I'm off work with man-flu and feeling very sorry for myself, so that's my excuse). EyeSerene^talk 13:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The poppy is simplistic, elegant and fitting. :) I forgive you, Eye. ;-) I hope you are felling better soon! Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've given it a very cursory copyedit. Some questions/comments:

1. The contest name is "Henry Allingham WWI contest" in the first section header and nav template, but the lede begins with "This contest, named the Henry Allingham World War I International Award". Confusing the name of the contest with the name of the award, perhaps?
2. Awards need clarification. As written, it's not clear how many people will receive awards, nor how many awards will be given per person.
3. Why limit it to WWI TF members, or even project members?
4. What does this sentence mean: "Only the judges will use the link to see the page statistics."?
5. There are several disparities in points between the table and the subsequent section ('Personal submission page'). Not sure which figures are intended.
6. It may be worth explicitly mentioning that at FAC, nominators are expected to submit only one article at a time.
7. As formed, there is no mechanism to handle collaboration on content. I realize this is a competition, but by not offering some arrangement for collaboration, we would in fact be discouraging it.

Nice work, though. Looking forward to it! Maralia (talk) 15:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but would you mind copyediting on the main contest page? Since the creation of it I did not use the sandbox anymore for changes in the lead.

1. Well, "Henry Allingham World War I International Award" is the full name of the contest. Of course that because of its length it is not used as a subpage title.
2. Clarified. Could you have a look for copy-editing please?
3. Well, it takes 1 minute to join both the project and task force so everyone can sign up easily.
4. Removed.
5. Fixed.
6. Done.
7. I'm sorry, this is an individual contest. Making it a team competition would mean that a fair scoring system is almost impossible.--Eurocopter (talk) 16:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Argh, didn't see that the main contest page had been made. Will copyedit there. On my last point: I don't mean to suggest we should make it a team competition—only that some allowance for collaboration would be helpful. Two editors collaborating to bring an article to FA could be allowed to split points, for example. Maralia (talk) 16:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, we shall give this possibility then, but collaboration should only be allowed for ACR/FAC and the scoring procedure would be based on agreement between the collaborating editors (in which they will decide in percentage the split of the points). I encourage further discussions here. --Eurocopter (talk) 16:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(od) Incidentally, while I think of it Allingham was a member of both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, so the maritime and aviation task forces could equally participate, which gives us a bigger potential user base. It also gives us an excuse to involve (or at least invite involvement from) WP:SHIPS and WP:AVIATION. The more, the merrier.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Start

It seems that the organization takes me less time than expected. Should we start the contest earlier, on October 1st? Thoughts? --Eurocopter (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Also the invitation which will be distributed to all project members can be found here. --Eurocopter (talk) 17:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Very briefly, as I'm on my way out of the door. The Academy contest drive (which is doing badly and needs a kickstart) runs until 31 October. Perhaps it would be best to launch after that? Armistice Day on 11 November might be a good date ...  Roger Davies ^talk 17:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the contest is almost ready to start and until 11 November are more than six weeks. Is it really necessary to wait until the Academy contest ends? --Eurocopter (talk) 17:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The thing is we always have problems getting enough people to actively participate in drives: running two at once will just make the problem worse and probably result in both not achieving much. The Academy contest drive is very much Tom's baby. What are Tom's thoughts on this?  Roger Davies ^talk 02:49, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not necessary, no; but Roger does bring up a good point that Armistice Day would be an excellent starting point for the contest (for all the obvious reasons) even if it does mean the contest is delayed by a few weeks. I suppose it's really a question of whether starting earlier outweighs the PR benefits of the later date (and the added advertising available through the page-top banner once the Academy contest is done). Personally, I would tend to say that the added impact of staring on November 11 is the more important factor, but it's really not my call. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 02:52, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

A later start would also mean longer time to "trail" it (say, in The Bugle) to build up a bit of buzz. And perhaps more time to build up the WWI membership (via a mini-membership drive) and get them motivated.  Roger Davies ^talk 03:04, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, agree then. That means we can relax a bit with it. --Eurocopter (talk) 15:34, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) - That's a good idea Roger. Heck, we could bundle this contest, "Operation Majestic Titan", and the progress our Academy has been making (way to go guys!) into an article of good length and topic for the Signpost. "Going-ons at MILHIST" or something... Anyone feel like collab'ing? :-) —Ed17 (talk • contribs) 03:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at a writeup tomorrow after I've worked out and finished more chem labs (I didn't think they were humanly capable of assigning this many labs in such a small period of time. This is freaking ridiculous!). Cam ^(Chat) 04:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Remember that we've already got a head start on the blurb for WP:OMT at User:The_ed17/Sandbox2 -MBK₀₀₄ 04:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for the long absence; this was one killer day :-/ I like the idea of the contest for WWI, and I also like the idea of it starting on November 11. That would afford us a few days to take down the banners from the academy content drive.

On that note, I have an idea to increase participation in the academy content drive: open it up to other projects. From where I sit, if the academy could help our project gain and retain new members then it could help other projects as well, therefore I proposed to title the piece ed's got redlinked above as "milhist to Wikipedia: Help Wanted!", and expand the concept to those editors who may wish a chance to participate in all that we have going on. In the case of the academy, the idea would be to get other project members from other projects to pitch in on grounds of a science experiment, if it works for us then they can borrow/link to our academy and see if they can make some of our magic work for them. We still have 30 days, something like 10 barnstars for content up for grabs, and a lot of people who have at least on thing to contribute to the academy. The trick will be coxing those folks out so they can add what we need to get this thing up and running.

On the matter of the WWI drive we can put the word out on the OMT page that we are seeking input for those battleships involved in WWI and offer a SHIPS barnstar to anyone who can get a WWI era battleship up to A/FA class during the drive. We can also advertise that as joint operation since so many other projects like BIO have a stake in that drive as well. Whatever we add for the post needs to be attractive enough to convey the idea that this is something that will be well run and well worth the effort: recall that during T&A 07 we had quite some lead time going into the event and it started with a bang. That bang is what we need to get here, we need to show some stats that this is going to work and show others that its worth the effort.

As far as OMT goes, I have full faith and credit that those participating are the best of the best, and that our small group can handle anything thrown at us. All the same though, we should take eds advise I think and open it up to more people across wikipedia, there have to be more people out there who feel the lure of the big guns and would be willing to contribute to the op. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've already left messages at WT:FPC, contacted some MOS people, and lightly data-mined WP:SIGNPOST :) Are there any projects you have in mind which you could contact?  Roger Davies ^talk 10:39, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

We could ask those projects who run a task force jointly with us; since almost every task force we have is run in cooperation with at least on other project there lies a potential for around 50 total projects to get in on the action. Wikipedia:Tutorial Drive, an ex-Esperanza project, could be of use if we can entice some members to join the drive to help us; as the goals remain essentially the same we may be able to pick up extra content through that channel. Lastly, a check through Category:User essays may help us fill in the gaps, many users pen essays to address these aspects we are attempting to write about. If those users were approached politely and asked about donating there essays to the drive we could help make up our lost ground. At the very least, these attempts would open up the drive to others who may have the information wee need for the academy's red links. Its worth a shot, IMHO. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps us actively managing this drive might be a better immediate way forward? What seems a bit lacking at the moment is central direction and quality control :) We will, for instance, need copyeditors standing by to consolidate and CE articles as well as finding others to knock off the redlinks (which aren't actually difficult to write). Thoughts?  Roger Davies ^talk 08:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Tom, that all sounds good in principle, although some of the details obviously need more, well, detail. ;-)

As far as a Signpost article is concerned, I was planning to do an interview with the new coordinators for the "WikiProject report" column after the election; but, given the amount of material, a special article may be a better approach. (We can always go with the regular column as a fallback if Sage doesn't like the idea.)

I do have one slight concern about reporting on OMT; strictly speaking, it's currently Tom's private undertaking, which merely happens to fall under our umbrella. From a PR standpoint, I think it'd look better if it were fully part of the project. Tom (and everyone else participating in OMT), would you have any objections to moving it to, say, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/Operation Majestic Titan and turning it into an "official" special project (similar to how the WWI Centenary Drive is set up)? Given that you're looking to open it up to wider participation anyways, that seems like a reasonable step to take. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 06:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There was some talk about this on the talk page, and it seemed that there was consensus to move the project to a new title. My only concern though is that retaining the name "Operation Majestic Titan" does not exactly convey what the project's aims are. I mean if there are no objections to keeping the name I am all for it (I love that name :), but its just something to consider before moving everything. As a matter of disclosure there was also some discussion about merging the two task forces spun off back into this to create one large project, that also seemed to have some consensus. Ed and MBK and Parsecboy could better offer opinions on this aspect of the move, as it was there suggestion to begin with. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I suppose it's a question of how you want to present it. If you'd prefer a regular working group, you could use something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/Battleships; but if we're aiming to present it as a special project/drive rather than a normal working group, then the OMT name has certain benefits in terms of the uniqueness factor. So it's really a matter of how we envision presenting this effort to the world.

(Personally, I'd go for special project rather than working group, even though this could work just as well as the latter; the scale of the undertaking here is large enough that I think a certain unique emphasis is warranted.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 06:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well if its going to be a special project then we definitely ought to keep "Majestic Titan", its more...special than Battleship working group :) I think this presentation to the world would be better since it does seem to reinforce the military history project aspect of the drive. With a little luck it may also help us obtain support from the folks that run the battleship museums. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. On a slightly related note, we should add links to our existing special projects (and this new one when it gets in place) to the navigation template, as they're currently rather under-linked. Beyond that, though, would it be a good idea to add links to them in the "Progress" section of the main project page (e.g. "We are currently working on 3 special projects: ...") to give them more exposure to casual visitors there? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 06:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I think so. If we constitute each of the individual special projects then we can show the progress each has made. If we do this though it may be worth revisiting the idea of the special projects department; at the very least a description of the special project in question and a list of participants can be included there. We could also keep a closer track on our special project's progress on the page so as to note when their mile stones become apparent. Reconstituting the sp department could also provide us with a chance to add a special projects header to the newsletter so as to keep the project members informed with the progress of the special projects and offer those running the projects a chance to pen a few words on what their aim is and how you can help and that sort of thing. This in turn may inspire more project members to get active with the news letter. On an unrelated news note: this reporter is zonked :) I'm signing off, but I expect to be back on at some point tomorrow to check for new messages and eyeball my watchlist. Until then, keep up the good work. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there anywhere we keep track of special projects? EyeSerene^talk 09:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

At the moment, only on {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}. I don't think that a special projects department would be useful if we're going to list them on the main project page, since the two listings would be essentially redundant, and the department subpage would have less visibility. We can easily implement things like a newsletter slot for them without spinning off a department; the newsletter can point to a section of the main project page just as easily as to a separate page.

I'm wondering, incidentally, if there would be any benefit to renaming the other two projects to use some sort of clever "Operation ..." naming theme? Or would that be overly tacky? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 11:41, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've now added a "Special projects" block to {{WPMILHIST Navigation}}; that should provide more obvious links to them, if nothing else. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 11:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. I like the idea of using the Operation naming theme - it may be a bit of a gimmick, but it's a fun one and could spark some interest in other editors :) EyeSerene^talk 14:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) If the code name aproach would help then I am all for it. I would propose naming the academy content drive "Operation Oracle Stone"; for the WWI drive I do not have any ideas for a code name yet, though whatever we elect to call it I just we use a codename implying the time that has past so as to avoid focusing the First World War on any nation in particular. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:43, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

"Operation Great Centennial"? "Versailles Remembrance"? I am not very good at coming up with these :-) —Ed17 (talk • contribs) 17:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Great Centennial has a nice ring to it. I could go for that. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Took it from "Great War" and added a centennial. Hope you can come up with a better one though :) —Ed (talk • contribs) 02:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

←Geez, I go to bed and then to school and I miss quite a bit... As far as the Academy and this new contest/drive goes, I haven't involved myself, so I don't really have any opinion on that, but as far as OMT goes, I am humbled by Tom's statement that he believes he already has the best in myself, Ed, Parsec, and Cam. I do support Kirill's suggestion to make the op official by moving it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/Operation Majestic Titan and working it as a special project. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, a move would be good. I'll do it now. —Ed (talk • contribs) 02:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

We also need to switch out the article list for the large one with all the nations so as to not seem US-centric and invite contributions on the other nations. The blurb also needs quite a bit of tweaking now. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Can someone well-versed in templates please take care of adding WP:OMT to {{WPMILHIST Navigation}} and deal with the userbox: User:TomStar81/OMT -MBK₀₀₄ 03:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Template has been fixed (though OMT Talk has yet to be moved to the new location, so that's currently redlinked). Cam ^(Chat) 03:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind the redlink. I just had it linked to the wrong place. Cam ^(Chat) 03:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I was about to tell you to refresh your cache. Anyways, I'm about to go about a major re-work of the page. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

And now I have completed my major re-working of the page, but there is still things that can be done, including the possibility of further utilizing sub-pages like we have done for Germany, possibly? Also the tables are all not the same and should be standardized on the version used by the US Battleships. -MBK₀₀₄ 05:48, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

← All looking good so far. I've moved the list of special projects from the task force page (where they're kind of misplaced, and certainly not very prominent) to WP:MILHIST. Right now we have just a list of links, but we'll probably want to add brief descriptions, particularly if we go down the path of using operational codenames for them. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 05:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought but widespread use of operational-type names, especially obscure ones, might backfire. Operation Massive Titon is catchy but it doesn't telegraph what it's about. So there's the danger that people will mistake them in a swift glance for real ones and, deciding that they know nothing about the operation, move on. Keeping operational names descriptive (Operation Milhist Academy, Operation WWI Centennial Drive etc) would probably overcome this.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's true to an extent, but clear explanations should avoid the problem—particularly if we have them directly on the main page in such a format:

• Operation Majestic Titan: an effort to create the largest featured topic on Wikipedia, covering every battleship ever planned or built.
• Operation Great Centennial: an effort to bring all core topics related to World War I to featured status by the centenary of the war.
• ...

I think that a certain amount of creativity will be permissible in this setup. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 11:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Good explanation for OMT Kirill, but we should be very specific so we can avoid any questions like this one: User_talk:Roger_Davies#Operation_Majestic_Titan_and_India because earlier types of vessels were classed as battleships but don't meet "our" subjective critieria based upon design or age. The general age cutoff is all battleships built from the mid-1890s to the 1950s for the scope. -MBK₀₀₄ 14:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

"modern battleship", perhaps? I suppose we could include the dates explicitly if needed, but I'd prefer to keep the blurb on the main page reasonably simple and brief, and go into more detail on the special project's page itself.

In terms of moving forward, I think there are two questions:

1. Do we want to go ahead and re-brand the WWI Centenary Drive as "Operation Great Centennial"?
2. What should we do with the "Top Ten" page? Given the lack of any real activity around it, I'd be tempted to simply redirect it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Popular pages and take it off the list of special projects until we come up with something we actually want to do with it.

Thoughts? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 23:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

1. Operational names were originally devised as code to confuse the enemy. The risk here is confusing our friends :) "WWI Centenary Drive" is already concise and self-explanatory. Fun though it may be, I honestly don't see the problem we need to resolve by renaming it.
2. Entirely agree. It didn't really take off, unfortunately.  Roger Davies ^talk 01:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you underestimate the perceptiveness of our members; certainly, the editors we seek for these two efforts are more than capable of reading the next few words after the name, which will helpfully explain what exactly the special project is all about. ;-)

In any case, a certain level of consistency in approach is warranted here. If "fun" codenames are likely to make these efforts less effective, then we ought to be considering how best to rename OMT. Conversely, if the codenames do more good than harm—and the example of OMT suggests that they do nothing to impede success, and may even provide some form of additional motivating factor—then renaming the other special project to a codename as well should build on that success. I don't think we can reasonably reject "fun" names for one of the two using your reasoning, but happily retain it for the other.

(I'm not particularly fond of the use of "Drive" in the latter name, incidentally. Our other drives are short-term, fixed-scope efforts; the WWI centenary is a fundamentally different sort of undertaking, and I think using a "common" name for it significantly underplays its positive PR potential.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 02:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I take your point entirely about distinguishing between short-term drives and longer-term objectives. I'd be happy with Operation Great War Centennial. It only needs the extra word to make it pretty much self-explanatory.

My underlying point about "fun" names is that they can obscure rather than enhance the message. So providing we don't go for gimmicky for the sake of being different ...  Roger Davies ^talk 10:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I largely agree with that. This is somewhat experimental anyway, so whatever scheme we choose can't be evaluated until it's been in operation (heh) for a while. If one doesn't seem to be working out, we can always rebrand using the other. Tbh I think the name, while hopefully providing the initial hook, is the least important part of the exercise. Maintaining momentum will be the key. EyeSerene^talk 08:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but I'd probably draw the line at "Operation Centennial to end all Centennials" though :)

Otherwise, the drives (for want of a better word) that seem to work best are those that get editors working on stuff they're already interested in. In other words, those that harness a passion, rather than diverting energy into something that is only tangentially of interest. The first is probably a pleasure, while the second is a chore. I've been mulling over the WWI exercise for a day or two, and will put up some thoughts for possible discussion/development later.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

←"Great War Centennial" is fine, I think. I've taken a stab at changing the listing on the main page to use the codenames and include explanatory blurbs; does the result seem to work, or do we need to come up with a different form?

(Assuming nobody comes up with a reason not to, we can actually rename the centenary page to the new name in a couple of days, and merge away the "Top Ten" page as well.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Roger: I agree keeping a core of passionate contributors going will be absolutely key, as in the Normandy series some of us have been working on (which I've tentatively suggested to Cam may make a good addition to the special projects if we transfer it out of his userspace). I also appreciate your point that the name shouldn't be completely daft or totally obscure :)

Kirill: I think that looks fine; it's in a logical place and draws attention in a way that hopefully will pique the interest of editors who want to work in those areas. EyeSerene^talk 16:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyone else have an opinion on the new name for the WWI centenary drive, or the merger of the top ten page? If not, I'll go ahead with both of these tomorrow. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 00:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Both of these are now done. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 17:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Section break

A though occurs with regards to "operation" names: if we are running thee out of the special projects department then why not use the word project instead? There have been documenbted cases of militaries using the word project in long term special projects intended to work on one or two specific goals (ie: The Manhatten project, the Philidelphia, project, Project Paperclip, etc), and if we adopt this aproach for future special projects (ie: Project Great War, Project Homefronts, Project Trechline, etc) then we can walk the line between operational code names that may not explicitly convey what the puropses is and yet still retain that interest by using catchwords such as it were. Additionally, as the word project already appears in the name for the Special Project department, it would add some uniformity to the material that gets placed there. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, one factor to consider is that we haven't actually recreated the special projects department, per se; we're simply listing the special projects sui generis on the main project page, navigation box, and so forth, without explicitly limiting their presence to a particular department. (I think this is the right approach going forward, incidentally; creating an additional department page will add maintenance overhead without giving us anything more than the current listing already provides, and will probably decrease the visibility of the project when compared to their current choice location on the front page.)

Another aspect of this is that "project" is commonly used, in Wikipedia parlance, as a shorthand for "WikiProject". I think it'll be confusing, particularly to newer editors, if we move towards using the term in a totally different way.

If we do want to move towards "project" rather than "operation", then I would suggest explicitly using "special project" in the names (e.g. "Special project on the centenary of World War I", "Special project on modern battleships", etc.). This admittedly makes for somewhat longer names, but it eliminates any ambiguities with other usages of the term while maintaining the parallel naming to imply some commonality between the initiatives. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 00:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Invitations, etc

Ok, the contest is approaching now and I'm starting to make the final preparations. Besides announcements in the October newsletter and on the main project template I intend to advertise the contest by placing an invitation on each project member talk page using AWB. Would someone like to add a proper notice to the main project template now? Also, proposals for awards are needed and anyone shall feel free to post them here. Any further recommandations are welcome and can be posted on the contest talk page! --Eurocopter (talk) 14:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

In case you haven't seen it, could you please take a look at my question here? It's a relatively minor issue, but one that probably ought to be resolved before the contest starts, since we're going to have significantly more subpages appearing at that point. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 05:17, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I've figured out the navigation templates now. Going through the contest pages, a lot of the instructions could use a bit of copyediting, if anyone has some free time. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 03:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Absence

Hi everyone, as a reminder, I'm going to be on holiday overseas from 25 September to 13 October and don't plan on checking into Wikipedia during that time. Congratulations in advance to everyone who's been elected a coordinator (and especially the new coordinators). Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Enjoy your holiday! --Eurocopter (talk) 11:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I wish you an excellent, enjoyable and relaxing holiday, Nick! Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of absences, I'll let everyone know that I will be away from 28-31 October (in Vancouver for debate), and 21 December-5 January (in Spain). Cam ^(Chat) 03:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

←I also am the bearer of bad news, most of you probably remember the computer problems I had earlier this year, well my 3.5 year-old laptop decided that it's screen didn't want to work anymore. I'm using a monitor at home, but at school I'm screwed. I'll probably be away for a bit not by choice again when I am without my computer so it can get fixed (at least it is fully under warranty for another 232 days). Fun... -MBK₀₀₄ 04:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Your warranty lasts much longer than mine does. They don't offer four-year warranties north of the 49th (at least not that I'm aware of). Cam ^(Chat) 05:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Coordinator transition date

Are we planning on changing over the coordinators on the September 27 or October 1? The page currently has this term running until September 30; are we sticking to that, or was that a placeholder until we knew the date of the end of the election?

(I think we've switched over both immediately after the election and with a few days interim in the past, and we've never really been consistent with it.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that it really matters that much, though the weekend (28th) may be more convenient for some than midway through the week. It'll take a while to get organised anyway, if our usual TF allocation bunfight is anything to go by :) EyeSerene^talk 15:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I was planning to hand over to the new lead at 00:01 27 Sep 2009. There are great advantages in having both outgoing and incoming coords tying up loose ends though until 30 Sep. (And, yes, here's hoping the bun fight doesn't involve rock cakes, though EyeSerene's proposals of milling or adopting the Batley Townswomen's Guild approach are excellent alternatives).  Roger Davies ^talk 16:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

(od) The coordinators TF allocation table is sitting at User:Roger Davies/Sandbox1, ready for cutting and pasting across (if anyone gets to it before I do).  Roger Davies ^talk 05:45, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Stars & TFs

I've marked the election page as historical, and handed out the stars accordingly. I included Sturmvogel 66 on grounds of 14 + lead, not 14 & lead, and on grounds that he was one vote short of the other guy, so it was a near tie. I'm hoping that new blood will work for us as well. Now, we divy up the TFs :) TomStar81 (Talk) 00:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Including Sturm was a good choice; when he gets back, he'll be a great addition. And who else is ready for the annual task force fights to the death trading?! :D —Ed (talk • contribs) 00:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd be keen on working on the Maritime, Germany, or WWI TFs. Parsecboy (talk) 01:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, lets get the TF allocation started then. I've provided a clean slate, and I ask two things of all of you: first, leave at least one spot open in the popular TFs for the newbies, as I would like to offer them a chance to participate in the fields that interest them; secondly, if you have been here and done this before, Id ask that you try and pick TFs different from the ones you had originally. If you have a vested interest in a certain area - for example, me and maritime - then by all means sign up for it, but try and get at least a few new active TFs so you can change things up a little. We all know that the same old can get boring, hence the request :) Otherwise, feel free to have at it! TomStar81 (Talk) 02:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

TF allocation

Task force adopted	Coordinator	Coordinator	Coordinator	Standby
Fortifications	Maralia	Woody
Intelligence	EyeSerene	Nick-D
Maritime warfare	The_ed17	Parsecboy	Cam
Military aviation	Sturmvogel 66	Ian Rose	Eurocopter
Military biography	Abraham, B.S.	Juliancolton	Maralia
Military historiography	MBK004	TomStar81	Woody
Military land vehicles	Sturmvogel 66	Woody
Military memorials and cemeteries	Maralia	Woody
Military science	MBK004	Juliancolton
Military technology and engineering	Juliancolton	Sturmvogel 66
National militaries	Woody	Nick-D
War films	EyeSerene	Woody
Weaponry	Juliancolton	Sturmvogel 66
African military history	Cam	Nick-D
Australian military history	Abraham, B.S.	Ian Rose	Nick-D
Balkan military history	Ian Rose	EyeSerene
Baltic states military history	Abraham, B.S.	Sturmvogel 66
British military history	Joe N	Woody
Canadian military history	The_ed17	Cam
Chinese military history	Abraham, B.S.	EyeSerene
Dutch military history	The_ed17	Sturmvogel 66
French military history	Ian Rose	Nick-D
German military history	Parsecboy	Sturmvogel 66
Indian military history	Ian Rose	EyeSerene
Italian military history	The_ed17	Nick-D
Japanese military history	The_ed17	Cam	Nick-D
Korean military history	Abraham, B.S.	The_ed17
Lebanese military history	Cam	Maralia
Middle Eastern military history	Cam	Maralia
New Zealand military history	Woody	Nick-D
Nordic military history	Joe N	MBK004
Ottoman military history	Cam	TomStar81
Pakistani military history	EyeSerene	Roger Davies
Polish military history	Sturmvogel 66	The_ed17
Romanian military history	Eurocopter	Sturmvogel 66
Russian and Soviet military history	Joe N	Eurocopter	Sturmvogel 66
South American military history	The_ed17	MBK004
Southeast Asian military history	TomStar81	Nick-D
Spanish military history	TomStar81	Sturmvogel 66
Taiwanese military history	The_ed17	Nick-D
United States military history	Joe N	MBK004
Classical warfare	TomStar81	Parsecboy
Medieval warfare	TomStar81	Parsecboy
Early Muslim military history	EyeSerene	Roger Davies
Crusades	EyeSerene	Parsecboy
Early Modern warfare	Kirill Lokshin	Joe N
American Revolutionary War	MBK004	Parsecboy
Napoleonic era	EyeSerene	Joe N
American Civil War	Ian Rose	Parsecboy	Maralia
World War I	Abraham, B.S.	Eurocopter	Parsecboy
World War II	MBK004	Eurocopter	Joe N	Cam
Cold War	MBK004	Ian Rose	Eurocopter

I've signed up for my usual spot with the Early modern TF, but I'd be happy to give it up if any of the new coords would like to take it. (Generally speaking, I don't think we emeriti should be taking up spots that regular coordinators would like to fill.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually Kirill, with the ability to have up to three coordinators for each TF (granted we only use this for a few), I don't see why you and Roger should not be able to choose one or two TFs if you so desired. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it'll probably work out that way in practice. My point was more to the principle of the thing; if by some chance there are three other coordinators who'd like to take on Early modern, for example, I think they ought to have it instead of me. :-) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I tended to take unwanted TFs at the end. I'll probably do that again.  Roger Davies ^talk 04:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I stole a spot in maritime warfare and a few country-related ones; I'm giving up my spot in WWII. —Ed (talk • contribs) 05:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Although I can claim a spot in maritime, I have usually left those to the coords who actually contribute the content as opposed to the gnome within the project. I've taken your WWII slot and the second slot in US (I do not want to be the first listed there). -MBK₀₀₄ 05:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've just grabbed a few that I am interested in, but, like Roger, I will nab a few of the less popular ones once this dies down a little and most spots are taken. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I've done the same; as usual my slots are open to trading (bribery and/or flattery works well). EyeSerene^talk 08:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Signed up for a bunch, willing, to trade/be bribed/take on new ones as necessary. – Joe N 14:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) - quick thought while I give myself a break from homework: both Nick and Sturm are gone. Should we assign them task forces or await their return? —Ed (talk • contribs) 04:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I have provisionally (in the 'alternate' slot) listed Nick and Sturmvogel for a few task forces that I think would be of most interest to each of them. For Sturmvogel, that's Russian and Aviation; for Nick, Military science, Australian, Japanese, and NZ. I'm sure both of them would happily take whatever is 'left over', but at least this way others can be aware of their interests and perhaps leave them something appealing. Maralia (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable solution for now. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

←Okay guys, we've pretty-much finished with our first and sometimes even second trips through claiming different TFs. Some still have not claimed any and in some cases they have been provisionally claimed for an editor. The general rule is that if each were to take about six TFs each then we would have semi-equal coverage, which means that currently JoeN having 10 is a bit excessive. In some cases it looks as though there will definitely be some negotiating to be had, especially for the Maritime warfare TF between those in the Battleship Cabal (note that I already relinquished my claim to it, but TomStar81 did indicate his desire to take that TF in the above section but he has not yet claimed a spot). -MBK₀₀₄ 05:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Coordinator	Number of TFs
TomStar81	6
Abraham, B.S.	6
Cam	8
Eurocopter	6
EyeSerene	7
Ian Rose	7
Joe N	7
Juliancolton	4
Maralia	6
MBK004	8
Nick-D	7 (provisional)
Parsecboy	8
Sturmvogel66	11
The_ed17	7
Woody	8
Kirill	1
Roger	2

May I suggest that everyone takes three they want and four they don't? Having looked at most of the TFs, there's no evidence that being interested in a subject adds anything the coordination of it. The notices (the bulk of the traffic) are still being distributed even-handedly by whichever coordinator does them all.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I've dropped myself down to seven, trying to mostly drop ones that had multiple other people signed up. I guess since last time I almost ended up with two I kind of went overboard signing up this time, expecting to get bumped - I'm not sure why, but it seems less competitive, perhaps because of the people who are away. – Joe N 20:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I've added myself to another 6, which brings me to 8. But if anyone wants to bump me from the ACW or WWI task forces (both currently full), feel free. Parsecboy (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a drive-by visit; I've claimed a couple of TFs, but am willing to add more if need be. I do have intermittent access right now, but won't have sustained access until next week.

It's going on for two weeks since the elections, so are we about ready to wrap up the TF allocation? I've updated the counts above, and provisionally allocated Nick another three (for a total of seven). However, we still have:

• nine TFs with only one coord
• three coords (including our esteemed meritless emeritus coords) with four TFs or less
• thirteen TFs with three or more coords

One solution might be for Julian, Kirill and Roger to take another two or three each and fill in the empty second TF spots (if of course you don't mind!). Otherwise, I think we could fill the gaps by redistributing those of us in the third and fourth TF slots among the others. Thoughts? EyeSerene^talk 13:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I just added myself as a coord for eight task forces. I'm happy to be randomly allocated to more though ;) Nick-D (talk) 22:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Seven more open spots. C'mon guys and gals, you just know that you want to claim one or two. ;-) If five-ish get filled, I'll take the last two and update the TF pages. —Ed (talk • contribs) 03:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I've dropped the one I had where there were three of us, and taken three more. Five left with only one coord... EyeSerene^talk 08:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I got sick of waiting. ;-) I took every open spot I could and "randomly allocated" the two I couldn't take to Nick. Will be updating TF pages now. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

All are updated. Cheers, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Signpost article

As Ed suggested above, I'd like to put together a Signpost article on some of the major initiatives we've been undertaking. Off the top of my head, here's what needs to be covered:

• Coordinator elections & new coordinators
• Academy & content drive - the article should give us some extra advertising to wrap up the drive
• Special projects (WWI & OMT) - we should probably formally announce the presence of OMT and the renaming of the WWI effort to the project at the same time as the article is released
• WWI contest - as above, we can do a preliminary announcement of the upcoming contest concurrently with the article

We can also have a general overview of how the project is doing (e.g. FAC pass rates, etc.).

Am I missing anything major? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If I may suggest one more thing, I'd like to get some sort of RFC going internally or externally to get some feed back on from the project members and from those outside the project; I would like to know how we can improve this project and where folks see us in a year. I'm hoping this will give us some idea about where we are weak and where we could stand to improve ourselves. A link from such a sign post article would be most appreciated, would allow me to gather input from across the spectrum during my absence. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea; we just need to make sure we actually set up the RFC before we link to it. ;-) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Is RFC the right venue? I would like to get this right the first time around, as opposed to OMT where we keep moving things which complicates organizational matters immensely :) TomStar81 (Talk) 05:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

We've done similar things in the past, but not as formal RFCs. One alternative might simply be to set up a questionaire and invite all members to comment (via individual talk page messages).  Roger Davies ^talk 05:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of a questionnaire; a RfC would just be too formal. Two questions: should we notify the project through the newsletter, and should we invite comment somehow from those outside of the project, people who we do not interact with as much? —Ed (talk • contribs) 05:10, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You both raise good points, but our members are not always the most faithful people when it comes to 'other than article' work; and to limit our brainstorm to only inside opinions could deprive us of a number of good ideas. I hope to reach the largest body possible, project memberships not withstanding, and its possible that the ideas will benefit other projects as well; so it could be useful to other big projects as well. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I was assuming that by "RFC" we were talking about an internal project page (I think we've called these "workshops" a couple of times) rather than a formal RFC. I would suggest creating a subpage (perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/2009 strategic planning workshop, or something along those lines?), putting some initial questions on it, and then letting the discussion evolve more or less fluidly. I don't think limiting ourselves to a fixed questionnaire is necessarily going to produce the best results, since we may not be asking the right questions; a more flexible format is likely to produce more ideas, even if it will be more work for us to extract them all at the end.

As far as outside comment goes, I think the Signpost article should work; we don't necessarily want to pull in people with no interest at all in the project or topic, and the article's readership will be a good filter—people with at least enough interest to read it. :-) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 05:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The "questionaire" can be really open-ended :) It doesn't have to be closed questions, just questions designed to provoke discussion. The best results incidentally come from moderated discussion, with people actively leading it and exploring ideas that are thrown up.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough :) I'll see about getting this up ASAP; I'll leave a link to it from coordinator section of the September Bugle edition as well to make sure our project members see it. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably best to bounce it around a bit first here, see what comes out of the discussion. If you want to take an active part in it (and it will clearly be your baby), it will probably also be best to leave it til your wiki-break is over.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we wait until Tom gets back to start it, then it'll be pretty close to the end of this term before it actually finishes, no? That may or may not be a significant issue, but it's something to keep in mind. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 05:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

A two to three week workshop, starting mid December to coincide with the holidays, might do it. It's just that moderating (and opening up) these things takes quite a lot of work and it would be best if Tom were involved in that as he clearly has much to contribute.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

←Roger, I was thinking about that too, but I am not sure when we would have such a golden opportunity to piggyback a request like this in a venue like Signpost that goes beyond the project's membership list. I suppose it could wait, I'm just concerned that if it waits we will miss out on an opportunity to get more people in on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about that too much. It's slightly strange anyway announcing a "where should we go workshop" at the same time as the launch of two major initiatives. If we wait til December, we can get feedback on the launch of the initiatives as well ... Plus, if we develop the workshop idea up enough, it will probably merit its own Signpost piece, so we get two bites of the cake :)  Roger Davies ^talk 05:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well when you put it like that waiting works for everyone. I'll write a few things down so as to preserve this particular train of thought, that way it will be more or less preserved when I get back to it.

On a more important note, I'm going to push to get USS Missouri grounding incident to at least A-class standards on Tuesday I think; once I am reasonably sure the OMT team can get her through the FAC I'll be taking my leave of absence. On the rank scale (such as it exists) you and Kirill will be the senior coordinators; I suppose if there were no objects I could appoint the second place finisher to deputy though I think that to be unnecessary since I have full faith and confidence in each of you to behave yourselves in my absence. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Well, you never know...without you around, things may devolve into chaos and anarchy. :-) Honestly, I don't see a need for a deputy outside of appearances' sake; it's not like the lead coord has any more duties than a regular coord. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

[Chuckle] For what it's worth, although the emeritus role is a great honour, I don't see myself as a "senior" coordinator; just one who has been excused elections :)  Roger Davies ^talk 06:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Tom, on the grounding incident, just getting the article to GA will allow us to make the supplemental nomination to the FT to keep the topic featured (the retention period ends in November). ACR and FAC are just icing on the proverbial cake. -MBK₀₀₄ 06:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I should be able to help a little; the problem is that G&D's U.S. BB's in WWII (which I got through inter-library loan, by the way), seems to conflict with information already present in the article. I'll try for a more detailed analysis tomorrow on the article's talk page. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:35, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Article in progress, needs input!

I've put together a preliminary draft of the article at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/WikiProject report. An introductory section covering the elections and the new coordinators is still needed—I'll put one together tomorrow if nobody has done it by then—but I'd appreciate any input (both in the form of comments and in the form of edits to the draft itself) on the other sections.

Assuming nothing goes terribly awry, we should be able to run the article in Monday's edition of the Signpost. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 02:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked it a bit, and am adding more now. Cheers, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Way to go Kirill. I've added a section on the coord elections and tweaked the rest; please look over my writing for conciseness/clearness/grammar and the like. :-) Thanks and cheers, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's looking good; thank you everyone for all your help! I've added a brief mention of the ACR statistics MBK put together in August; that should speak to our existing programs quite well. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 18:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I find it confusing that the dispatch uses the term 'project' for both the WikiProject itself and for various special (sub)projects. I attempted to address this in a copyedit by specifying WikiProject where I thought such was meant, but Kirill changed some of the terms back to project (in some cases my interpretation was wrong, and in others I think he was just going for simplicity). Does anyone else see this as a concern? I think that folks who have less familiarity with the project are likely to be even more confused. Maralia (talk) 18:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point. We could use "WikiProject" throughout, but it strikes me as a bit clunky; perhaps we could get away with just using "MilHist" as a shorthand for the WikiProject? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:15, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggested "WikiProject" because I had a hazy recollection of its being somewhat of a convention in the Signpost; I may be completely wrong. Using "MilHist" would be much clearer, in any case. Maralia (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll change it to use that throughout. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I also wonder if using something like "special initiative" instead of "special project" internally might be a good idea. (On the other hand, the term "special project" is only used in a couple of locations, so it probably won't be particularly confusing to regulars either way.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 20:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

"Special task forces"? —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That'll just move the confusion from "project" to "task force", no? ;-) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 22:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

(out) - I think that outsiders might find "[...] and 84% of promoted articles had successfully passed an A-class review, versus 41% of non-promoted ones" confusing. —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the last number; hopefully, it reads less confusingly now. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 22:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

(break) Talk page announcement

← On a related note, here's a first stab at an announcement covering the special projects for WT:MILHIST:

The coordinators have spent the last few weeks working on a plan to revitalize some of our "special projects". You may have already seen a few of the changes—for example, the projects are now listed on our main page—but the two main ones are:

• Operation Majestic Titan, an effort dealing with battleships and battlecruisers, is now formally a part of the WikiProject.
• The World War I centenary effort has been renamed to Operation Great War Centennial, and will be the focus of a special contest to begin in November.

More detailed coverage of these initiatives appears in an article in this week's Signpost. As usual, any comments and suggestions are very welcome, as is any assistance with the special projects themselves!

Comments? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I tweaked "is appearing" to "appears"—the issue will be out tomorrow, after all. Otherwise, I think it is fine. —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, since the article has been published, I've posted this at WT:MILHIST#News about special projects. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 03:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

First-term coordinators

First, welcome to the wardroom :)

Second, on the practical front, the Handbook tells you pretty much everything you need to know to get started. It's mostly about making sure the project runs smoothly by adding and updating links and so on, which are traditionally done on a "first come, first served" basis. So if you see something that needs doing, just do it, rather than waiting for somebody else to come along.

Third, there's task force coordination to consider. In a nutshell, coordinators sign up for TFs to take under their wing and realistically represents very little work. Typically, to spread the load evenly, coordinators sign up for six to eight task forces. Some are much bigger/more popular than others and these have up to three coordinators, smaller/less popular ones have two. There's no element of ownership or hierarchy or honour in TF coordination; it's simply putting yourself down as one of the designated points of contact for those infrequent occasions when an editor wants to raise something on an individual's talk page rather than on the TF talk page.

Fourth, we have a major role in strategy, which is usually done by developing consensus in discussion rather than by formal votes. Here, it's often worth keeping the big picture in mind: we're a very large project, spanning the globe and thousands of years of history, with many of our members having English as a second or third language. We seem so far to have struck a balance between radical innovation and conservative evolution.

Good luck in your new role,  Roger Davies ^talk 07:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

TF housekeeping

Now might perhaps be a good time to consolidate a couple of the quieter TFs into larger, more active, ones. Obvious candidates are:

• Taiwanese military history (one editor) could be absorbed into Chinese military history.

• Australian military history and New Zealand military history could be merged to form the Australia and New Zealand task force. Under this schema, New Zealand have its own work group within the task force.

• Lebanese military history becomes a working group of Middle Eastern military history. It's already specifically designated as sub-group, so this is not really a radical change, and the prime movers have become increasingly inactive.

• Military science could be merged with Military technology and engineering to form Military science, technology and engineering task force.

Thoughts?  Roger Davies ^talk 05:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes to all four, though I would be cautious about how we phrase the "Australia & New Zealand Task Force", as the Australia TF's member count is nearly five times higher than that of the NZ-TF. The Lebanese TF is essentially a subset of Middle-East and Crusades, while Military Science is the exact same as Military Tech & Engineering (I'm not entirely sure why two separate TFs existed in the first place). Up until the last sixty years, Taiwanese military history has been Japanese and Chinese military history (as Formosa), so having an individual TF for that group doesn't make a lot of sense (especially given the historically low member count). Cam ^(Chat) 05:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, and the sooner the better :) I think we should make it clear this is just a logistical arrangement with no hierarchical implications. Making NZ a sub-group of Australia, and Taiwan of China, may ruffle a few feathers. EyeSerene^talk 07:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd go one step further and say that it doesn't really make sense, in my mind, to merge AU and NZ if we're going to immediately split NZ back out as a working group; the number of articles it has is large enough that the working group's more limited infrastructure is going to be inconvenient to use, and we're not really saving anything in maintenance terms by retaining two distinct pages. We should, I think, either merge the two task forces completely to form a single one, or leave them alone.

Converting the Taiwanese and Lebanese ones into working groups should work fine; the number of articles each covers is small enough that the full infrastructure isn't needed.

Merging military science also works, although I'm not convinced that we need to make the name of the new task force even more convoluted; is there any alternative wording we could use that wouldn't require commas in the TF name? "Military science and technology" or "Military science and engineering" might be good enough for our purposes, even if they don't use all the existing terms. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of these, although I would suggest that we consider also adding Ottoman into the Middle Eastern one - while Ottoman activity did go into the Balkans sometimes, the vast majority of it was in the Middle East and North Africa. – Joe N 20:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The Ottoman situation is slightly complicated by the existence of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ottoman Empire. It started in May 2009 with great activity but seems to gone quiet lately. In light of this, perhaps a shared project might be better?  Roger Davies ^talk 04:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Could we please consider merging AU and NZ into an Australasian task force and explicitly including the Pacific islands? They currently sit outside any task force framework. Buckshot06(prof) 20:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Good idea.  Roger Davies ^talk 04:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If people are worried about inappropriate/orphaned geog regions, well I've seen SL and Bangaldesh articles in SE Asia YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:54, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

(od) It's probably best to pop a digest of this discussion over onto the main talk page, to get some input there. i'll notify the affected task forces.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Contest dept: tally up

Link: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest/Entries

Is someone free to do this soon-ish? It should be much easier than before :)  Roger Davies ^talk 04:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm on it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

All checked (tks Rog for doing mine) - bedways rightways now for me so if some other kind soul could update the Bugle and award the gongs, that'd be great...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Scoreboard knocked together, gongs awarded and Bugle updated; feel free to tweak as necessary, though! Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me - tks for finishing things off...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Signing off

Alright then, I'm off till the end of the year. I leave the project in good hands, and I expect everyone to behave in my absence :) God willing I'll get my bachelor's degree and then get back here sometime in early to mid December. Until then, take care everyone, and stay safe. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, TomStar81 (Talk) 07:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Study well and go hard; I'm sure you will emerge victorious. ;-) See you in December, mate! Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Sincere best wishes, Tom. May you return in December with—to paraphrase Roy Mallard—a degree of happiness... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Aye, all the best :) EyeSerene^talk 10:15, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Good luck dude! —Ed (talk • contribs) 15:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Best of luck! Cam ^(Chat) 23:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC) - and Ian, that pun deserves to be shot! ;)

'Pun my soul, I just can't help it (anyway, blame Roy - I'm just the messenger)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Good luck Tom, I'm sure you'll do just fine :) Parsecboy (talk) 00:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Main talk page editnotice

Looking at the editnotice that WP:VG has set up on their talk page, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to convert the top blue box on WT:MILHIST to an editnotice as well, since it's useful mostly for people about to post on the page.

We might also consider removing the announcements box from there, since all the reviews will be directly announced on the page anyway. If we get rid of both boxes, that would considerably reduce the clutter at the top of the page. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to move some of that messagebox text into an editnotice. I also think it's time to move the Archives list into a subpage, with a link to it added near the search archives box (this would clear up horizontal space for the TOC, and offer the same functionality, one click away). I'd prefer to keep the announcements template. Maralia (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

We used to have a separate subpage for the archives, but it's kind of a pain to maintain it given that the archiving process itself is entirely automated. I've been playing with the collapsing options for {{archives}}, and I suspect we could clear up horizontal space by placing it above or below {{WPMILHIST Navigation}} in a collapsed state, without having to create a separate subpage. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I moved the archive box into the messagebox—we now have...whitespace :O I'll quit messing around until I see what you'd like to move into the editnotice. Maralia (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the top bar doesn't really expand neatly. I've tried aligning the archive box with the announcement box instead, since both of them expand down; does that work?

(If it works from a layout standpoint, we can change the styling on the archive box to match the announcement box.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 20:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

← I've taken a stab at creating an editnotice (Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history); I think that's all the text we need to carry over. Of the other links in the top box, the "Skip to TOC" is no longer needed now that all the boxes are collapsed, the task force list is given in the editnotice, and the new section link is already provided by the default interface. I think that all we'd have to do is find a place to display the shortcut, which could either be in the same row as the announcement and archive templates, or down next to the navigation template (which was the old location). Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 20:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, neatly executed. Works for me,  Roger Davies ^talk 13:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Kirill, your edit notice looks good to me. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

← Okay, I've cleaned up the styling on the archive box and removed the top banner; does the new layout work for everyone? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 13:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

M22

The M22 Locust ACR has three supports now - can it be closed as successful? Cheers, Skinny87 (talk) 09:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'll take care of it in short notice. --Eurocopter (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Ta very much. Skinny87 (talk) 10:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A-Class reviews

The five newest A-Class review nominations haven't got any comments until now, even though some of them stayed open for a couple of days. Someone interested might want to leave few comments so we would avoid creating a backlog. Cheers, --Eurocopter (talk) 15:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Working on it...up to Cologne War, but I'll be busy this week so I'm not sure how many I'll be able to do. – Joe N 23:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm wading my way through Krushchev at the moment. It's a long article though, so it could take a while. Cam ^(Chat) 00:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses, I'll review myself one-two articles as well. --Eurocopter (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:WPMILHIST

What do we think about replacing the criteria comments in the {{WPMILHIST}} template, which are:

• <!-- B-Class 5-criteria checklist -->
• <!-- B-Class-1. It is suitably referenced, and all
• major points have appropriate inline citations. -->
• |B1=
• <!-- B-Class-2. It reasonably covers the topic, and
• does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. -->
• |B2=
• <!-- B-Class-3. It has a defined structure, including
• a lead section and one or more sections of content. -->
• |B3=
• <!-- B-Class-4. It is free from major grammatical errors. -->
• |B4=
• <!-- B-Class-5. It contains appropriate supporting materials,
• such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. -->
• |B5=

with the more concise version used by {{WikiProject Germany}}, thus:

• | b1 <!--Referencing and citations--> = y/n
• | b2 <!--Coverage and accuracy --> = y/n
• | b3 <!--Structure --> = y/n
• | b4 <!--Grammar and style --> = y/n
• | b5 <!--Supporting materials --> = y/n

Reactions?  Roger Davies ^talk 08:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Anything that reduces the length of what has to be the longest template on WP is fine with me :) EyeSerene^talk 08:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No complaints from me; it is just a shortened variant of the original. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Works for me, but we need to test that passing in an HTML comment as part of the parameter name doesn't break anything. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 12:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Have you time to arrange all this please?  Roger Davies ^talk 13:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll be able do it sometime in the next few days. Assuming there are no objections, I'll implement Maralia's request below as well. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 02:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes please! And if I was writing up a wishlist of changes, next on the list would be accepting lowercase spelling of the general taskforces (biography, aviation, maritime, etc). I am forever having to correct myself on this while tagging. Maralia (talk) 17:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. This drives me nuts too.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

 Works for me, good idea. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me too. Parsecboy (talk) 18:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. The insanely lengthy version was necessary when the B-Class checklist wasn't pan-wiki. In the early days, when we were one of the few who used a checklist, then it was necessary to have more clarifying template headers. Now that virtually everyone uses the B-Class checklist, it's not necessary to have such loquacious template headers. Cam ^(Chat) 18:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC) - P.S. - Plus, I got to use the word "loquacious" in a sentence. You don't get to do that very often

This has potential. Any coordinator who manages to work "sesquipedalian" in context into an edit summary in the next forty-eight hours gets a fine, but weird, barnstar :) The challenge is on!  Roger Davies ^talk 19:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Easy, once I looked the bloody word up. Why is Cam so intent upon using idiosyncratic, sesquipdalian words with us mortals? :-) (does that work?) —Ed (talk • contribs) 20:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, any knuckle-dragging dunderhead could bombard us with such grandiloquent phraseology; it should take an exhibition of vocabulary virtuosity to secure such a bounty. Parsecboy (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I often tend to be rather sesquipedalian, but perhaps it's merely the ignorance of my peers, who have been taught to fear anything prolix. – Joe N 23:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I'm back from my holiday. I actually would prefer to keep the current long version of the criteria as they serve as a useful reminder about what needs to be assessed. I don't feel terribly strongly about it though ;) (and may change my mind when the effects of recently travelling from one side of the world to the other wear off). Nick-D (talk) 02:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back, Nick - and don't forget to snatch some crumbs from the Task Forces table (we saved you a few pieces of the cake anyway)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep, welcome back to the "word of the month" club. October's word comes with seven free task-forces and your choice of garnish :) EyeSerene^talk 07:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Done - thanks Nick-D (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) I see Kirill has now done this (thanks, Kirill) and it seems to be working fine.  Roger Davies ^talk 03:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Handling "Proposal" threads

We currently have two proposals on the main talkpage - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Task_Force_housekeeping and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Notability_Military_Biography - that would probably benefit from further attention. However, because WT:MILHIST is a fairly high-traffic page (mainly due to the review notices that we spam there), it seems to me that many proposals get overlooked in their drift up the page and are then buried in the archives without receiving much notice. Can anyone suggest any possible solutions to this? For example, we could regularly resurrect unresolved threads that should perhaps have got more attention, or we could set up a specific Milhist Proposals page for handling project-wide proposals/polling/consensus forming etc, or maybe we don't need to change anything and ideas that fizzle out for lack of input were doomed anyway. Thoughts? EyeSerene^talk 13:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that a separate proposals page should be created for this sort of stuff where we want comments from all users. I'm not sure if we should make the proposal on the main talk page and then transfer the comments to proposals page or treat it much like we do for peer and A-class reviews. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with establishing a 'proposals' page for the discussion of clear-cut proposals. Nick-D (talk) 22:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, highlighting/linking proposals on the open tasks page does the trick for me. I like it because it's almost a 'one-stop shop' for things I want to keep track of. On the other hand, the links could stay there and point to a new proposals page rather than the current homes of such discussions. Naturally we'd want to set guidelines for its use, e.g. it probably wouldn't be the place for anything that hasn't been through discussion on its form/options/etc on either the coordinators' talk page or the regular MilHist talk page. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It's very easy to set up a transcluded proposals section on the main talk page, which wouldn't be archived by the bot. This is probably the easiest option.  Roger Davies ^talk 07:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, of the two options, transclusion is the neater (and easier to maintain) one; but I'm not convinced that it'll solve more problems than it introduces. If we move the discussions off to a subpage, then—regardless of whether the subpage is transcluded or not—they will disappear from people's watchlists unless they're watching the subpage as well. Given that the main project/talk page has the highest watchlist penetration of all our project pages, I'd be hesitant to move the discussions which require the most input off of it. Some system that leaves them on the page but highlights them, as Ian suggested, may be more effective in actually increasing input. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 13:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That was my only misgiving about a separate page - we don't want to do anything that would lessen participation. However, would combining the two ideas be workable? A Proposals page + some kind of notification in a prominent place(s). Another advantage of a dedicated page is that it would be easy to track the history of project consensus on various questions, and might facilitate a WP:PEREN-like section where members can see what's been raised before. EyeSerene^talk 16:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we split it off onto separate pages for each proposal and transclude them to the top of WT:MILHIST in a separate section? This would have the advantage of not being auto-archived and will hit watchlists with every transclusion. (perhaps organize them with third-level headers under an overall second-level header?) —Ed (talk • contribs) 16:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That won't hit watchlists when the proposals are individually commented on, however, which will greatly decrease their relative prominence.

(One alternative we might consider here, incidentally, is simply waiting for LiquidThreads to come out of beta, since the thread-level controls there will make most of these issues moot.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 18:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly an option :) Any idea when it will be? Btw, if anyone feels this is a solution in search of a problem, please say so. I really do think we need to manage project-wide discussion and resolution of proposals better though - the current one for a Milhist version of BLP is the third(?) time within a few months we've seen that raised. EyeSerene^talk 08:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I haven't heard a specific date, although I think that at least a limited rollout is in the works sometime in the near term. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 02:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Eastern European campaign (1944-45)

I noticed that the Template:Campaignbox Western Europe (1944-1945) was added to the End of World War II in Europe. In connection to that, can anybody explain me if something like "Campaignbox Eastern Europe (1944-1945)" exists in WP? Addition of this template to the "End of World War II in Europe" is desirable because the battles in the East seem to be ignored.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's a unified campaignbox, but we have {{Campaignbox Poland 1944-1945}} and {{Campaignbox Hungary 1944-1945}} (as well as {{Campaignbox Battle of Berlin}}, and several operations linked directly from {{Campaignbox Axis-Soviet War}}). Given the more expansive geography of the Eastern Front, I'm not sure that trying to combine these into a single campaignbox would really work; but that's probably something for the WWII task force to consider. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Kirill, given that a single front of the four-or-five-front campaigns in the East often had more divisions than the entirety of the Western Front. We have an entire campaign box simply for Normandy, which is a three-month affair involving less than 100 divisions. I don't even want to know what a 2-year campaign involving close to 700 would look like. Cam ^(Chat) 05:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you please tell me how to obtain a full list of existing templates? In addition, I am wondering why "German capitulation" is present only in the "Campaignbox Western Europe (1944-1945)" template. Is it correct to place it only here as if the Nazi Germany's fate was decided in the West?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

General ones are in Category:Campaignbox templates; World War Two specific ones in Category:World War II campaignboxes.  Roger Davies ^talk 07:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think "German capitulation" could probably be added to those other campaign boxes too (certainly {{Campaignbox Axis-Soviet War}} at least). EyeSerene^talk 12:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

ACR ready to be closed

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Winter War has now been open for more than a week and has received three support votes (including my own) and no opposes or comments. As the editor who nominated the article is hoping to bring it through a FAC by 30 November (the war's 70th anniversary) it would be good if someone could close the nomination and promote the article today to give him as much time as possible. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 03:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Bryce is on it - tks mate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

All done and passed. :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

October Contest

Started to validate the scores. I think that for this next iteration the link to should be to the article's talk page, not the main page. That would speed things up a bit. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing yesterday, mate. The link to the talk page would make it so much easier and faster. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Finished up most of the rest of the articles, but there are two that I'm not sure are even milhist; mainly Minor sabotage and Radom Ghetto. I can sort of see the former as ours as it connects to the Polish resistance (although it should probably be renamed), but I'm not at all sure about the latter unless we've acquired an interest in every single Holocaust article. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:03, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Radom Ghetto, but I don't think Minor sabotage comes under the scope. Articles regarding the Holocaust have been discussed before, and I think it was decided only those pertaining directly to the military or such come under the scope of Milhist. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I have just updated the scoring for this, discluding Radom Ghetto and granting points for Minor sabotage. As I have given out a couple of the last sets of barnstars, could I please trouble someone else to do so for the sake of diversity? The Chevrons go to User:Sturmvogel 66 and the Writer's Barnstar to User:Auntieruth55. Thanks, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to pass on this as I'd feel funny passing something out to myself. But I have modified the scoring table to show [[Talk:article name]] and used several of my unassessed articles to illustrate the change.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done Parsecboy (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)