Hello Dureo! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Orangemarlin04:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Please note that I regularly delete messages after I have read them. If you have posted a message for me, and no longer find it on the page, it means I have seen it. I do not archive old messages. If you need to retrieve something posted on this user page, you can find it in the page's history.)
I'm pleased to advise you that your application to work on the account creation tool has been approved. Please read WP:ACC/G for instructions on how to use the system. For the time being, you will be limited to creating six accounts per day, and will not be able to create an account with a username similar to one that already exists. If you find yourself running into those limits, please place a request for the accountcreator flag on WP:RPE. You can also request it on my talk page, but that's likely to get a slower response. Thanks for your interest in helping out. Stifle (talk) 14:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As you have not used this system in over 45 days, your account has been suspended. If you intend using it again, please contact me or any tool admin and it will be reactivated. Stifle (talk) 14:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You maybe interested in the Article Rescue Squadron
I notice that you are part of Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians. I would like you to consider joining the Article Rescue Squadron. Rescue Squadron members are focused on rescuing articles for deletion, that might otherwise be lost forever. I think you will find our project matches your vision of Wikipedia.
This month has been interesting for MILHIST, as we reorganized a few departments. The Outreach Department has been replaced by the tabs at the top of our totally redesigned project page; thanks to Kirill for the design and Bellhalla for the logo. We also created the Academy, a hub for practical advice about creating, editing, and reviewing quality content. All project members are cordially invited to fill in some of the red links, and new ideas are always welcome.
As you can see on the right, our A-class and featured content is growing quite rapidly; these numbers have now gone up by 45 for the second straight month! Great work! In addition, thanks go out to those who recently helped in reducing the A-class nominations backlog. Reviewers are still needed; if you feel up to it, please stop by and leave comments on an article—every review helps!
Article alerts are now available both for the entire project (on the status page) and for each task force (on the task force page).
The Military history coordinator elections, to appoint coordinators for the period April–October 2009, take place this month. If you are thinking of standing as a candidate, the schedule is as follows:
Nomination period: 00:01 Sat 7 March - 23:59 Fri 13 March
Voting period: 00:01 Sat 14 March - 23:59 Sat 29 March
Awards and honors
Ian Rose has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Australian military history articles (including four Featured Articles, an A-Class article, and four Good Articles), his highly civil and collaborative editing, and his willingness to provide advice and assistance to other editors.
MisterBee1966 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his contributions to seven featured lists on German military awards during the Second World War, and for contributing to four good articles and being instrumental in promoting three of them to A-Class status.
Raul654 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his contributions to six current Military History Featured Articles, his flexibility in managing the "Today's featured article" list to accommodate relevant main-page appearances, and his generosity in providing many images for our visual library.
The Land has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his significant contributions to the area of maritime warfare, as he has authored six of the seven articles in the "history of the battleship" series, with four of them now being featured.
The big news of course was the seventh project coordinator election covering the period ending 30 September. The quality of the candidates was extremely high, with some of the project's top content builders running alongside highly experienced backroom people. Of the eighteen candidates, sixteen were finally appointed, giving us probably the most rounded coordination team so far.
The C-class referendum, held at the same time, produced a slight majority of votes for introduction, but was insufficient to demonstrate a clear consensus. So, for the time being at least, therefore, the project will continue without C-class. Otherwise, focus is likely be on the Academy and the development of courses to develop reviewing, copy-editing and article-building skills. Some review of our task forces is also probable, perhaps consolidating some of the smaller, quieter, ones. As ever, input from everyone is not only welcomed but positively encouraged.
The coordinators' gratitude goes not only to those who participated in the election and referenda but also to everyone who works quietly and conscientiously away to make participation in this project rewarding, successful and productive. Milhist is very fortunate in its membership! Thank you all, Roger Daviestalk16:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, this month, we have a bumper crop of featured and A-class content, and our heartfelt thanks go to editors who have worked so hard to write these. But with our growth in quality content comes increased demand for reviewers. Which is where you can help.
Reviewing is easy and rewarding. You don't need any prior experience and you don't need to write a full review. Any input is helpful so you initially can just comment on what you're comfortable with. Most reviewers start off by focusing one or two things – say, the historical context, or the text, or the references, or the layout, or the images – and as they gain experience, they broaden the scope of the review. You can easily keep up to date with which articles need review, by copying this text – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} – to your userpage or talkpage. Thanks in anticipation, Roger Davies
JonCatalán has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his distinguished service as a coordinator of this project, his thorough article reviews, and his exemplary contributions to 14 featured articles, one featured topic, and many A-Class and good articles.
Hello, I hope you are doing well. I am sending you this message since you are a member of the GA WikiProject. I would like to invite you to consider helping with the GA sweeps process. Sweeps helps to ensure that the oldest GAs still meet the criteria, and improve the quality of GAs overall. Unfortunately, last month only two articles were reviewed. This is definitely a low point after our peak at the beginning of the process when 163 articles were reviewed in September 2007. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. All exempt and previously reviewed articles have already been removed from the list. Instead of reviewing by topic, you can consider picking and choosing whichever articles interest you.
We are always looking for new members to assist with the remaining articles, so if you are interested or know of anybody that can assist, please visit the GA sweeps page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. If only 14 editors achieve this feat starting now, we would be done with Sweeps! Of course, having more people reviewing less articles would be better for all involved, so please consider asking others to help out. Feel free to stop by and only review a few articles, something's better than nothing! Take a look at the list, and see what articles interest you. Let's work to complete Sweeps so that efforts can be fully focused on the backlog at GAN. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 08:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for participating in my "RecFA", which passed with a final tally of 153/39/22. There were issues raised regarding my adminship that I intend to cogitate upon, but I am grateful for the very many supportive comments I received and for the efforts of certain editors (Ceoil, Noroton and Lar especially) in responding to some issues. I wish to note how humbled I was when I read Buster7's support comment, although a fair majority gave me great pleasure. I would also note those whose opposes or neutral were based in process concerns and who otherwise commented kindly in regard to my record. I recognise that the process itself was unusual, and the format was generally considered questionable - and I accept that I was mistaken in my perception of how it would be received - but I am particularly grateful for those whose opposes and neutrals were based in perceptions of how I was not performing to the standards expected of an administrator. As much as the support I received, those comments are hopefully going to allow me to be a better contributor to the project. Thank you. Very much. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
~~~~~
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XXXIX (May 2009)
With end of year exams beckoning for many members, this has been a quiet month on the talk pages for Milhist. (If you are facing exams yourself, we all wish you the very best of luck!) During this quieter period, some of our most active reviewers are busy revising so it would be really appreciated if you can help with peer reviews or A-Class reviews. You can easily track articles needing review, by copying {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your userpage.
This month sees our first newsletter editorial. The idea is to provide regular tips and hints to help editors get up to speed with our large (and sometimes complicated) project. This month's piece, by EyeSerene, explains the workings of the project's main template, which is at the core of the project's tagging and assessing activities. Roger Daviestalk20:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In a welcome addition to a long under-represented area, this month saw the creation of the Pakistani military history task force, which hits the ground running with 11 participants.
Welcome to a new occasional feature of The Bugle, where over coming issues we'll be exploring some of the roles, tasks, and technical functions that go into creating what archivist and researcher Simon Fowler has described as the best general resource for military history on the internet.† As a project we can rightly be proud of that accolade, and we gratefully acknowledge the debt we owe to those dedicated editors from across Wikipedia that have helped to make the Military history WikiProject what it is today.
Many editors' first inkling of milhist's existence is when they spot our project banner on an article talk page. The banner can be easily added to appropriate articles by any editor, by typing {{WPMILHIST}} at (or near) the top of the talk page on a new line, and saving the page with an appropriate edit summary. This short form of the template will add the article to our project, and also flag the article as needing assessment and assignment to a task force by automatically adding it to the unassessed articles and articles with no associated task force categories.
As with many templates in use on Wikipedia, additional parameters can be specified. Possibly the most useful to include is the class parameter, because this will help out any editors who come along later to assess the article. To add the class parameter, edit the template markup to look like {{WPMILHIST|class=}}... and if you wish, have a read through the assessment guidance on milhists's quality scale and assign a rating from Stub- to B-Class yourself. A banner template with, for example, a Stub-Class article rating will look like {{WPMILHIST|class=stub}}. Because B-Class is assessed against a checklist it has some additional parameters, so when adding the project banner to an article talk-page, even if you don't intend to assess the article yourself it can be a real help to subsequent editors to include these too. This version of the template can be entered as {{WPMILHIST|class=|B1=|B2=|B3=|B4=|B5=}}. For detailed guidance on exactly what the five B-Class criteria are, see the B-class checklist.
Finally, when adding the milhist banner it's useful to assign the article to one (or more) of our task forces. This will help to bring it to the attention of those editors most likely to be interested in, and knowledgeable about, the subject. As with assessment, task force assignment is accomplished by adding a parameter to the template—in this case, simply the name of the task force followed by =yes (or =y). For example, to assign a Start-Class article to the Second World War and Canadian task forces, the template should read {{WPMILHIST|class=start|B1=|B2=|B3=|B4=|B5=|WWII=yes|Canadian=yes}}.
For a full list of all the banner template parameters and more detailed usage instructions, see Template:WPMILHIST; if you are unsure as to whether or not an article belongs with milhist or what task force(s) might be appropriate, or if you have any other questions, you are welcome to ask at our main project talk page. Happy templating! EyeSerenetalk
†Simon Fowler, Guide to Military History on the Internet, UK:Pen & Sword 2007, ISBN9781844156061, p. 7
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I was wondering if you could help me out. I'm trying to improve the Territorial changes of Poland and I think I've got it sourced pretty well but I need a good copy editor to go over it. I'd do it myself but most of the grammar mistakes are my doing. Its a big article but any help would be appreciated!!!! -- Esemono (talk) 09:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How do you change the world? You can start by writing an incredible article for the world's encyclopedia. Moni3 kicks it old school again with Stonewall riots - a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. [...] [T]hey have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. It's a featured article hitting the mainpage this Sunday to mark the 40th anniversary of the events. So first off, wow! Clever and cool. Moni3 has been recently named hottest delegate to Obama's bookclub but that may not be official yet. (Shhh!)
Otto4711 mentioned that gee we really should swamp the DYK section with LGBT-related articles for use on the 28th as well. We have eight or so in the holding area and if you push yourself to get an article together you might be able to get in on the fun. Do this now!
The official rules for DYKs can be found here. Once you have expanded an article 5-fold or created an article with at least 1,500 characters of prose, place your DYK thread here. Use this handy tool to count your 1,500 characters. As a suggestion, when you add your potential hook, include the character count and a link to the source(s) that confirm the hook. These will be confirmed anyway but may help.
The layout for the individual quotes is here (just copy/paste into one of the red links on Portal:Transgender/Random quote). Then this counter has to be upped to match the new # of total quotes (not counting quote zero).
Obama proclamation
On June 1, President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to "commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans". Excerpts at the bottom.
F*ck me I'm famous
I was interviewed by Wikipedia Signpost, the weekly in-house newsletter, for the WikiProject report. The Signpost has nearly 1,000 Wikipedian subscribers and arguably many of those folks actually read it. It came about rather quickly and my worst fears - that it was an elaborate hoax by a troll - were apparently unfounded. I hope y'all feel I did fine by the project, I did my best to avoid the phrase "man-humping, cock-sucking, doggy-style loving queer" but otherwise did ok.
Free image appeal
A friendly reminder to consider taking photos while you're out and about at various Dyke marches and Pride parades. Consider donating them to the world at Wikicommons. I'm sooo totally over having to deal with lovely images being deleted and argued about. If they are just free they are then also freely usable worldwide. And no, they don't need photos of your cha-cha or hoo-hoo-dilly.
Sonny and Cher's daughter was a famous lesbian and now he's a famous transman, possibly the most famous in the world. This also serves as a friendly reminder that we recently updated Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines - it's not perfect but should help inform on those gnip-gnop battles that do seem to drag on, and not in the good way.
As part of the redecorating at our talkpage, the article alerts and keyword search alerts are handily located at the top of the page. Always fascinating to see what's up. All help appreciated on those.
Glambert
Adam Lambert is soooo gay - surprised? Neither is anyone else. Nuff said. David Ogden Stiers was outed but apparently he wasn't terribly in either.
The LGBT studies project does have its own free Internet Relay Chat channel, #wikipedia-en-lgbtconnect, for coordination, collaboration and socializing. This channel is hosted on Freenode and can be accessed in one of two ways: If you already have an IRC client, click the link to the left. If you do not have an IRC client, you'll need to get one installed on your computer first. Once you've done this, then click on the link to the left.
For more general information on IRC and a listing of other useful Wikipedia-related channels, see Wikipedia:IRC channels.
The project had at one point another channel at #LGBTprojectconnect but as the original people associated with the setting up and administration of that channel have seemed to have disappeared, this new channel has been set up. Plus the new channel is inline with required naming conventions for Wikipedia related IRC channels. So, feel free to use this channel. Such a channel gives opportunity to discuss the latest happening on articles, the LGBT project itself, latest happening in your life with "wiki-friends" here, etc.. You can say things on there you normally wouldn't here on Wikipedia (keeping it civil of course) like talk about the latest hot guy/girl or tell a joke.. you get the point. Anyway, see you there - eventually!
LGBT to-do list (held over from last edition)
Give out more barnstars, and let each other know that what they're doing is valued.
Create a guide to stave off burnout, because editors in this project get burned out faster than others. There are many hills to climb.
Bring back the monthly collaboration project.
Participate in LGBT Peer reviews.
Get familiar with the characteristics of Good Articles and get our top priority articles to WP:GA.
Use the Newsletter, Moni3! You can suggest what to send out in the newsletter, too!
Offer research materials, copy editing, ideas, and support to your fellow editors.
Keep the project talk page informed of problems and discussions we should know about.
“
There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional fields, including the arts and business communities. [I]n both the White House and the Federal agencies -- openly LGBT employees are doing their jobs with distinction and professionalism. [...] LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions and Federal rights for LGBT couples, outlawing discrimination in the workplace, ensuring adoption rights, and ending the existing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in a way that strengthens our Armed Forces and our national security. [...] As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. [...] I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists. - Barack Obama, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2009, The White House (June 1, 2009).
To receive this newsletter in a different format, please let us know here. If you have any news or any announcements to be broadcast, do let Moni3 know.
The big news this month is the launch of the Academy content drive (see below if you want to help). But otherwise it has been a very busy month for both reviewing and contest department entries, surprisingly so considering the wind down of the academic year.
Introduced in February, The Academy is an online school for new members. This month, we're launching a drive to increase the breadth and depth of its content. If you can help, by writing four to six paragraph articles, please do so! Barnstars galore to be won!
Perhaps the most important—and, indeed, most respected—aspect of the Military History project is our rigorous A-Class Review (ACR) system, which puts articles through the most robust review outside of WP:FAC. Although reviewing might seem daunting to newcomers, this article will give you an outline of three popular reviewing methods so you can actually start contributing yourself.
General nit-pick - this is one of the easiest - and one of the most common - reviewing styles seen throughout Wikipedia. It is a similar approach to that you would see in proofreading and classroom marking. Basically, it is a general overview of the article, not getting too specific on aspects of the prose. The most common statements include This article could benefit from a light copyedit before going to FAC or You might want to check the endash and emdash placement in the article. It's a style that is incredibly easy to manage, and one that requires little-to-no experience in previous reviewing.
Specialization - it often is the case that those who have been reviewing articles for a long time will move away from the general review towards more specific areas of articles. As an example, Tony usually stays within the realm of prose and copyediting while reviewing Featured Article Candidates, Tom used to focus almost entirely on external links and disambiguations, while others specialize their focus exclusively on copyediting, reference formatting, dashes, punctuation and flow, image licensing, and a host of other areas. This is a review method that is not nearly as time-consuming as other methods, as it allows you to quickly scan an article, spot the things that you work on, and how they need to be fixed.
Sectional - My preferred style of reviewing, this is one of the most informative styles. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most time-consuming and exhaustive styles. Essentially, it involves going through the entire article, section by section, and pointing out every major (and often many of the minor) flaws present within each section. Everything from prose to reference formatting to content. It is a reviewing style that is exhausting, and often takes two or three goes through the article to get everything (sometimes even more), but it gives the article's main contributors two benefits. First, everything is well organized, mostly under section headers like this one, and it often makes finding individual sentences or refs much easier, as they are within that section. Secondly, it points out a lot of the problems from a lot of the areas.
Hi there, I've just joined the California Wikiproject. I'm dropping you a note because I notice you're interested in the Valley. I am interested in working with a group of editors to improve the Central Valley's Wikipedia presence. For example, the Central Valley (California) article is assessed "top importance" but has the lowest possible quality rating. You seem especially interested in water infrastructure. I'm a student of water law and would like to better highlight the role of water in the Valley, especially the CVP/SWP. If you're willing to help with ideas or writing, then by all means drop by the project talk page: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_California. Thanks! ferretstew (talk) 09:38, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLI (July 2009)
We current have an astonishing fifty articles within our scope up for promotion to Good Article and it's a bit backlogged. Can you help with reviewing to speed up the process?
The Military history Academy content drive is underway with nearly twenty new essays so far. More contributions are welcome. Just click on the one of the redlinks here and start writing!
Are you missing out on an A-Class medal? These are for editors who have significantly contributed to three or more military history A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008. Alternatively, perhaps you can help with reviewing? For more information, see here.
More eyes would be welcome on the ten articles currently being peer reviewed. It doesn't take long to peer review an article and your perspective is appreciated!
Contest department
The Contest department has completed its twenty-eighth month of competition, with 77 articles entered by 9 editors. Sturmvogel 66 was placed first again this month with an amazing 94 points, closely followed by Ed! at 91 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Parsecboy commendably came third with 76 points, with honorable mentions going to Woody (29), Wild Wolf (25), Ian Rose (21), and AustralianRupert (16). Thanks go to Starstriker7 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries.
Awards and honours
Congratulations go to Parsecboy, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves for bringing almost all of the WWI-era German battleships up to GA, A, or FA class. His single-minded determination in this field has helped immeasurably with the project's WWI Centennial Drive.
The voting phase of the eighth coordinator elections, for the October–March term, started on 13 September and will run until 23:59 Sat 26 September.
Each candidate garnering twenty or more endorsements will be appointed, to a maximum of fifteen. This election has a strong field of sixteen candidates running, offering many skills and representing all aspects of the project.
People with an interest in clearly presenting battle information, and First World War buffs, will find the discussion about a new campaign box for the Battle of the Somme interesting.
With the recent increase in enthusiasm, Wikipedia-wide, for creating "outline" articles, there's an ongoing discussion here. The idea is to produce guidelines for overview articles for Milhist editors and reviewers.
Proposals have been made to introduce a new self-scoring "honour" system for Contest Department entries. Contributions, especially from regular nominees, are welcome.
Editorial: Getting to FAC via A-Class - some interesting new facts
Well, it’s official. Milhist articles have a much better than average chance of success as featured article candidates. MBK004 has done some useful number-crunching following the fortunes of the 97 Milhist featured article candidates submitted between January and July this year. The research shows that 70% of Milhist articles were promoted against an overall average of 51%.
Looking behind the figures, some other interesting facts emerge. First, 84% of our promoted articles had successfully passed a Milhist A-Class Review before going on to FAC. Second, of the 29 Milhist articles that failed, less than half (41%) had had an A-Class Review. Third, the 97 Milhist articles accounted for 16% of all FACs submitted between January and July of this year.
The clear lesson is that if you want a string of featured articles to your credit, you may find Milhist's A-class Review process to be of benefit to you! Roger Daviestalk
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Greetings to all members of the Military history WikiProject, and to those outside the project who receive this news letter as well! My name is TomStar81, and it with a great sense of pride that I assume the position of lead coordinator for the project. On behalf of all the coordinators, both new and returning, we wish to thank those of you who participated in the September elections, and we look forward to working to advance the goals of the project for the next six months.
With the elections concluded, there are two changes. First, Roger Davies has been appointed a coordinator emeritus, joining our first coordinator emeritus Kirill Lokshin. Secondly, for the first time ever, the lead coordinator for the Military history WikiProject will be taking a lengthy wikibreak. For those who were unaware of this, I am an undergraduate student, and will be taking a leave of absence, effective end September, to focus on graduating in December. However, with fourteen coordinators, and two coordinators emeritus, I am confident the needs of the project will be well taken care of. For the VIII coordinator tranche, TomStar81 (Talk)
This month witnessed an all new and improved scoring system and process established in the Contest Department, which has run both smoothly and successfully. A total of 54 articles were entered this month by 11 editors. Parsecboy placed first with an astonishing 143 points, followed by Sturmvogel 66 on 105 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to the_ed17 (41), Auntieruth55 (38), AustralianRupert (17), Radeksz (12) and Ian Rose (11), with our thanks going to Piotrus, Abraham, B.S., Skinny87 and David Underdown, who also fielded entries. All interested editors are encouraged to submit entries for next month's contest; it can be a rather exciting experience!
Awards and honours
The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Roger Davies for his outstanding leadership of the Military history WikiProject, including his introduction of the logistics department, his dedication to the Tag and Assess 2008 & B-class Assessment Drive efforts, and his astute advice and never-ending support and encouragement as both a coordinator and lead coordinator.
As a member of the Military history WikiProject or World War I task force, you may be interested in competing in the Henry Allingham International Contest! The contest aims to improve article quality and member participation within the World War I task force. It will also be a step in preparing for Operation Great War Centennial, the project's commemorative effort for the World War I centenary.
If you would like to participate, please sign up by 11 November 2009, 00:00, when the first round is scheduled to begin! You can sign up here, read up on the rules here, and discuss the contest here! This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 17:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLIV (October 2009)
The contest department has completed its thirty-first month of competition; its second month under the new and improved scoring system. A total of 53 articles were entered by nine editors. Sturmvogel 66 came in first with 96 points, followed by Auntieruth55 on 80 points. They are presented the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Ian Rose (38), Abraham, B.S. (33) and Parsecboy (10). Our thanks go to Cuprum17, Ed!, The ed17 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries. All editors are encouraged to submit any articles that are working on for next month's contest.
You are receiving this notice as an active member of WikiProject Scouting. To change your status as a member, please edit Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Members.
The Academy Content Drive concluded on 31 October. The first place Golden Wiki went to TomStar81 for 13 entries; the Silver Wiki was awarded to YellowMonkey for 11 entries, and Patar knight was presented with the Bronze Wiki for 3 entries. All other entrants were awarded the WikiChevrons or a barnstar for their contributions. Thank you to everyone who fielded an entry! All editors are encouraged to check out the newly expanded Academy.
A discussion about the notability of military people has resulted in an update to our in-house style guide. Prompted by some recent "articles for deletion" discussions, members felt that we should provide clearer guidance on the types of person that are most likely to meet Wikipedia's biographical notability criteria. The resulting advice, which you can see here, should be very helpful in both future deletion discussions and in deciding where best to focus article-writing efforts.
Our Task Force housekeeping discussion is now coming to a close. In October a number of proposals were made for rationalising our extensive list of Task forces. Although a few areas remain to be decided, project members have approved the changes summarised here. These will be enacted shortly, so if you haven't yet had your say, now's the time!
The contest department has completed its thirty-second month of competition; its third month under the new scoring system. A total of 52 articles were entered by seven editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 168 points, followed by Ian Rose on 51 points. They are presented the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (31), Ed! (26), Abraham, B.S. (26), The ed17 (17) and Piotrus (7). All editors are encouraged to submit any articles that are working on for next month's contest.
Happy New Year to all! I shall take this opportunity to reflect upon the past year. In 2009 our project grew impressively, adding nearly 100 new featured articles and doubling the total number of featured lists. Overall the total number of articles within our scope surpassed 95,000 in 2009, and if these numbers hold steady we will surpass 100,000 articles in 2010. Thank you all for your outstanding efforts.
We are currently working on several proposals to improve the project for 2010. These include bringing the Milhist Academy up to full operational status, as well as spicing up and streamlining the task force structure. Also, any help you can offer to clear the current backlog of Military History good article nominations would be appreciated.
Coordinator Emeritus Kirill Lokshin has been re-elected to the Arbitration Committee for a two-year term in the 2009 elections. Kirill is one of four present or former coordinators of the project to be appointed to the Arbitration Committee; he was originally elected to a three-year term in 2007. The others are YellowMonkey (2007–2008), FayssalF (2008–2010), and Roger Davies (2009–2011).
The Contest Department has completed its thirty-second month of competition; and its fourth month under the new scoring system. A total of 45 articles were entered by seven editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 82 points, followed by Auntieruth55 with 74 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Ian Rose (51), Abraham, B.S. (21) and Parsecboy (16). Ed! and Binksternet also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the January contest.
It's only a month into the New Year, and we've already made changes to the project's infrastructure, merging and improving several task forces (see below). Much content within the project's scope has also been improved: eleven new featured articles, two featured lists, two featured pictures, a featured sound, and seventeen A-class articles. Thanks and congratulations to all editors who contributed and/or nominated these items.
In other news, the elections for new project coordinators are coming up in March. Think about whether you would like to run or not, and self-nominations will be coming up at the beginning of next month.
Lastly, our project's A-class review process is desperately in need of new reviewers. Please consider looking at least one and leaving comments, no matter how small or trivial. It will be greatly appreciated by the article's nominator(s).
Our thanks go to all editors who participated in our recent task force housekeeping discussion and to EyeSerene who implemented the technical side of the approved changes. The new line up is as follows:
The Contest Department has completed its thirty-third month of competition; and its fifth month under the new scoring system. A total of 91 articles were entered by ten editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 152 points, followed by Kumioko with 98 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (87), Abraham, B.S. (48), Parsecboy (41), and Ian Rose (41). Binksternet, Radeksz, Ed! and D2306 also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the February contest.
March, as you know, is an election month for our project, when we pick the coordinators for the next six months. We are seeking motivated individuals willing to devote some of their time and energy to the project so it continues to grow and prosper.
Also, I am making a personal appeal to each of you, the members of this project, to come out and vote for the candidates that run. These users will be responsible for managing the assessment process, answering questions, and making sure that the project's other needs are met. We have approximately 1,000 users who identify as being a part of our project, yet on average only about one-tenth of that number participate in elections. Moreover, as we typically hold referendums on major issues affecting the project along with these election, those who do not vote miss the opportunity to give their opinion on matters affecting the project as a whole. Remember, one vote always makes a difference. For the coordinators, TomStar81 (Talk) 23:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion has begun concerning our military history manual of style's guideline recommending preemptive disambiguation on the naming of military units. As the outcome of the discussion will likely effect a number of pages within our scope we are seeking input from the community on whether the guideline should be changed.
Late last year, several largely inactive task forces were merged. However, the mergers of the Australia and New Zealand task forces did not take place as there was no consensus for a new name. To resolve this, a discussion has begun and all editors are encouraged to participate.
Contest department
The Contest Department has completed its thirty-fourth month of competition; and its sixth month under the new scoring system. A total of 82 articles were entered by eight editors. Kumioko came first with 110 points, followed by Sturmvogel 66 with 87 points. They receive the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Auntieruth55 (59) and Ian Rose (36). Binksternet, Cirt, Radeksz and YellowMonkey also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the March contest.
Awards and honours
Brad101 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his excellent reviewing and work on a sizable number of nautical articles that fall within our scope, producing a number of high-quality articles for the Military history and Ships WikiProjects.
Across Wikipedia, guidelines have been set up so that editors can vet sources for themselves. Links to some of these and a guide for checking if a source is reliable can be found in an excellent Signpost dispatch written by Ealdgyth (talk·contribs). However, for the majority of military history-related topics, we strive for more than just a basic reliable source. Specifically, we aim for peer-reviewed articles and books over, for example, most websites.[N 1] Contemporary news articles or accounts can and should be mixed in (if possible) to give a picture of the general view point of the time—were they calm, afraid, unsure of what was going on?
Another major tenet is neutrality. If an editor rewrote the article Dieppe Raid using only the official Canadian history,[N 2] we would have a problem; while it does contain a thorough and in-depth overview, a point-of-view can still be read. For one, it gives an undue amount of focus to Canada's input in the planning of the landing, and it would probably give an undue focus to their troops if a majority of the landing forces hadn't been Canadian. Granted, this is a book written to document that country's role in the Second World War, so you would hope it focuses on them, but this same reason makes it unusable as the primary basis for an article.
In this case, you would like to utilize a few recent, peer-reviewed books and journals, the official British, Canadian and German histories, possibly a few books written by historians from the aforementioned countries, and newspapers from that time period.[N 3] Obviously this is ideal, but you need to represent all three sides in this (the United States would be a fourth, but they played only a minor role in the planning and invading). This neutrality aspect applies especially for battles and to a lesser degree biographies, but it can be utilized in virtually every article in our scope. For example, it could be beneficial to obtain Japanese accounts of B-29 Superfortress bombing raids or non-Puerto Rican peer-reviewed sources for that insular area's role in the Second World War. —Ed(talk • majestic titan)
Notes
^It should be noted that certain sites like Combined Fleet or Navweaps, which are authored by recognized or published experts in the field, are not "most websites."
^For example, some of the Canadian newspaper articles written about the raid are listed on their War Museum's website here, while a London Gazette supplement written after the war can be seen on their website. Anyone with access to the archives of The New York Times can view the stories printed by that paper on the raid by searching their archives, and the Google News archive lists many newspapers, some of which were scanned by Google and are available at no charge; most of the non-free material requires a subscription to ProQuest.
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WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of April. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 200. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. Hope we can see you in April.
I am pleased to report that the March coordinator elections have concluded, and that 15 members have been selected to serve as coordinators from April to September. Special congratulations go to AustralianRupert, Dank, MisterBee1966, NativeForeigner, Patar knight, and Ranger Steve, all of whom are newly elected coordinators. As we start this new tranche we welcome all returning coordinators, and wish those who decided not to stand for reelection luck as they move on to new things.
In other election news, a motion made to extend the coordinator tranche from its current six-month term to one full year gained consensus from the election participants. This will take effect in September, during the next election cycle. For the IX Coordinator Tranche, TomStar81 (Talk) 05:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In May 2008 a small group of editors, operating from a page in Cam's userspace, began work on improving Wikipedia's articles relating to the pivotal Second World War Battle of Normandy that took place in northern France between 6 June and the end of August 1944. Milhist has now adopted this collaboration as our third special project. The aim of Operation Normandy is to bring all core topics—official operations, battles, and the invasion beaches—to featured status by the 70th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 2014. More information can be found on the project page; any interested editors are most welcome to sign up and help us meet this challenging goal!
Our Henry Allingham World War I Contest ended on 11 March with the following results: in first place was Sturmvogel 66; in second place was Ian Rose; in third place was Dana boomer; and the finalists were Abraham, B.S., Carcharoth, and XavierGreen. The contest produced an incredible 238 recognised article improvements, of which 6 were Featured articles, 13 were A-Class articles and 22 were Good articles. In addition 43 newly created or expanded articles were successfully submitted for the 'Did you know' section on Wikipedia's main page. Our warmest congratulations go to the medallists and finalists, and our grateful thanks go to all participants and particularly to Eurocopter for organizing the contest.
Would you like to get more involved in the project? There are many open tasks that could use your help. The project's review department is always in need of input at peer reviews, A-class reviews, FACs and FARs; these can be found here. Also, the project maintains a list of deletion debates for military-related articles that have been nominated for deletion; project members are encouraged to provide their opinions in this forum so that consensus can be established. Finally, if content creation is more what you are looking for, each of the project's 48 task forces maintains a list of requested articles.
Your comments are invited in the following ongoing project discussions:
Pre-emptive disambiguation. Since 2006 our in-house style guide has recommended disambiguating the titles of articles about military units whether another article of the same name exists or not. The continued need for this practice is under discussion.
Nick-D in recognition of his long and distinguished service as a coordinator of this project from February 2008 to March 2010; sterling efforts on "big picture" subjects, including ten featured articles; and his tireless participation in discussion and review.
Sturmvogel 66 in recognition of his distinguished service as a coordinator of this project, extraordinary performance within the Henry Allingham World War I Contest and other extremely valuable contributions to the project.
Editorial: Translating article writing to real life
I (Ed) am a college student in the United States, and as part of attaining my desired degree, I chose to take a course in Arab-Islamic history. We began in the early 600s and spent some time on the origins of the Islamic conquering of the Sassanid Empire and partial takeover of the Byzantine Empire (c. 634–750). From there, we have moved through the various ages of history, and the class recently began discussing the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic regions of more recent times.
As we began discussing the Ottoman Empire's role in the First World War, our professor mentioned that they were blockading the Bosphorus, using it as a chokepoint to cut off needed supplies traveling to Russia's only warm-water port, Sevastopol. An astute classmate, realizing this meant the use of warships, wondered what naval technology was like during this time. The professor turned and asked me to answer the question, as he knew I had been studying naval history and believed that I knew more about the subject.
The point of this anecdote is not to boast, but to provoke some thought. By virtue of the research Wikipedia writers must do to write complete, referenced articles, many of us are acquiring knowledge in specialized topics that can surpass even learned scholars. Wikipedia might even provoke some of us into becoming learned scholars through the subjects we find here. To profile one such case, take a look at Parsecboy.
Beginning in May 2007, he came across a few essentially empty stubs on German battleship classes. Nearly 3 years later, he's written or collaborated on more than forty articles rated as good or higher, including over a dozen featured articles and a featured list; the majority relate to German warships. The work Parsecboy has done for Wikipedia has had a tremendous impact on his academic career: to complete his undergraduate degree, Parsecboy is currently writing an Honors Thesis that will analyze the British and German battlecruiser squadrons during the First World War. Parsecboy plans to attend graduate school and continue his research in the area, culminating in a dissertation. He comments that "without a doubt, I would not have had nearly as much knowledge and interest in the topic, nor would I have known where to begin researching if I had not become so involved with the topic here on Wikipedia."
The knowledge you acquire through writing Wikipedia articles will remain with you for the rest of your life. Try to find a way to use it to your advantage.
It's been a month since the end of the coordinator elections, and I am proud to inform the project that the IX coordinator tranche is doing well. Our new coordinators are rapidly learning the ropes, and the last of the task forces under consideration for merging have been consolidated into a new task force which should increase productivity and improve quality article output.
At the moment the coordinators are discussing preliminary plans for an improved version of The Bugle, and are working with editors from the American Civil War task force who are in the process of organizing a new special project relating to that conflict. It is our hope to see these changes implemented in the upcoming month. Lastly, as many of our members are also in school, we extend our best wishes to all who will be taking final exams both this month and next. For the IX coordinator tranche, TomStar81 (Talk) 22:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This month we're taking a look at the Military history WikiProject's special projects. At present we have three—Operation Great War Centennial, Operation Majestic Titan, and Operation Normandy—with, as Tom mentions in his introduction, a fourth coming on line as this newsletter goes out.
Officially the longest running of our special projects, this started in December 2008 with the ambitious goal of improving our core articles relating to the First World War by June 2014. As it states on the project's page, "the centenary of the start of World War I ... will doubtless be a mammoth commemoration of one of the most significant wars in history, attracting vast interest from schools, universities, veterans groups and the media. It offers us the chance to showcase what a brilliant resource Wikipedia is". With World War I receiving well over 20,000 page viewsper day on most days, the truth of these words is evident and the opportunity too good to miss. Operation Great War Centennial has compiled a list of over 300 articles covering topics such as battles, geographical areas, people, armaments, and technology; while some have achieved featured or good status, the majority are at B-Class or below, so there is plenty there for willing editors to get their teeth into.
The home of our much-respected and admired "Battleship Cabal", Operation Majestic Titan started in June 2009 with the aim of creating the "single largest featured topic on Wikipedia, centered around the battleships considered, planned, built, operated, canceled, or otherwise recorded." At time of writing the prolific Majestic Titan team has produced an impressive 33 featured articles, 19 A-Class, 60 good articles, three featured topics and six good topics. According to the project's working list, there are only 427 more articles to go...
Although it first appeared in Milhist's pages in March 2010, this project had been formerly operating out of Cam's userspace as the "Normandy Team" since May 2008, making it a contender for our longest-running unofficial special project. Operation Normandy is aiming to create a Featured Topic on the Second World WarBattle of Normandy by the 70th Anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 2014. With nine featured articles so far and 29 more to go, progress has been steady. More help, however, is always welcome.
Our fourth special project, American Civil War Sesquicentennial, is in the process of organising and at present lacks a name (see this discussion if you have any suggestions). The project will be looking to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the American Civil War by its sesquicentennial anniversary in 2011. The beginning of a drive is always an exciting time to get involved, so interested editors are strongly encouraged to drop by and sign up.
Special projects are a great way of organising a long-term collaboration with a specific end-point in mind, and tend to be more goal-oriented and focused than the general task forces or informal working groups. Joining a special project is also a fantastic way to work alongside like-minded editors with whom you'll undoubtedly develop close working relationships; by your third or fourth FA submission you'll hopefully be operating as part of a well-oiled team. Editor roles are many and varied: content writers, source material providers, image- and map-makers, copy editors, reviewers, MoS gurus, wikignomes, specialists and generalists... you're sure to find a job that suits you and benefits the team. If you have an idea for a special project or are already undertaking a collaboration that you think fits in with the ethos of those above, and you'd like to benefit from Milhist's support and infrastructure, consider dropping the coordinators a note. Personally I've found the synergy and teamwork of contributing to a special project (Operation Normandy in my case) to be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of my time here. I hope you will too. EyeSerenetalk14:16, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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With Eurocopter's resignation (see editorial below), this month marks the end of his tenure as a project coordinator. Eurocopter has been with the team for almost three years now and will be sorely missed, but he has taken the tough decision that his real life commitments have unfortunately made it too hard for him to focus on his coordinator duties. We wish him good luck in the future, both in real life and on-wiki.
Efforts to redesign The Bugle are moving forward and it is our intention to roll out a new format, based on the Signpost, for next month's issue. We hope that this will allow us to provide better coverage of the project's news by allowing more room to expand on the stories we bring to you. If you have any comments or suggestions on what we can do to improve coverage, please let us know.
With consensus reached on a name the American Civil War task force has officially opened our newest special project. Codenamed Brothers at War, its goal will be "...to improve [US Civil War] related Wikipedia articles to featured status, and to see as many of these as possible appear on the main page on their respective 150th anniversaries."
The straw poll concerning preemptive disambiguation of military units as outlined by our Manual of Style has been closed, with near unanimous consensus that the current practice of preemptive disambiguation be retained. Thanks to everyone who participated in either the discussion or the straw poll.
Members of Operation Majestic Titan have adopted a three-tiered award system to show appreciation to those who have done work on battleship or battlecruiser articles. Formally known as the Titan's Cross, the award has been issued to Parsecboy, Climie.ca, The ed17, and MBK004.
The project's official IRC channel (#wikipedia-en-milhist) has been restarted. Project members and anyone interested in military history are encouraged to join us for substantive discussions, social discourse and a few laughs. Instructions on how to get on IRC are available here.
Editorial: Project coordination and constructive editing
For those of you who might not know me, I'm Eurocopter. I served as a coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from August 2007 until few days ago, when I decided to resign due to real life issues making it impossible for me to continue to perform project duties on a regular basis. Reflecting on my experience and activities within the project, I decided to write this editorial to set out a few thoughts and offer some advice to interested members.
First of all, what does project coordination mean and how does it help the Military history WikiProject? Although the coordinators do not have any real executive powers, they play an important role in project management. To make editing contributions easier for our members we establish guidelines, manage Peer and A-Class reviews, and consult and assist when needed. The primary goal of the coordination team has always been to stimulate the development of quality articles and, once they have been developed, to facilitate maintaining them at a high standard for as long as possible. This has been carried out through the organization of a considerable number of assessment drives, contests and special projects. However, there is still much to be done to make the project one of the best and most active wiki-communities. Coordinator involvement in trying to achieve this, as the central promoters of any activity undertaken within the project, is more than important; the coordination team should stand as an example of civilised and constructive cooperation. Perhaps the most annoying issue—unfortunately quite widespread through the pages of Wikipedia—is POV-dominated conflict. While such a phenomenon might seem inevitable in a community within which hundreds of members of different nationalities with different historical and political views interact, it doesn’t mean we should accept it. The ability to neutrally mediate such conflicts is an important and desirable coordinator function.
Secondly, but most importantly in my opinion, is the question of how the project enables editors to contribute effectively. Perhaps you already know how difficult it is to take an article to the highest quality levels such as A-Class or featured status. It is even harder to do this working alone. I believe the best thing the Military history WikiProject has done is to bring together groups of editors with similar interests. As there are very few editors skilled in all the diverse article development areas, you might feel the need for help from editors more experienced in, for example, advanced copy editing, image editing etc. To this end the project provides task forces and special projects where members should always feel encouraged to ask questions, discuss, debate and give advice. Such cooperation is the best way to create properly balanced articles and to establish a neutral point of view. Our Style guide and Academy are also useful in guiding you along the path of writing an article. A final, but vital, part of the collaborative article writing process is editor behaviour when interacting with other editors who are contributing to the same article. Even on those occasions where an editor upsets you or allows their personal opinions to influence their editing, always remain calm, civil and try to reach an agreement. Contributing to Wikipedia is something most of us do as a hobby; time spent in useless conflicts is precious editing time wasted.
All in all, the Military history WikiProject is a good meeting point for milhist-interested editors, both beginners and advanced, with someone always there to give help and advice when needed. I wish to thank all my fellow coordinators and project members who keep this beautiful community running. I will certainly miss it!
Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. ɳorɑfʈ Talk!14:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : LII (June 2010)
There are currently 2,615 articles in the backlog. You can help us! Join the September 2010 drive today!
The Guild of Copy-Editors – September 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive
The Wikipedia Guild of Copy-Editors invite you to participate in the September 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive will begin on 1 September at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on 30 September at 23:59 (UTC). The goals for this drive are to eliminate 2008 from the queue and to reduce the backlog to fewer than 5,000 articles.
Sign-up has already begun at the September drive page, and will be open throughout the drive. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a message on the drive's talk page.
Awards and barnstars A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GoCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.