This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The contest department has completed its ninth month of competition. The top scorer this month is Blnguyen, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter, with 8 points, and Redmarkviolinist, with 6 points. Blnguyen also remains the overall leader, with 162 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
Blnguyen has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his efforts in improving the quality of articles related to Vietnamese military history, including the creation of numerous A-Class articles.
Woodym555 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on topics related to the Victoria Cross, notably including the creation of featured articles, featured lists, and a featured topic.
Although the drive is officially closed, existing participants can continue tagging until January 31 if they wish, with the extra tags counting towards their tally for barnstar purposes.
We'd like to see what lessons can be learned from this drive, so we've set up a feedback workshop. Comments and feedback from participants and non-particpants
alike are very welcome and appreciated.
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Yeah, I noticed the changes and additions you made. I'll keep an eye on the peer review and work on what gets brought up. But you're more than welcome to nominate it for featured, because I won't due to my sporadic activity. JoeI04:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I see you just caught a typo! >;-o) I'm going to look at the featured and other state portals to see if there are some other nice sections we can add. I like the "Attractions" section at Florida, for example. RichardF (talk) 05:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I like the attractions idea as well, tho I can't come up with to many attractions other than Holiday World and the Indy Speedway. JoeI06:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The project coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14!
The contest department has completed its tenth month of competition, which saw an unprecedented 44 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 95 points, followed by Cla68, with 42 points, and Ed! and Woody, with 21 points each. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 182 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
A new auxiliary infobox, {{operational plan}}, is now available.
A new page for military history essays has been created; project members are encouraged to post their own advice and opinions on matters within the project's purview.
New guidelines concerning precision and ship pronouns have been added to the style guide.
A category restructuring workshop is now open; brainstorming regarding the arrangement of the top-level military history categories is currently ongoing.
Awards and honors
Bwmoll3 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his superior contributions to a variety of articles about the United States Air Force, including a great number of those dealing with wings and installations.
Bedford has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of the outstanding contribution he has made to the project's organization by going above and beyond the call of duty in tagging, assessing, and classifying a massive number of articles during the 2007 assessment drive.
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Not only is your welcome message enormous, so that it's pretty intimidating for a newbie to even begin to read, but it doesn't close its fonts properly, and any additional edits after it are in the same gigantic font you used. See User talk:Wearebc. 22:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
06:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Alloy (talk)Help! I edited an info box at the "Steward Edward White" article, and it does not seem to have resumed its original format--it only displays with HTML? language. I re-started my computer, and the article still appears in this form. My revised text appears in the info box; now, do I have to do one more step to get the format to revert back to finished text?
Hi Joe--
I studied that infobox, and compared it to another author's (James Whitecomb Riley), to see if I could find the formatting error. Never did. Thanks for getting in there and restoring it.
Farrell
Stewart Edward White infobox--thanks for the fix!
Hi Joe--
I studied that infobox, and compared it to another author's (James Whitecomb Riley), to see if I could find the formatting error. Never did. Thanks for getting in there and restoring it.
Farrell —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alloy (talk • contribs) 21:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
In the simultaneous referendum on project organization, you voted almost unanimously for a primus inter pares structure. As a tangible reflection of this, Assistant Coordinators are now known as Coordinators.
The contest department has completed its eleventh month of competition, which saw 10 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 28 points, followed by Smsarmad, with 13 points, with Blnguyen, Ed! and jwillbur also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A new B-Class Assessment Drive ("BCAD") will go operational no later than 11 March. Of great interest to experienced wiki-gnomes, it is small in scope, about 4,500 articles, and will be supported by the usual awards, including a golden wiki. To keep up to date with developments, and to get off to a flying start when it opens, add WP:MHA-BCAD now to your watchlist.
Awards and honors
Kirill Lokshin has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding organizational work, his painstaking maintenance work, and his unstinting advice, throughout his two years of project leadership.
MBK004 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding effort to improve our compliment of naval ships by updating infoboxes, replacing deprecated infoboxes, and locating sources for ships in the employment of their respective countries' navies.
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The main project talk page is now automatically archived; MiszaBot II will archive any sections that have had no comments for 21 days.
The contest department has completed its twelth month of competition, which saw 13 entries. The top scorer this month is Woody, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter with 13 points, with Ed!, jwillbur, Redmarkviolinist and Borg Sphere also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A Linguistics section has been added to the Logistics department, for help with non-English language sources and translation of snippets. It supports 19 languages so far.
Kirill Lokshin has been appointed coordinator emeritus to reflect his on-going involvement in the project. The appointment ends concurrently with the other coordinators' terms in September 2008.
I was wondering if you could spare the time for a peer review of this portal? The editor has been slaving away pretty much by himself and really wants input from others. I know you're busy, which makes your input, if you can manage it, so much more appreciated. :) All the best, --ROGER DAVIEStalk00:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)
Tag & Assess 2008 launched on 24 April and will run until 4 July. We have around 60,000 articles to check, so all assistance is very welcome. As usual, there are barnstars galore and service awards for contributing editors.
The project scope has been amended to include specific reference to historically accurate video games. Songs and music with long military associations are also now included.
The Contest department has completed its thirteenth month of competition, which saw 27 entries. The top scorer this month is Ed! with 37 points, followed by Cam with 22 points. Woody, Howard C. Berkowitz, Redmarkviolinist, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
The coordinators have "adopted" task forces to act as prime point of contact. A list of which coordinators have adopted which task forces is here.
An interesting proposal to set up teams to deal with specific tasks, like taking the Top Ten most frequently read military history articles to featured articles status is here.
The coordinators are exploring ways of developing and improving our fifty or so task forces. More information is here.
All editors are invited to contribute to a discussion about the naming of military operations in an endeavor to reach consensus.
Awards and honors
Congratulations and kudos to the four top-performing editors in BCAD: CAM (1st); Legotech (2nd); Harland1 (3rd) and Smsarmad (4th). They helped assess 4303 B-class Milhist articles. Well done!
Editors needed for Tag & Assess 2008. To coincide with the summer holidays, it will be gearing up from 15 June. As usual, barnstars galore!
Partner peer reviews: for a thirty-day trial period, we'll be running joint peer reviews with Wikiproject Video Games. The idea is simple: we help with their reviews; they help with ours. This way both wikiprojects benefit from new reviewers and new ideas!
We're notable: A new book, Simon Fowler's 2007 Guide to Military History on the Internet (UK:Pen & Sword, ISBN9781844156061) rates Wikipedia as "the best general resource" for military research (p. 7). Of the military pages, he says: "The results are largely accurate and generally free of bias" (he also suggests people join the wikiproject). When rating WP as the No. 1 military site (p. 201) he says "Wikipedia is often criticised for its inaccuracy and bias, but in my experience the military history articles are spot on."
A-Class reviews: the usual four-day review period may now be extended by up to three days (ie seven days in total) in the following circumstances:
the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.
The special projects department has opened. It will focus on specific ad-hoc high-priority tasks and implement them with informal, short-term groups of editors.
The Contest department has completed its fourteenth month of competition, which saw 16 entries. The top scorer this month is Cam with 21 points, followed by Redmarkviolinist with 11 points. Woody, Dreamafter, Kyriakos, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A discussion has been opened into the structuring of top level operational categories, starting with Category:World War II. All interested editors are invited to help establish a consensus.
Could you take a look at the new Ancient Near East portal? I'd like to submit it for a Featured Portal review when I find/improve a few more articles for the "selected article" section, and would welcome any feedback you could offer at this time.
With the holiday season upon us, we're very short of reviewers at A-Class Reviews and are likely to remain so for the next month or so. If just five new reviewers each reviewed one article a week, the problem would be solved! To keep track of Milhist articles for peer and A-Class reviews, simply paste the code – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} – onto your talk page.
Similarly, copy-editors are currently in short supply. If you can help out at the Copy-editing section of the Logistics Dept, it would be much appreciated. If you can help with A-Class Reviews and Featured Article Candidates so much the better! To keep up to date with Milhist articles needing copy input, just paste – {{WPMILHIST Copy-editing alerts}} onto your talk page.
The debate on whether Milhist should adopt the new C-Class has been closed, with a strong and clear consensus against adopting. The archived discussion is here.
The Milhist review structure is itself being reviewed. The idea is to see how it can be improved, or whether it needs changing or updating.
The month-long trial of partner peer reviews with Video games is being discussed. All feedback welcome!
Awards and honors
Congratulations to Buckshot06, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his consistently excellent edits and his continued commitment and tireless efforts towards improving the quality of articles pertaining to military history.
Congratulations to Piotrus, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Polish military history, including the creation of numerous Featured Articles, A-Class articles, and Good Articles on the subject.
The Contest department has completed its fifteenth month of competition, which saw 15 entries. The top scorer this month is JonCatalan with 32 points, followed by Cam with 20 points. Ed!, David Underdown, CyclonicWhirlwind, and Blnguyen also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 193 points in total. The Chevrons go to JonCatalan and Cam gets the Writer's Barnstar. The May 2008 winners, Cam and Redmarkviolinist have been belatedly awarded the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar for coming first and second respectively. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
Tag & Assess '08 has now closed, with approximately 10,000 articles successfully tagged. Many thanks to all those who participated. The top three scorers were Jim Sweeney (Gold Wiki), Dashiellx (Silver Wiki) and Ejosse1 (Bronze Wiki).
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Your thoughts on quote formats in featured portals
Yo, I stumbled accross your featured portal criteria and I was wondering if you could tell me what you think the best way to go about formatting quotes on a portal is. On Portal:Anarchism we don't use{{cquote}} and I was thinking of switching to it. Sincerely, Skomorokh18:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
CAC
Joe, remember me? You helped me on my counterfeit gold article a long time ago.
Well I need your help again. Wikipedia has no article, or even stub or reference to CAC, the coin approval fourth party service at www.caccoin.com CAC coins are now bringing premiums and although it is relatively new, it should be mentioned.
Please contact me
Thanks
Spacetimecont (talk) 08:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIX (July 2008)
The criteria for Military history A-Class reviews have been overhauled. The new standard is deliberately set higher than before, and is much closer to featured article quality. The new criteria are:
A2. The article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail.
A3. The article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents.
A4. The article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant.
A5. The article contains supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where appropriate.
The timescale for A-Class articles has also been changed to give more editors an opportunity to participate.
The six-monthly Coordinators' election has been moved back a month to avoid clashes with the holiday period. The sign-up period will run from 1–15 September and the elections themselves from 16–30 September.
The Contest department has completed its sixteenth month of competition, which saw 22 entries. The top scorer this month is new entrant Bellhalla with 41 points, followed by Blnguyen with 33 points. Cam, Ed!, David Underdown, and Ferbess also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 226 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Blnguyen gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
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Carol Schwartz was added to WikiProject Texas by a bot, presumably because of the mentions of Texas in her bio, and then you added importance Mid later. Since she moved to DC from Texas at age 22, I find it hard to believe she rates a "Mid" in significance for Texas — in fact, it seems unlikely that she should be in WikiProject Texas at all, though of course the project can make whatever decisions it likes. Just thought I'd call it to your attention. —KCinDC (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Nominations for the Military history WikiProject coordinator election
The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is underway, to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on 14 September! Voting starts at 00:01 (UTC) on 15 September and runs until 23:59 (UTC) on 30 September.
A new barnstar specifically encouraging and recognizing excellence in Milhist article creation and development has been introduced. Any editor who has made a significant contribution to three or more Milhist A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008 under the new A-Class criteria is eligible. Nominations for the medal should be made here; should list the three A-Class articles for which the medal is sought; and must be subsequently supported by three or more project coordinators, who will be responsible for making the award. Editors may nominate themselves or any other qualifying editor.
A new discussion about whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is underway. All comments are welcome.
The 2008 Tag & Assess Workshop is still open, seeking input on ways to improve the efficiency, user-friendliness and organization of future Milhist drives. All comment is welcome, especially from people who didn't participate in the drive!
Awards and honors
Durova has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of her exemplary work on military history featured pictures, sounds, and articles.
Hello, I saw that you are a portal peer review volunteer.
I have worked much for the improvement of my portal, but some concerns may remain:
Is the image at the top of the page useful and aesthetic, or should I remove or replace it ?
Problem with the selected biography: I contented myself with writing a short sentence as an introduction for each personality. Then I wrote the beginning of the biography, then put a link "more..." to the complete article. Is it approriate ?
Selected images are not of the same size. Is it really a problem ? It should be noted that free images for comics are very rare.
Is the presentation of the news correct ? I did not specified the exact date of each event, only the month, because I do not know it.
If you have any other recommendations about other aspects of the portal, do not hesitate ! It MUST become a featured portal ! Thanks. (Please reply here).--Pah777 (talk) 22:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Re: Welcome
Cheers for the welcome to the Numismatics WikiProject! I joined back in March though, you sure you welcomed the correct user? +Hexagon1(t)08:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. TallNapoleon (talk) 09:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXI (September 2008)
The W1.0 Editorial Team have selected 1133 Military history articles for inclusion in the W0.7 test release. For convenience, these are broken by task force and you'll find a list on each task force headed "Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for [task force name]" on the task force talk page. You may nominate extra articles for inclusion or existing ones for removal. If you can improve any of the articles on the list, by adding references, or copy-editing, or cleaning up generally, please do so.
A new discussion has started about naming articles on Soviet WWII operations. All contributions are welcome as we hope to resolve this longstanding issue once and for all.
The debate over whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is continuing. All comments and suggestions are welcome.
Hi Searchme, I've temporarily reverted your addition of the C class to the WP Texas template. When C-class was first introduced, it was brought up on the WP Texas talk page, and there was no consensus to add the class. That was several months ago, and it is possible that consensus changed. If you think we need the class, could you please propose this on the WP Texas talk page? We would also need to modify the assessments scale so that assessors would understand when to use C class versus other classes. Thanks! Karanacs (talk) 14:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Following a lengthy discussion, three new coordinators – EyeSerene, Maralia and the_ed17 - have been coopted. The purpose of the appointments is partly to fill the place left by the retirement of TomStar81 and partly to provide increased/improved coordinator capacity to cover existing coordinator absences and to help with upcoming major projects. As a reminder, coordinators are merely editors who have committed to go the extra mile for the project and that there are very few processes that require coordinator input. Specifically these are closing A-Class reviews, and endorsing two project award nominations. Any editors who wish to help with the nitty-gritty of this busy project (cross-posting A-Class review, peer review and featured article candidate alerts; responding to member questions and queries, helping with drives) are positively encouraged to do so.
A workshop has been set up to redesign and improve the newsletter. In our recent competition, a new name was chosen – The Bugle. All editors are welcome to participate, especially those with graphic and design skills!
Administrator and Milhist coordinator, Nick Dowling, has changed his user name to Nick-D.
Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with discussions approaching their fourth month of debate. More views are sought on this.
Awards and honors
Kyriakos has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from February 2007 to September 2008.
LordAmeth has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from August 2006 to September 2008.
EyeSerene has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his diligent and excellent copyediting of vast quantities of Military History articles—notably his work on multiple Featured Article Candidates.
TomStar81 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of both his long and distinguished service as a coordinator of this project from August 2007 to October 2008, and of his exemplary contributions to articles on the vessels of the U.S. Navy.
Signpost updated for November 17, 2008 and before.
Because the Signpost hasn't been sent in a while, to save space, I've condensed all seven issues that were not sent into this archive. Only the three issues from November are below.
Hi, I am writing to you because you have listed yourself as a member of the Electronics WikiProject. Sadly, this project is pretty dead, but I propose to resuscitate it with a collaboration. The idea is to have a concerted effort on improving one article per month, hopefully to GA or FA status and nominate the very best of them for the front page. I have prepared a page to control this process at Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronics/Collaboration (actually, I mostly shamelessly stole it from Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals where a collaboration of this sort was succesfully run). There you can make nominations for articles for collaboration or comment on the nominations of others.
If you want to take part you might like to place this template {{WikiProject Electronics Collaboration}} on your userpage which will give you a link to the current collaboration. If you are no longer interested in Wikiproject Electronics, please remove yourself from the members list, which is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronics/Members
Following a lengthy discussion, a new section - Personal libraries - has been added to the Logistics Department. The aim is to make sourcing and citation checking easier by sharing information about editors' personal book holdings. If you have half an hour to spare, why add a list of your Milhist reference books?
What are your thoughts on collecting all Euro related articles and putting them into a sub-portal (if there is such a thing...)? The € • T/C13:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Tho there doesn't seem to be enough content to apply to an individual portal, a tab seems like a good idea. You can see some examples at Portal:Atlas and Portal:European Union. I don't think I'd have alot of time for major work on it, but I'd be more than happy to set it up and help out as much as possible. Just let me know what you're thinking about different boxes, rotated content and such. JoeI03:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
A tab does seem like a good idea. I'm not sure what you mean by boxes and rotated content, though. The reason I asked your thoughts in the first place is that since Euro topics have an entire subset of specific information and content, it might be helpful to have some sort of focused point of convergence for editors to either contribute new or improve upon existing articles. While it is true that there isn't enough content for an individual portal now, over the next few years, there may be. Perhaps it would be prudent to spin off Euro content sooner rather than later, given what little (compared to other portals) content there is, into a sub portal so as to ease the transition when such a time comes that there is enough content on the subject to justify a completely separate portal. I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe it is better to start off with a tab and move forward from there. I would like to see a dedicated area for improvements and assessments of current articles as well as a 'what's needed' area in this tab. If I had about a day or two, I would probably be able to recommend several dozen articles where Euro specific content could be formed into a new article. The Euro, for many researchers, represents a single idea whose precepts are separate from those of general numismatics; but it is certainly a part of general numismatics too. I'm just trying to get Euro related content to have more focus than it does now and creating a sub-portal was the first thing that came to mind. Thanks for your open-mindedness in addressing my question... it is appreciated. The € • T/C16:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
A tab would be easily transferable into a full portal when appropriate. Maybe, to organize and focus attentions you could think about setting up a separate taskforce/workgroup of Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics. You can see how this is done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history#Task forces. This would give a chance for separate to-do list, assessments, collaborations and such. There seems to be alot of interest in the euro, so I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to set up. With this done, setting a portal tab for the euro would be much easier. JoeI21:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I have added a reply to your question there, but please attempt to address the concerns I've made at WorldCurrencies. Otherwise I will revert the edits back (please bear in mind that, as of this point, you have not provided a credible source for your claims).199.172.207.171 (talk) 16:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Signpost updated for November 24, 2008 through January 3, 2009
This month saw 14 military history-related articles promoted to featured status, the highest number for a single month since the project's establishment in October 2002. Congratulations all round!
Design competition Editors with design skills urgently needed to design an eyecatching logo for this newsletter. The logo needs to incorporate a bugle motif as well as the newsletter's title, "The Bugle". Fame and honour (a barnstar) guaranteed for the successful design. Submit entries here please.
Who will be the three "2008 Military historians of the Year"? There are 13 candidates so far and the number is rising rapidly. The winning editors will receive the Gold, Silver and Bronze Wikis; and all other nominees the WikiProject barnstar. To nominate editors you admire, or to cast your votes, please visit here!
A new drive has been started to identify the core topics of World War I with the aim of improving their quality before the centenary of the start of World War I in 2014.
Don't forget the six-monthly Coordinator elections will take place in March for the April-September term. If you want to become more involved in the project, now's the time to start thinking about it!
Following extensive discussion, the structure of the A-Class Medal System has been changed to include three new medals: The A-Class Medal with Oak Leaves, the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves and Swords, and the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds, each of which is respectfully awarded after 5, 10, and 20 groups of three A-Class Articles.
The number of our A-Class articles grew by more than 25% during this month, compared to the total number of A-Class articles existent at the end of December.
A drive is underway to identify the core topics of World War I with the aim of improving their quality before the centenary of the start of World War I in 2014.
A Survey is currently underway to determine how MilHist's processes, logistics, and management can be improved.
Abraham, B.S. has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his many valuable contributions to the project as an active reviewer, a thoughtful contributor to military history discussions, a fine content contributor, and a gentleman.
The Contest department has completed its twenty second month of competition, which saw 62 entries. The top scorer this month is Bellhalla with 93 points followed by Abraham, B.S. with 52 points. Cam, Georgejdorner and 11 other editors also fielded entries. Bellhalla remains the overall leader with 687 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Abraham, B.S. gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
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You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list.
Hey Joe, I don't know if you are a Wiki admin but want telling you a real problem and would like getting your kind support. Today I wrote this to two English admins:
you could be the one who might ask the Wiki.en gentlemen to whitelist my URL www.realgems.org. Since December 2008 Vsmith & Co. (USA) have deleted all my external links so that all gemstone-interested Wiki users worldwide (! - except Germany) cannot find my collection of faceted gemstones (and their rough versions) any more... From July 2008 until December 2008 all my link additions (to my own, educational and non-profit) were not regarded as spam!!!
Since a few days I have followed the instruction of a Wiki admin to create something worthy for Wikipedia so that my URL can be whitelisted again. So I created these articles on German Wiki BECAUSE GERMAN WIKI HAS WHITELISTED MY URL BECAUSE THEY HAVE SEEN THAT MY COLLECTION OF MORE THAN 2000 IMAGES IS WORTH BEING LINKED AT WIKIPEDIA: Tugtupite, Jeremejevite, Benitoite and added some data to Red Beryl. What else can I do to reach a worldwide whitelisting?
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.
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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)
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.
I can't believ we haven't talked since '08 about the CAC Article! Well, I made an article on the classic head gold coin, ($2.50 quarter eagle). Perhaps it can be sprunced up or perhaps merged?
I cited my sources, and I would be devestated if it was deleted. I know it wasn't a very good edit, I haven't used wikipedia in a long time, but am seeking your help to improve it! Also, I would like to help add more counterfeit diagnoses on counterfeit coins, such as repeating depressions, eletrocytes counterfeits, cast counterfeits and die-transfer counterfeits, "fatty" or round letters, and tool marks which are commonly found on high quality numismatic grade fakes. I did make an edit on this earlier as well, but I assume since I didn't cite my sources it was deleted. (All I've learned about the subject I haven't found online, but rather classes I took or books I've read in hand)
Wikipedia never notifies me of watched page changes
I believe you welcomed me to Wikipedia when I first joined and you invited me to ask you questions here.
I usually check "Watch this page" on pages that I edit, expecting Wikipedia to send me a notification by email whenever the page changes. However, I have never received such a notification. I have verified that my email address is entered properly in my profile. Do you have any idea what the problem might be? Or is that not how page watching works? Thanks! JDHeinzmann (talk) 20:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
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)
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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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.
Don't forget that the next Military history coordinator elections take place in September. You might like to start thinking about whether you are interested in standing. More information to follow in the next edition of The Bugle. In the meantime, enjoy the remainder of the holiday season and come back refreshed and raring to go! Roger Daviestalk02:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
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.
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Peace Dollar/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. You are being informed as you rank highly on the list of editors for this article. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
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.
The Contest Department is going from strength to strength and drew a massive number of entries in August (see the results below). If you haven't fielded any entries yet, please think about doing so. It's great fun! Roger Daviestalk14:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
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.
Hi Joe - just wondering if you had seen this before. It appears your welcome template may be missing a final close </font> tag - because (at least on this page) it carried on into subsequent comments. Regards, 707:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Nominations for the March 2010 Military history Project Coordinator elections now open!
