There has been a revival of the dispute over the contents of the infobox, partly procedural and partly about content, which I fear I started, under the impression that the dispute had died a death. While bearing in mind my conflict of interest, I would be grateful if editors would venture an opinion on the validity of the requirements of the Template:Infobox military conflict for the result and territory criteria and whether entries should be determined by a survey of RS, rather than the opinions of editors. Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 13:56, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please, someone finally explain the scope of wikipedia articles to this guy. Thank you. KevinNinja (talk) 00:56, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See what I mean?Keith-264 (talk) 11:43, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have returned from the badlands of RL, and hope to wade back in Wiki, and I'm looking for some basic guidance on writing an article, since my wiki-fu is less rusty and more oxidised, and I can't remember a darn thing. Can someone let me know the best way to add citations these days, and also the best template for adding a bibliography? *Shakes cane* Skinny87 (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Experts use some WP:SFN thing that I do not understand. Personally I use the WP:Visual Editor -- this is sometimes reached by clicking "Edit" instead of "Edit Source" -- and just click the "Cite" button and then choose a source type and then fill in such fields as I have or like. But I now never use its "Auto-generate" function for websites, because it produces what I consider to be an unuseful mess. Lots of older citation styles are probably all good too. I am not an expert on creating new articles. MPS1992 (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Skinny87: {{Sfn}} is the best to use assuming books are your major sources. I used it heavily on National archives. With the preponderance of mixed sourcing I just pile up citations by using the various cite templates without compiling a bibliography. Welcome back to editing! Chris Troutman (talk) 19:59, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back, Skinny87! I agree that {{sfn}} is best, even for non-books, where you can use {{harvid}} in the ref field of any cite template. If you want to see how to do it, take a look at the Websites subsection of the References section of Pavle Đurišić. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:00, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that in the past few years, almost everything in this project has been done by a small handful of people. I'd like to try to join this small group and help out in this great project, but I really don't know what pages to create and edit and such. Adotchar (talk) 09:41, 16 September 2016 (UTC) - I'm working on the backlog now Adotchar (talk) 09:42, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Welcome on board. If you are searching for stuff to do you can take a look at the News & open tasks page of our project and find endless work. Or you can go to the pages of the individual task forces which each have their own open tasks section. ...GELongstreet (talk) 10:02, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've been editing quite a bit on sub articles of Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (don't judge the parent article, it's last on the list). But I'm note entirely sure that these fall under the purview of MilHist. They almost all involve "policing" action by the "National Guard", in scare quotes because, at this point, it was basically a militia. Anyone opposed to adding these to the project? TimothyJosephWood 12:18, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The use of military forces to suppress strikes (and to perform other police-like tasks) is widely considered an aspect of military history, so go for it. Nick-D (talk) 01:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What about situations such as firemans strikes in the UK? The army regularly provided fire cover in those situations, the last instance being in 2002. Would they count? See Green Goddess for background and context. Simon. Irondome (talk) 01:48, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say so - this all forms part of Military aid to the civil power, which is a core (though generally unloved) part of what military forces are expected to do. Nick-D (talk) 01:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense Nick. Cheers for the clarification. Si. Irondome (talk) 01:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has thrown the NATO comparative officer ranks tables (Ranks and insignia of NATO armies officers and Ranks and insignia of NATO navies officers, though not — as yet — Ranks and insignia of NATO air forces officers) and about half the templates used in them into disarray by adding an OF-11 code, apparently in the mistaken belief that one exists and that OF codes should align with US O pay grades (which they do not). All of this “to maintain consistency throughout Wikipedia” though in an inconsistent way, so that those tables are now hopelessly out of alignment! And no doubt this meddling will have deleterious consequences in other contexts where these templates are used. Could someone (preferably a few someones) have a look at what has been done and undo the damage and/or stop this individual from wreaking further havoc? I’m not a regular enough contributor nor well enough into the sources on this to weigh in. — Mithrennaith (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I looked but couldn't find any reference to an OF11 so undid what they had done. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much! On Ranks and insignia of NATO navies officers someone else done the reversion and added a lot of extra tinkering with the Officer Designate and Student officer ranks, which was no improvement so I’ve put everything back to how it was before the addition of the OF11. Mithrennaith (talk) 01:32, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to this; why are the Air Force ranks not capitalised (indeed why are the UK armed forces a mix of caps and non-caps)? EG - the air force rank of Flight Sergeant is as written by the Royal Air Force in all types of media and communication. The abbreviation in written form is FSgt (same as CSgt for Colour Sergeant and SSgt for Staff Sergeant in the Army and Royal Marines). The office Cadre get to have their ranks written with caps (EG - Squadron Leader and not Squadron leader).

Is this deliberate, an oversight or is there some weird Wiki-rule of which I am unaware?BTW, I didn't mess the templates up and I will not do anything without consensus. However the rank titles are proper nouns. Regards.The joy of all things (talk) 05:50, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is quite a bit of inconsistent capitalization (and inconsistent font styling, etc.) going on across the fairly large amount of comparative military rank pages. I’m not going to start a comprehensive review of that, but if you want to, be bold. As to the UK other ranks capitalization, that was changed here and is stated there to be based on WP:MILTERMS. If I read that correctly, it should also be “Squadron leader”. I agree that does not seem to accord with (UK) military usage, but I do not particularly want to spend my time having a long discussion about the soundness or otherwise of MOS policy on this point. That’s beyond my personal level of involvement, I’m afraid. — Mithrennaith (talk) 08:04, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair enough - and a good point. It does go against military convention - but you are right; I wouldn't want to start up against WP:MOS either, no matter how wrong it is (someone will always tell me that I am wrong about it anyway). Thanks for the quick answer. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 12:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have tagged Demolition of al-Baqi, which is in the interest of this WikiProject, for merger into Al-Baqi'. The discussion takes place at Talk:Al-Baqi'#Merger of Demolition. --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:KoreanWarCorr I tried allow wrap to get the heading centred but if wouldn't work. Would someone mind taking a look to see why? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 12:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, Keith, <center></center> should probably do the trick. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:02, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly not, unless it's my laptop, what does it look like to other people? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 23:22, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I tried widening the template and that seems okay on my screen. Does that resolve the issue on your computer? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:45, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of, it's widescreen now. Keith-264 (talk) 23:57, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, there is a draft which I feel could use input from this project, particularly from anyone who has helped out with the AFC process. The discussion can be found here. Thanks! Primefac (talk) 15:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For editors interested in adding additional photos to Confederate States Army articles, I came across an excellent collection of army leaders here. Magnolia677 (talk) 01:12, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is a currently a discussion about the Chinese Army and Chinese army redirects at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 September 18#Chinese Army, your comments there would be very welcome. Thryduulf (talk) 01:55, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Air Force Historical Research Agency web site has been "upgraded" in the past week or so. The upgrade has involved moving all the Unit lineage and honors pages, so all references to these in Wikipedia articles that weren't done in the last week now lead to 404 error pages. Worse, (although this may be temporary) the links inside the web site for wing, group and squadron pages are also broken. A 404 error results from clicking on the "squadrons" tab, for instance, then clicking on a specific unit. Links for Major Commands work, although some images had problems using Chrome. Numbered Research Paper links also work. Using the search function on the site requires proper capitalization and not using the ordinal abbreviations to bring up the revised pages. Alternatively, the Wayback Machine seems to have the old pages archived (unlike the last time the site was revised). This affects thousands of reference links on en:Wikipedia —— anyone know of a bot to help fix this? --Lineagegeek (talk) 17:55, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's always annoying when sites reorganise without redirects. I don't know of a bot to work around this but it'd sure be useful... Hawkeye, do you think such a thing is feasible? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that can be done. There is a Bot already that goes around adding Wayback machine links though. Hawkeye7 (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At least the loss of links in the site appears to be temporary. Internal links are being restored and some of the dead links have been deleted as links since my last visit. Doesn't help the dead link problem, though. --Lineagegeek (talk) 20:18, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

i was wondering about that because the USAF has done this to me before, and eventually restored the links. I even got a polite apology from the under secretary. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:32, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An editor, User:Jcb (an admin on Commons), is in the process of deleting many images (apparently they are mostly images of US military insignia of various kinds, but heavily USAF unit emblems). The reason given is that they are not sourced, even though many have sources. There is a discussion (including some acrimony) at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems (User:Jcb unproductively tagging up official United States military emblem image files). Some of these images have already been deleted. In recent days, Jcb has been using the {{No source since|month=|day=|year=}} template to mark pages (e.g. File:301bw.jpg. This emblem is sourced, although the source is contained in the description, not in the expected template location, because the image was moved to Commons from en:Wikipedia by a bot. Posting this template does not include the image on the list of images for deletion and, because the bot that moved the image is listed as the user who uploaded the image to Commons, not the human being who actually made the original upload, only the bot is being notified of the pending deletions. --Lineagegeek (talk) 18:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@WP:MILHIST coordinators: - does anyone know what the appropriate channels are for this type of thing on Commons? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:30, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No idea. As a practical matter, it should be a null and void point since US law explicitly states that US works are PD-USGov, so this is at best a misguided attempt to draw attention to an issues that someone could easily fix, and at worse a deliberate attempt to disrupt the wiki to prove a point and/or force other to take defensive action to keep public domain images on a public domain image repository. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:45, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, regarding the deleted files, you can appeal the decision here: Undeletion requests. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:15, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Would the article Frogman come within the scope of this project? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, yes, I believe it does. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pbsouthwood IMO I believe it would, as the frogman is "someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes combat." Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 11:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will tag it for the Military history project in the hope that some of your members will help with references, content and suggestions for improvement. I am fairly knowledgeable in the technology of diving equipment and will do what I can to help get the article into shape, but have very little background in military matters, so I am a bit out of my depth on that aspect. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:41, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed Trigger finger (medical condition); would the medical use be the primary topic, or the firearms use? (we don't seem to have something listed for firearms at triggerfinger (disambiguation) ) -- 65.94.171.217 (talk) 08:39, 20 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The firearms definition is certainly the primary topic, even if we don't have an article on it. I think Triggerfinger (disambiguation) should be moved to Trigger finger, the firearms definition added as the primary term, and the medical condition moved to something else. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:16, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is an unreferenced article created in 2005. It makes a number of assertations about the program without providing supporting citations. Neither the editor who created the article nor the two editors who added speculative accounts of why the progran was discontinued are active Wikipedia editors any more.

In fact the one who added the statements that the tests failed due to the characteristics of the drones used in testing has only made two edits, one in 2008 and the other in 2010.

I am attempting to search up viable references, but am not sure where to start. Google searching is bringing up a lot of Wikipedia mirrors based on the article as it stands.

Anyone willing to join me in offline book searching?

Graham1973 (talk) 01:18, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a preliminary step in editing this article. I've removed the most contentious statement to the articles talk page until a proper source can be found for it. I've also used Andreas Parsch's webpage as a source for some statements. The article has now been moved from Unreferenced to Single Source, but a lot more needs to be done.

Some good references are needed to cover testing if they can be found. Janes Weapons Systems and similar publications in the period 1972 - 1977 sound like a good place to start. Graham1973 (talk) 03:30, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing with the overhaul of this article. Running out of material to add. Can someone please assist me with the research? Graham1973 (talk) 10:29, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if a "Master category" should be created, meaning that their should be no articles in the category, it only contains subcategories? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:20, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong term. These are called "container categories". Simply add: Template:Container category to change the purpose of a category. Dimadick (talk) 14:15, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So there is an editor who has tried to change around the subject matter on the military branch article and has created a completly new article called Branch of service‎ which seems to be about almost the same thing. I completly belive this is in good faith but I'm not sure the editor has the right way to go about it. They seems to only include information which is in line with what the NATO defenition is. Opinion on what to do with these articles?*Treker (talk) 15:04, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like WP:CFORK. Guideline says "If the content fork was unjustified, the more recent article should be merged back into the main article". Looking at it, dump the new article into the existing one but attribute the definition to NATO. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:11, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at the News and Open Tasks page and noticed the Air Operations in the Korean War page highlighted in red. I was told that asking for help here would get me some help and guidance on the article. Thanks, Jak474 (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article Joachim Helbig, which is within the scope of this project, has been nominated for community GA reassessment as per WP:GAR.

The discussion will take place at GAR:Joachim Helbig, with the goal to reach a consensus whether the article satisfies the good article criteria. Any input would be welcome. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:17, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]