Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Archive 2

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Sub-Standard Article

There are several articles that are really and truly badly done (poorly presented, badly written, heavily biased in one way or anohter, etc). There really should be "poor" score (ie, below "stub-class"). 65.102.19.175 (talk) 05:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)A REDDSON

B class question

I've come across several articles that seem to qualify all B-class criteria, but the lead section is only a sentence or two. The rest of the article is very good, well referenced and includes supporting material as well. There's just this problem of the lead being too short. And as criteria B3 says ...defined structure, including a lead section..., I'm not sure what to do here. What should I do with them, pass or not? Chamal ^talk 15:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you list here some examples please? Normally the length of the lead doesn't matter, as long as it is a brief summary of the main body of the article. --Eurocopter (talk) 15:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

This is something I have puzzled over for a while, I think it needs to be clarified. At the moment, per the criteria we have in place, any sort of lead ie. Joe Bloggs born 1 January 1900, died 1 January 2000 was a fighter pilot in the Third World War and he won several awards. qualifies as a lead section and as such meets the B-class criteria. Some editors when reviewing prefer the lead to be at least a paragraph, though technically under the guidelines, it is not needed. So, up to you really, not much help I know, but as Eurocopter says, any links? Regards Woody (talk) 15:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

How are these?

• HMS Exmouth (1901)
• HMS Montagu (1901)
• HMS Barfleur (1892)
• Bill Graham (promoter)

They don't seem to give exactly a complete summary as you said. Some of them are ones I reveiwed a few days ago, and one just now. I've classed them as Start because of this. Chamal ^talk 15:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added a bit to the B-class FAQ about this. Feel free to tweak. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Technically, they would be classified as having "lead sections" though it is not a true lead per the spirit of the guideline. As such, a start class assessment is acceptable. I have fixed the Exmouth one now by expanding the lead. I would generally leave a note on the talkpage about the lead when you assess it to state that is the only reason why it is Start and not B. You could also tag it with {{Intro-tooshort}} though personally I hate those type of tags. Regards. Woody (talk) 15:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

OK then, thanks for the help! Chamal ^talk 11:31, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

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If a lead section is a brief overview of the article, then does it also have to have a citation? Or can it "ride" off the citations in the body of the article?

Georgejdorner (talk) 18:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The latter, usually. Make sure you're not claiming anything that isn't sourced in the text, though. Shimgray | talk | 20:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

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Disappointing A-class closures

After Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Polish culture during World War II and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Kostiuchnówka, I have to say I am disappointed by the A-class mechanism (at least as compared to FA review mechanism). There primary reason for my disappointment is that the reviewers often post their criticism, and never check back to see if they are replies; even when notified that their comments have been addressed they may still not check back. There is also no indication that the closing MILHIST reviewer notified them that they have comments awaiting, or that he took note that their comments were addressed. On FAs, if the reviewers don't check back, the FA director or his assistants will at the very least review how the comments were addressed and if they were addressed sufficiently, they will treat the oppose vote as not valid. At MILHIST, this doesn't seem to happen. I have to say that those last two A-class processes have significantly damaged my faith in the high quality of MILHIST processes :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I see an article failing an ACR to show that the process is working. The culture in WWII article needed a lot of work and your responses to the issues highlighted by Wandalstouring were not conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. I cannot speak for Cam, but I was also going to fail the article tonight due to a lack of work on Wandalstouring's issues. This comment by wandalstourin: "Sorry, but this way you won't get it to A-class. The article needs to be improved a lot and you take the stance:"I did my work, it's very good, accept that and give me class I'm destined to receive."" was highly indicative. Joe returned to the review and stated it needed a copyedit, redmark left minor comments which were addressed and would have been seen as such by the closing coord. As far as I can see, the review was closed due to a large number of outstanding issues put forward by Wandalstouring. You cannot see the though process of a coord, I would have judged the "comments" by Wandalstouring to be accurate and would have judged the consensus accordingly. I do hope that your faith in the system has not been irrevocably damaged due to the lack of promotion and that you take onboard the comments during the reviews. Regards, Woody (talk) 22:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why you cite wandalstouring's personal attacks again (I guess I forgot to mention that I MILHIST image of the most professional project out there is not helped by reviewers who offend content creators with statements such as "Don't be lazy"). I never said "I did my work, it's very good, accept that and give me class I'm destined to receive."; those are the uncivil words he put in my mouths. I believe I have addressed many of the comments and fulfilled many requests of the reviewers - which is not easy to see because the reviewers never crossed (or commented) on fulfilled requests. Yes, a few were not addressed, for three reasons, which I noted in my replies:

• they would go against our MoS policies - primarily WP:RED (red links are allowed)
• they would require major academic, original research, as data was asked to add to the article may aware exist. I am not saying it does not exist, but far from being lazy, as I was accused of (sic!), I've read dozens of English and Polish works in preparation of that article and none have contained relevant info that was not included in the article. Further, the critics, asking for data they'd like to see, did not indicate a single work I've missed, thus suggesting they have no knowledge that data they are requesting exists, they simply would like to see it. Well, I am sorry, but I cannot conjure data out of thin air. Please show me major reference works I've missed, or please assume good faith that I've done my research and this data is not easily available.
• they would require me to go off-topic to the original article. For example wandalstung insisted I describe the culture of the German minority in Poland and add a section on collaboration. The article is about Polish culture, not the culture of minorities on Polish lands, and what collaboration has to do with the culture is still a mystery to me. Or in other point, he repeatedly asks about how German enforced their laws. Again, this is not really within the scope of this article, but rather, within the scope of yet unwritten Nazi German legal system and law enforcement in occupied Poland (or something similar).

And in response to such explanation, instead of constructive discussion, I get personal attacks that I am lazy or arrogant. Yes, I am disappointed with such responses and the review process which tolerates them.

PS. I am sure that no matter what I do, some will read this as a rant of an editor who was angered that his article was not promoted. As an editor with dozens of promoted articles in various classes, I am not that concerned about one more or less. What I am concerned is that MILHIST is seen as the shining example of WikiProjects out there, and it's review process seems to be showing some signs of imperfection in treating the words of a reviewer a bit too much like Holy Gospel, which cannot be wrong, cannot be challenged, and must be followed to the letter. Such attitude is not very collaborative, I am afraid. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

While I have no wish to get involved in the current debate, on a slightly tangential note, another problem with the system is that if, say I support an article but have a couple minor comments, and I'm the third support, it will often be closed before the person who put it up has dealt with my comments, and then they never do because the review passed and closed. As for this one, I also withheld my support because of continuing problems. I left a note on the review page asking if you would mind if I tried to fix the image sandwiching, and you never responded. You also never translated the map from Polish to English. Please note that I am not attacking you, I'm merely explaining the rationalization behind my decision and actions. – Joe Nutter 01:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I have missed your comment about rearranging the images till now (as it was interspersed within your earlier comments at the top, and I usually look at the bottom for new comments). As I don't "own" the article, feel free to do that and anything else you want, any help is welcomed. I've asked some people to translate the map after your comment and it was translated roughly three days ago (the new version is included in the article). I certainly agree that some reviews may be closed too early. PS. I know you are not attacking me, Joe. Civil, constructive criticism is always welcomed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Time for A-Class Requirement Amendments?

I'm currently in the process of trying to get the Lee-Enfield article promoted to "A" class and am constantly banging my head against a brick wall in regards to extremely petty and trivial (IMHO) Manual of Style issues. To my mind, things like "the wrong kind of hyphen/dash" being used in the article are the difference between a GA and an FA, and even then I personally think it's completely irrelevant- for example, the "-" and the "–" both look identical to me and, I suspect, 98.5% of Wiki readers. Getting bogged down in this sort of minutiae is keeping a lot of otherwise A-class articles from being anything more than B-class articles, I think. So, I'd like to propose that we remove the "Style Guidelines" requirement of A-Class articles (or at least use a "Near Enough" test), and instead keep the silliness regarding dash sizes, having the blatantly obvious referenced, and so on for FA-class articles. Commander Zulu (talk) 11:28, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. As our A-class reviews are meant to be a stepping stone to FAC, we must have common criteria with that process - and FAC will call you on not having enough references and the ndash issue 100% of the time. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 11:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; it's regrettable that things like dash types have become so critical at FAC, but if we ignore them at the A-Class review, we'll be setting people up for failure when they take their new A-Class articles to FAC only to be pounced on by the MOS patrol there (as well as making the project as a whole look bad for sending "unprepared" articles to FAC). The only way I think a change like this could be workable without impacting the overall progress of articles to FA would be to add a more-or-less mandatory FAC readiness review after an A-Class review, but before the article could be sent to FAC; but I'm not sure that we have either the manpower for an entirely new review system, or any real ability to prevent people from skipping it and going directly to FAC regardless. Kirill ^[pf] 12:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose any change in the style guidelines, although if anything we should be getting stricter. MILHIST A-Class articles are nearly FA-quality when they pass, and they should stay that way. Skinny87 (talk) 12:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

So why bother with an A-class review at all? We might as well go straight from "B" to "Featured Article". I think it's important to have a distinction, and to my mind "A-Class" should be "This article is really, really good, is accurate and is referenced for the most part, but it's not quite FA class because it's not exhaustively referenced, doesn't meet all the MoS requirements for trivial reasons (like using the wrong dashes), but it's still a very high quality article that's being held back from FA for reasons unrelated to the quality of the information in the article". That's just my view, of course. Commander Zulu (talk) 13:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, at this point, the ACR process has become something closer to a preliminary FAC (and one that's internal to the project) rather than a midway point between GAN and FAC; that's probably a reflection of the project's overall focus on producing FAs.

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment is beginning to suggest that we may have the only really functional formal A-Class review process, so that may not be a bad thing in terms of the role ACR plays in the project; the question for us might be "How do we recognize good contributions that aren't up to FA or FA-like levels?" rather than "How do we move A-Class away from FA-Class?", with the understanding that ACR will remain primarily as a FAC readiness review. One option might be to give more recognition to the GA system within the project; right now, GAs are treated as slightly better B-Class articles, but there's no fundamental reason we couldn't work towards a tighter coupling with that process should we wish to. Kirill ^[pf] 13:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

As someone with a foot firmly in both camps, I believe there would be strong resistance (and rightly so) from the GA WikiProject to raising the bar for GA assessment. I appreciate that's not quite what you're saying, but it could be a consequence of looking for something between B and A. An (over-generalised) interpretation of the current processes is that GA is a "house style" review; as non-subject experts for the most part, GA reviewers look at compliance with the MoS, prose, verifiability, etc. Glaring content gaps will probably be caught, but the GA criteria recognise the nature of the process and specify broadness rather than comprehensiveness. On the other hand, A-Class reviews are conducted by - if not necessarily subject specialists - editors who are something more than laymen, so content deficiencies can be addressed during ACR. Ideally I see these processes as parallel and complementary with no order of precedence, so have some sympathy for Commander Zulu's observations at the top of the thread. However, the reality is that Milhist ACR has become FA-lite, and I agree that in many ways that's not a bad thing. Given the role of GA though, it does indeed leave a large gulf between B and A. The Maths WikiProject uses a B+ class of their own invention; perhaps adopting something like this would be more benefit to Milhist than C-Class? EyeSerene^talk 18:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Warning: radical thought upcoming. Should we leave B alone and instead start reviewing GA's ourselves here, as a WikiProject? Make "our" GA into a sort-of B+ class? Would we even have enough reviewers to do this? I'm not advocating for or against this yet, but I just want to throw an idea out there. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe not so radical, I tend to treat GA like that anyway, firstly as something greater than B but not so stringent as A, secondly as something I largely do for this project since 80-90% of my GA reviews are from the War & Military list. GA is supposed to be an end in itself, as well a possible stepping stone to FA, whereas our A tends to be primarily a stepping stone to FA. The toughest ACRs I've dealt with have led to the easiest FACs. For that reason I don't advocate any relaxation of the ACR criteria, though I sympathise with Commander Zulu on the apparent pettiness of some of the MOS issues; I don't agree with all of them but just do them. So in short I think our classes are right and our criteria are right, but perhaps we should embrace GA to a greater extent as Ed suggested. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well...I was thinking of something a little more radical than that, after reading this from EyeSerene. Evidently, getting to GA doesn't require going through WP:GAN, so I was basically throwing out the thought that maybe we should add another assessment department to the project that would review + assess our own GA's.

Now, my thought on this is to make 'our' GA into a B+ thing, with one editor making a few comments, and then making A our own version of GAN. I dunno though...if this would involve relaxing our A-class requirements, that would not work. Same with the number of reviewers - if we don't think that we would have enough, this wouldn't work either. :/ —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 21:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm with EyeSerene in that I appreciate A-Class as being FA-lite and I think it should remain that way. I am NOT in favor of adding any kind of additional review layer--there's already enough of a backlog here. I don't think we need a GA-Class level between B and A; I'm fine with the thought that our A-Class is tougher than Wikipedia's general GA-Class. I vote for status quo. Additionally, I support the sort of sharp-penciled reviews that reveal hyphens where m-dashes should be. Binksternet (talk) 23:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No extra review layer please. I know I must be one of the annoying guys out there, but our leaders, ie Kirill and Roger, like to take pride or emphasise that A-class is much closer than FA than GA, and at the end of 2007, WRT MOS issues and especially, as a regular at ACR and GAC, the A-class reviews were lurching towards GA and in some MOS cases were worse than GAs, with some articles getting through with simply bare URL links whacked in the middle of the text and inconsistent and unformatted refs everywhere. The only way to soften A-class reviews is to drop ourselves below GA standard. GA isn't as hopeless as everyone thinks. Some old A-class articles are worse than a lot of GAs. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but it does leave us with a situation in which otherwise high quality articles are still being classified as "B" (which to most people ranks as "OK but nothing more") because the editors have better things to do with their time than than search through massive long articles for hyphens and ampersands in the wrong place. (And without wanting to sound snarky, a lot of those things could, IMHO, be fixed by reviewers in less time than it takes them to object to the fact it's not already done). I do like the suggestion of devoting more attention to GA class; which would enable editors to acknowledge that an article is "Very Good", but still not quite up to FAC level (which is what A-Class has turned into). Commander Zulu (talk) 01:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, to leave a comment takes two minutes, but to fix all of them sometimes takes a while. Wandalstouring asked me to do a MOS run and ref formatting run for him on some long Roman articles and they took about an hour each actually, depending on how many of them there are. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, but you can surely understand how it comes across that way to an editor unfamiliar with the whole thing? Commander Zulu (talk) 05:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'm willing to help do examples and all that. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Milhist is uncommonly fortunate in that it's an active, well-organised project with a knowledgeable membership, and can maintain a high-quality A-Class review system. Many other articles come under projects with a much smaller, less active membership, and must rely on external assessments for validation. However, I don't think I could support abandoning the GA WikiProject to replace GAN with our own GA-Class assessment. For one thing, although articles assessed this way can be awarded our WikiProject GA-Class, they still wouldn't have GA status (ie, they wouldn't appear on WP:GA), as this can only be awarded through GAN. Secondly, I believe it does an article (and perhaps editors too!) good to step outside their parent project once in a while. We even have our own Peer Review process, so other than FAC, GAN is the only place an article might get a completely uninvolved outside assessment on its way up the ladder. Not every article will reach (or is suitable for) FA, which makes an external review at GAN a worthwhile and achievable end-point for some. Having said that, there are some very thought-provoking suggestions above for closing the B/A gap. As far as I've understood them, I've tried clarifying and summarising them below (as much for my own benefit as anything else; please make corrections/additions etc as necessary!) and added a couple of my own permutations:

• 1. Current scheme:

Stub-Class → Start-Class → B-Class → GA-Class (=GA status) → A-Class → FA-Class (=FA status)

Advantages:

• high A-Class standard is excellent preparation for FAC

Disadvantages:

• large gap between B/GA-Class and A-Class

• 2. Replace GA-Class with B+-Class; GA status decoupled from the scale (development of suggestion by ed17):

Stub-Class → Start-Class → B-Class → B+-Class → A-Class → FA-Class (=FA status)

Advantages:

• introduces an interim project assessment between B and A-Classes

Disadvantages:

• no in-project recognition for GA status through award of GA-Class (though articles could obviously still be submitted to GAN)
• another layer of review, so possible requirement for more reviewers

• 3. Removing GA-Class, introducing C-Class, and raising the B-Class criteria:

Stub-Class → Start-Class → C-Class → B-Class → A-Class → FA-Class (=FA status)

Advantages:

• pushes up the standard of B-Class and fills in the gap left at the bottom end with C-Class, thus reducing the gulf between B and A

Disadvantages:

• no in-project recognition for GA status etc
• another layer of review etc
• may require reassessment of existing B-Class articles

There are obviously many other possibilities. Note that these aren't intended to be proposals, just an attempt to set out some of the options. I do wonder if it might be worthwhile to decouple GA status from the assessment scheme by removing GA-Class altogether (per suggestions 2 and 3), whether we fill in the gap with anything or not. We could then have A-Class and B-Class (and possibly even C-Class) Good Articles, and rather than trying to fit GA status into a hierarchy it's not really intended for, it can be used as a measure of an article's compliance with Wikipedia's policies on copyright, verifiability etc. Content can be evaluated where the content experts are - within MilHist. EyeSerene^talk 13:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If I might be permitted my 2c? I think consistency across Wikipedia is an important goal in its own right, it's a lot less frustrating for all concerned if assessment isn't "Balkanised" - and it discourages involvement from "generalist" Wikipedians who may not have a particular interest in MILHIST but through chance happen to have a lot to contribute to a few articles within the project. It could be argued that MILHIST's over-engineered requirements for B class are what left wider Wikipedians feeling that a gap had opened up between Start and B, thus necessitating the creation of C class. We should try to avoid that happening again. In fact in my eyes GA is the cornerstone of the whole assessment process, it's the only one that is defined relatively "objectively" in reference to our competition : "approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia". So at least you can say that if you were to copy-paste the article from Britannica or Jane's for instance, you would have an article that exceeded the GA threshold.

Things like FA are ultimately more subjective, but I think that definition of GA provides something that the whole classification can turn on. I think in general MILHIST undervalues the worth of GA, but to the average reader, 100 GA articles are more useful than say 15 FAs and 85 Starts, but probably take as much time. Obviously if people are "on a roll" with a particular article then carry on shooting for FA, just be aware that it's not necessarily the best use of everyone's time from the perspective of the user. I quite like what some other Projects do that have Importance ratings - try to get all Top importance articles up to B class, Highs to Start and so on, then in Phase II get the Tops to GA, Highs to B etc. To my eyes that approach is much more "responsive" to users' needs - obviously one couldn't do that with MILHIST as it is now, but perhaps people could think about a core list of articles to target for a minimum of a GA, work more on comprehensiveness rather than "how many articles can we shoot for the 'maximum' of FA?" There's also a basic contradiction at the heart of the assessment process, Stub,Start,C,B,A are primarily about "quantity" - they're defined in terms of "completeness" versus some mythical "perfect" article - whereas GA and FA are fundamentally about "quality". So it's a bit of a mistake to try and force them into a linear process, there's two branches to assessment with crosstalk between them.

So what should A-class be? I think people should try to stick to what V1ET use : (A class) "Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate....An A-Class article should approach the standards for a Featured article (FA), but will typically fall short because of minor style issues. The article may need minor copyedits, but it should be comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, and reasonably well-written." Procedurally what does that mean? The definition makes it clear that FA and A class are different, you can achieve A class without all the MoS twiddles. And A class has merit in its own right - achieving it can release a subject specialist to go and work on other articles, and it can flag an article that a MoS-twiddler can take over and push over the line to FA. I'm not sure that having ACR=internal-FAR is altogether desireable, as above they're different things. What I would suggest is that ACR takes the form "Fix A,B and C before you get A Class, fixing X,Y and Z is optional but you should do them before taking it on to FAR, if you want to go there". Fixing the MoS stuff shouldn't be a requirement of passing ACR.Le Deluge (talk) 11:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely and it's exactly this sort of thing that prompted me opening the subject up for debate. If/When an editor wants to take an article to FA level, then I can get on board with all the MoS stuff. But to me, A-class is about content, not style or having an infinite number of references that no-one is ever likely to look up anyway. Commander Zulu (talk) 11:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I can appreciate the frustration that project-specific assessment scales cause to the folks at V1.0, but I don't subscribe to the view that a universally-applicable set of project assessment criteria is achievable or even desirable. However, Le Deluge and Cdr Zulu have made some very good points in emphasising that we seem to have gone too far, in that we've created a system with nothing in-between the two pivotal points - GA and FA - that a writer can aim for. We're essentially forcing writers to either stop at GA or go the whole hog to FA, and in the cost/benefit terms that Le Deluge examines it, perhaps that's not so beneficial to the project. Looking at our criteria though, they're really not that different from the V1.0 criteria. Perhaps we should be looking instead at the way they're being applied? EyeSerene^talk 13:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

While I also don't agree with Le Deluge above, I think that I need to respond to Zulu first. A-class is meant as a stepping stone to FA; as such, we require decent MoS and all content to be covered. Covering content well goes hand-in-hand with having references—if you don't have references, all of this 'content' that we need to give you the A-class rating can't be proved, as it violates WP:V.

So, if you feel like asking my opinion, Lee-Enfield was not even B-class, much less GA, before the A-class review, as all major points were not referenced. Now, if you disagree with the need for references and in-line citations, arguing it here is going to go nowhere, as that is a major policy question that was last heard in '06, when in-line citations began to be required. Take it to WT:V.

BTW, I think that everyone gets used to the more stringent requirements (when compared to other projects' (non-existent) A-class reviews) after their first article; I know I did. Ratings are not based on "oh, I've put so much work into this that it deserves this rating".....it's more like "does this article deserve the higher rating (or does it not)." In your case (Lee-Enfield), it might now, but only after the improvements you and Woody have made.

Le Deluge: I do agree that we undervalue GA and probably need C-class. The problem is that we (MILHIST) want to set the bar a little high, and GA isn't even close to a high bar; see 'my' article USS Nevada (BB-36)'s GA pass, A-class pass and FA pass. The article, quite frankly, was not good when it passed GA as it was basically a fleshed-out copy of DANFS. This A-class review system pushed me to expand it a bit, and so it (a) did not need much more for FA and (b) it was actually informative and gave you information that you couldn't get from anywhere else on the web.

IMHO, our A-class system is the best possible compromise already. It's close to FA without going too far, even though it may seem like it goes to far becuase we require you to fix more than just style issues (read: GA). We pride ourselves on the high quality of our B-class and the high quality and style of our A-class articles. The only problem with this "high quality and style" is that we have a low number of A-class articles becuase too many get to FA. ;) Anyway, it is this quality requirement that is contributing the most towards our (MILHIST's) goal of creating the best military history encyclopedia anywhere; if the other WikiProjects feel differently than us about the high quality issue, well, they aren't MILHIST. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Ed, I see your points but I respectfully disagree with you. I'm not arguing that in-line citations are un-necessary (actually, I am, but only in the sense that I feel that not every statement needs an inline citation if there are enough "proper" references in the bibliography section), but that they shouldn't be the difference between a B-Class and A-Class article.

I, personally, would like "A-class" to be the Project Standard; ie where the bulk of the articles are. And there's no way that's going to happen if article editors look at referencing and style requirements that are more stringent than some academic reference texts and say "You know what? Bugger that." There is, IMHO, more work involved in referencing and meeting MoS requirements than there is in writing the article, and that doesn't help the project, since it keeps the pool of contributing editors a lot smaller than it otherwise might be.
That doesn't mean articles shouldn't be referenced, but the hard-core "This statement which is obviously true doesn't have an in-line reference" stuff should be kept for FAC. There is simply too big a gap between the B-class and A-class requirements in my opinion, and I'd like to see that changed. Not every article wants to (or can be made to) get to FAC after all, but since the A-class requirements are effectively the same thing as FA, it dooms a lot of otherwise very good articles to be stuck as "B-class" (with its "Really a bit average, you know" connotations) when the only thing wrong with them is that someone hasn't put several hours worth of effort in to find page references for the books already listed in the "references" section.

I think GA-class is something we should look further into, but even implementing it more broadly still won't change the fact there's no real difference between "A-class" and "FA-class" articles in MilHist. Whilst I (and other editors) might want an article to eventually get to FAC, I'm still not happy that we have no real intermediate step between "A bit average" and "Awesome!" on the "Article Ranking Scale", and that's what I was getting at when I brought the subject up. FWIW, though, I'd prefer to see a relaxing of the A-class requirements (vis a vis references especially) rather than the more widespread introduction of GA-class. I'm not particularly impressed by arguing we have high-quality "B" articles- I'd rather have fewer "B" articles and more "A" articles. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

A-Class is the highest assessment that can be assigned by a WikiProject; it is also the closest class to FA. As such, A-Class articles need to be at featured quality, without the star. There's really no question about it. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 01:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Evidently there is, or this discussion wouldn't be here :p. I don't get your logic- there's no reason why A-class needs to be FA-lite, IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 01:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Responding to only one sentence here from Zulu's reply three up, because I'm sick of arguing about A-class on three pages lol...you say "This statement which is obviously true doesn't have an in-line reference" shouldn't have to be referenced, right? Well, my reply is this: "it is not obvious to me". I will attack a lot of unreferenced stuff because what we should be doing when referencing is assuming that a reader knows nothing about the subject. Or, in a nutshell, assume people are dumb. If we assume people are dumb, we reference it becuase it verifies it for them (assiring them that it is true) and, say that someone has to research X topic. A current MILHIST A-class article will allow them to say this very quickly: "Oh look, a reference for this info. I can go here for more info." In-line citations, even for stuff we know off the top of our heads, are paramount for this purpose - readers don't have to go trudging through three/four (or more than 20) books that are listed at the end for the info...they can just get one specific book and already know the page they want.

This is longer than I planned. :) I know what you are getting at, but try writing your next article with references from the very beginning. Trust me, it's easy when you write from the sources - it's having to go back later to find citations which sucks.

In short, I don't believe that we should drag down the MoS standards, and all of the criteria, for our A-class articles just because that makes it too close to FA. Style is one thing which is easily fixed at ACR or FAC, but WP:V cannot be ignored in our A-class criteria just because it's too tough to write <ref name="Blah"/>. WP:V is too fundamental of a policy here, and it's a major part of assuring ourselves—and even the readers—that a statement is true; with a completely well-referenced article, it's the biggest thing in showing everyone that, yes, this is an excellent article and yes, this is reliable.

If you really want feedback between GA and A or FA, take it to PR or ask the GA reviewer for a very thorough review...in MILHIST, A-class is meant as a stepping-stone to FA, and I think that it does it's job well. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

<==We keep mentioning here that the difference between A- and FA-Class is one of MoS tweaks, but I'd like to re-emphasize that one very great difference between a pretty darn good article and a Featured one is that the writing style of the latter has been raked, combed, polished and waxed until the article speaks with one voice. Too many A- and below articles have abrupt changes in writing style between paragraphs and even between sentences... It's just one of the normal results of multi-editor wiki-style article accretion. My 2¢. Binksternet (talk) 02:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

EyeSerene - I don't give a stuff what "the folks at V1.0" think. However the V1ET guidelines matter because they're what the average editor uses. By distancing yourself from those guidelines, you're distancing yourself from the average Wikipedian, and discouraging their participation in the Project - I've certainly felt more willing to participate in other Projects in preference to MILHIST in the past, just because MILHIST felt as though it was consciously separating itself from the rest of Wikipedia. And also the tentacles of MILHIST are entangled with too many other projects, it can't really afford to be an island - and eg more could be done via the country taskforces to reach out to the Country Projects. Cutting yourself off from such Projects is not in MILHIST's interest - it has enough US-centricity as it is.

Ed - I think your comment that Nevada "was not good when it passed GA as it was basically a fleshed-out copy of DANFS" is quite revealing. As you say yourself, this is not about "oh, I've put so much work into this that it deserves this rating" - or rather "even though I've not had to do much work because the DANFS people have done most of it already, the article might still be a GA". All that matters is that the article is "Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia." Don't beat yourself up just because you happen to be working in a "soft" area. :-))

In fact, I think you're being rather harsh in your description - the fact that your GA version has about half the refs of the FA suggests that it's rather more than "just" a fleshed-out DANFS. Certainly from my point of view as a casually-interested observer - that GA version works fine for me - it's "useful". And while I admire your tenacity in pushing it through to FA, from my POV I think I would rather you had applied your time and skills to knock eg Maine class battleship into half-decent shape from its current stub, or perhaps do something about the List of battleships where there's lots of battleships which don't even have an article at all! OK some of them do but are red-linked there, but even so, it's a classic bit of WP:BIAS. You want MILHIST to be a "quality" encyclopedia - where's the article on the Minas Gerais then? Quality is not just about listing every member of the audience present at a ship launch. You don't get Britannica having 5000+ epics on one subject and then perhaps 200 words on another, that are apparently of equal interest to a reader. Perhaps the MILHIST reward system could put more weight on GAs and good topics - how good would it be to have all US battleships at GA for instance?

And by the same token, it's not about what label you put on an article. All that the labels are there for is to give an indication of which articles need work - and as a secondary thing they may act as a bit of a "reward" for editors. It seems to me that it's all a bit out of whack at the moment - in particular you get most use out of the "worklist" part of it if the steps on the ladder are equally spaced out - or even narrower towards the bottom, so that the classes are of more equal size. This idea that A class is a whisker away from FA makes me think that a) there's a huge gap opening up between GA and A, and b) you might as well just abolish A altogether. And to be honest I'm in two minds whether that might not be the best idea - I see it's been discussed over at V1ET. Instead you might have a two-stage FA process, starting with a Project assessment principally for content, followed by an independent assessment for style. Which is kinda what we have already, by different names, but it would just get rid of this awkardness by which a "quantity" grade is interposed amongst the "quality" grades. Incidentally Juliancolton - the guidelines explictly say that FA and A class are not equivalent - A class is "A fairly complete treatment of the subject...Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. I can't help feeling that we have many more people who know their ndashes and ref tags than we have experts on the Abyssinian campaigns or French air-launched missiles, and so we need to find a way to maximise the involvement of the latter and find a suitable way of incentivising them at the same time. Perhaps a half-claim on the FA award even if they've "given up" at what is currently the A stage might be a way - I've not really thought about it. But I'd much rather have Zulu beavering away on say the Lewis gun article than getting dispirited because there's no recognition for a huge amount of work on Lee Enfield. And it's not that helpful for the rest of us for Lee Enfield has the same B rating as (choose your pet-hate B article :-) ) As an aside Zulu, I thought the idea was that all articles should in principle be capable of achieving FA - but an FA article on say HMS Invincible (1808) is going to look a LOT shorter than say HMS Invincible (R05). Be interesting to see someone try to get an FA on a subject where there's simply not much known about it - FA is not about length per se, but about encyclopaedicity.

Incidentally Ed - I've not looked in detail, but it's quite possible that Lee Enfield passed the GA referencing criteria while failing the MILHIST B criteria - GA only requires "in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons" - which to my mind is rather less than "all major points". I think that's a good example where a MILHIST-specific requirement is overly demanding. And no, I'm not dismissing the need for detailed inline reffing in the "ultimate" version of an article, just that the B criterion should be brought more inline with the GA one. Adjusting that wouldn't mean a diminution of the overall quality of MILHIST articles - it would just mean that (aside from the inconsistency with GA), someone might have more time to spend upgrading a stub towards something that is "useful for most readers". As is usually the case, the perfect is the enemy of the good.Le Deluge (talk) 03:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Whoa. Long post. :)

(@ GA and Nevada) - My comment about Nevada was meant in the thought that it wasn't very helpful becuase they could read one of the many DANFS copies on the net and get most of the same info :)

(@ Minas Gerais) - While I am rather disturbed that we are missing an article on that ship, when someone gets interested, they will create it. It's the nature of a wiki! If I had reference info on it outside of Conway's All the Worlds' Fighting Ships 1906–1921, I would do it (but Conway's is way better for design info (read: the class articles)).

(@ guidelines) - It's not a gulf. Why are we complaining about a gulf here - most projects don't even have an A-class review process! Heh—in the words of my Grandmother—be happy that you have something. :D In fact, to my knowledge, we have the only fully functional ACR system on all of Wikipedia outside of WP:FILM, so if a consensus on MILHIST determines that we/they want a high bar, then why not have that? Plus, one does not have to go through an A-class review here if they don't want - they can ask for a detailed GA review or go from GA => FA, like everyone else has too....

(@ abolish A) - from Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment? Ok...it's not like many projects use it (unless that discussion on that talk page changes something). :) Having said that, I'm sure that MILHIST and FILM would keep it, similar to how WP:MATH has a B+ class outside of the 1.0 team: simply because it works for what we/they want to do. It's not that hard to get A (as long as you reference everything as you are writing it (not after!))....as evidenced by the we had 30 new A-class articles we had last month. Also, our A does what it is supposed to: prepare you for FAC—looking through that list there (see link), 11 of the 13 new FA's (read: 85%) for this month went through our A-class system. 85%. Or (roughly), 17 out of every 20 articles that are added to our FAC total go through our A-class system. That's a strong incentive to leave it the way it is...

A tasty, but simple, bland, rather easy-to-make and nothing extra yellow cake. (please pretend that there is no frosting ;D)

(@ milhist B > GA) - IMHO, the GA criteria is the closest thing to yellow cake when it comes to references...even DYK requires an in-line citation. GA need to toughen up on that and at least require a ref for every para. At least. This is also why I think that we (MILHIST) should adopt C-class...that can be a watered-down normal B, while a milhist B can be a beefed-up normal B. But regardless, think of it this way: a MILHIST B is an accomplishment.

(@ everything in general) - These standards are proven to be good; we weren't named as "the best general online resource on military history" by Simon Fowler's A Guide to Military History on the Internet for no reason at all. ;D —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to add something else. You (Le Deluge) mentioned that it would be nice to have all US Battleships at GA and have Good Topics. We have higher aspirations than that. The plan of many editors including myself and TomStar81 along with others is to bring every US BB to FA and have multiple FTs and sup-topics. In fact, the first FT is a FTC currently and several other US BBs are of high-quality GA or higher. -MBK₀₀₄ 05:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Just going back up a bit; Ed, your generalization about yellow cakes, though somewhat accurate, is not always the case. Just look at either of the two GA-reviews EyeSerene has conducted on articles I've written - the thoroughness of an A-Class Review, and both passed with colour flying. It's a shame that not all reviewers are as diligent as others. Cam ^(Chat) 07:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry Cam. I meant the CG criteria was a cake. I know that all reviewers aren't like that :) My mistake (now fixed above) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most of your points, LeDeluge, but I'm afraid this tangent about cakes and battleships has lost me. Having said that, I'm glad someone else can see there's a problem with a reference-filled article such as Lee-Enfield is still only a "B" and some people are only just begrudging it that, when the M249 squad automatic weapon article is half as long, has half as many references, and is already at FAC. I am, however, starting work on the Lewis gun article in an effort not to get too frustrated by the Lee-Enfield A-class review. Commander Zulu (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I was using yellow cake as a metaphor, and the battleships thing is a long story. :)

You really can't compare Lee-Enfield and M249...that's like comparing a ship/ship class article to the article on the guns carried by that ship - the ship/ship class article has a wider scope and will therefore require a longer article and more references. (Come on, you have got to see my point here...Lee-Enfield is an article on a gun company and the guns they made, while the M249 is an article on one single gun. Obviously the former will need more refs and a longer article to adaquately cover the subject.)

If you need help on any formatting in that article, please ping me on my talk page? Don't get frustrated - it's not hard to pick up! If you need, I'll lead by example, alright? Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Or me, so Ed doesn't get overloaded...! BTW, Ed, I fully agree with you that a MILHIST B is an accomplishment. That out of the way, let me go back to EyeSerene's distillation of various scenarios - tks for taking the time to put all that together, mate. If we were having a straw poll I'd pretty well stick to option 1. As I've said earlier on this page, I'm happy wih the MILHIST classes and assessments we have currently, and don't believe we should be introducing C or changing B or downgrading A or anything else along those lines. However I still think we can do more with GA, e.g. listing the noms that come under War & Military on the MILHIST project page along with FACs/ACRs/PRs, highlighting when a new military GA comes up for review (as I think MBK has started doing), etc. GA citation rules may be a bit looser than our B (though I can assure you they're just as tight when I review a GAN) but GA does have a broader audience and a relatively rigorous checklist and procedure, and it too is an accomplishment. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Making more prominent use of GA is probably a good idea. Part of the point of GA is that if they meet the criteria, any article - even very short ones - can be GAs, whereas not everything is suitable for FA. Given the gap we all seem to be acknowledging between B and A, I think GA will be a realistic end-point for many article-writers. It's a worthwhile achievement in itself, and certainly something we could do more to raise the profile of within Milhist. EyeSerene^talk 09:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay - I was off, umm, editing articles.... And apologies for the ramble last time - longer than I planned, sounds like Ed had the same problem. :-)

• (A-Class as FA-lite)Anyway. I think a large part of the debate centres around the whole "A-class is a stepping stone to FA" thing. It is in some ways, but only in the way in which Start is also a stepping stone to FA. The high rate of conversion to FA is in some ways a measure of the failure of A-class within MILHIST - classes are only worth having if they represent a distinct criterion. If A is essentially the same as FA - as some here claim but which the rest of Wikipedia disagree on - then you might as well just get rid of A altogether. Like I say, I'm in two minds on that subject. But it is not constructive to insist on minor style issues and other details to be resolved before an article is A'd , nor demanding more than that the article is a " fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing." You're not "making the project as a whole look bad for sending "unprepared" articles to FAC" as Kirill put it - because an A class article shouldn't be sent to FAC "as is" in the first place, it needs more work first. What you are doing is discouraging knowledgeable, dedicated editors like Zulu - and just draining them of any enthusiasm for MILHIST because reviewers like Ed ignore the rules. If nothing else Ed, it's just bad man-management, putting equal weight on the non-A "minor style issues and other details" dramatically weakens your stronger arguments about referencing. Unfortunately there's a Darwinian element to this - you only hear from the people who agree with the current process, and not from the people who have given up in disgust at the pickiness. I suspect the latter are in a majority though....
• (On GA) You ain't going to get GA changed - and I'm another who thinks that is a good thing. "Comparable to a professional encyclopaedia" is a good benchmark - and in many articles it's quite a tough standard to reach. And this macho posturing about how tough a GA reviewer one can be - guys, just stick to the rules and apply them fairly, OK? Again, overzealous bureaucracy just hurts the Project in the long run. Likewise, there seems to be a disconnect, MILHIST A is a "stepping stone" to FA, whereas MILHIST B is some other thing that in some ways uses GA as a stepping stone to B. Why not just accept that GA is a Wikipedia standard, and structure MILHIST B as more like an internal WP:GAN, as MILHIST ACR seems to be for FAC?
• (The DANFS thing) If you're lucky enough to have DANFS doing the work for you in your particular field, you shouldn't dismiss GA as a piece of cake. And saying "Oh but they can just look at DANFS, so we need to go much higher" - that isn't how the average Joe works. Indeed, he is probably not from North America, not a Navy geek, and may not even have English as his first language, let alone be reasonably expected to cope with something as jargon-ridden and jingoistic as DANFS. He just expects to find a half-decent article in Wikipedia, because he's never heard of DANFS - and it doesn't appear on the first page of a Google search for the Nevada for instance. Just like I wouldn't expect people here to have heard of the NCBI when looking for medical stuff, or the RHS for information about a garden plant. As Ed says later "readers don't have to go trudging through three/four (or more than 20) books that are listed at the end for the info". If a fleshed out DANFS article gives the general reader a Wikipedia article that is "Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems" then terrific - do it and move on. I think MILHIST in general could be more mindful of the reader - that's why I suggested US BB's as a Good Topic. It'd be fantastic to see them as a Featured Topic - but in the meanwhile, as a first step, you would serve your readers much better by spending 'x' amount of time getting all of them to GA rather than the same time on 1 or 2 FA's. Many of the BB articles haven't even had a basic wikification.
• (Minas Gerais)And to my humble brain, it is ridiculous - if not humiliating to the Project - to brag about the "quality" of the Project when it doesn't even have an article on the likes of the Minas Gerais and for it not to be a pressing issue to start one even when you have offline references about it (which is more than I have). Classic example of how the FA-obsession of this Project harms the more mundane work. And it shouldn't be too hard - not surprisingly, there's already a pretty decent article at pt:Encouraçado Minas Geraes (1908) which gives you lots of copyright-free images to start with. Perhaps one of those editors nestling in the comfort blanket of DANFS might like to see what it's like out in the real world of "good enough" articles that are merely "useful to nearly all readers" - why not try and get one of these "piece of cake" GA's on the Minas Gerais? Me, I'm back to my missile stubs, they get at least as many viewers as the battleships and are in far worse shape.... Le Deluge (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I've got to ask because you've only been around since 30 January. Were you 86.31.43.85? :)
  • (@ 1st point/"failure" of milhist A) - well, let me be frank and say that that was not a reply I expected ("failure"?). :) Now, I think what people mean when they day that A is the same as FA is that they both go through a rigorous review, which some like and some don't. Also, while I really and truly see the point you are making, I must disagree with your opinion that A-class has failed within MILHIST. Even though you don't like it, it's succeeded in its original goal; as this and this show, it was originally intended as a "FAC-lite" process. Having said all that, I guess that I can ease up on 'minor style issues' like endashes and the like (or do them myself ;D); however, I can't let non-formatted refs (I've got to see more than a bare url / I've got to see page numbers) and/or non-reliable sources through, as those fall under 'major style issues' in my book. (Same goes for under-referenced articles...sorry Zulu, but while I would like to trust you that the info is right, I 'can't not' oppose an article that is undereferenced.)
  • (@ latter are a majority) - I think that needs a :P
  • But seriously now. If you know of some more people who disapprove of out A-class system, please, please invite them here; we'd love to hear their comments.
  • (@ GA and Part I of DANFS) - Hey now, I've written one good article on a ship (though a second is at FAC). I'm not saying that it is a cake walk to write a GA, I'm saying that it is a cake walk to pass GA with only a few refs, which I do not think is right. But trust me, I already know how annoying it is to write a DANFS-free GA...
  • (@ DANFS, Part II) - interesting points, as I've never thought about it from the outside in. Having said that, if I get a GA, most of the time I can't stop - I want to get that star, to make it the best it can be. Maybe it's leftover sludge from playing tennis all the time and wanting to win, or something, I dunno. Maybe it's the time I normally invest....I'm not Bellhalla, who can write GA's in one sitting; I take a couple hours spread over a few days of going through the pre-1923 New York Times archives, Google Books, my (somewhat lacking) university library and my own books, seeing what says what, and storing that in my head (except for the NYT stuff - that stays on the screen (who wants to try to find those twice....)). Then I begin a rewrite, a section at a time, using all the references I can. It takes some time. :) (Connecticut has given me problems because I wrote it too fast, so that's not happening again...) In summary, after I spend hours to days researching for an article, I don't want to stop at GA. :)
  • (@ Minas Gerais) - well, *blush* it's not like she was a terribly important ship in the grand scheme of things (didn't see or do much of anything, if I remember right...). :/ I'll put her on my to-do list though, and we'll see what I can dig up in the NYT and Google Books.
  • Everybody clap and cheer! (Another long post in the books ;) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 19:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
    • (IP addresses) I might have been - depends who's asking.... :-)))
    • ("Failure") Sometimes you need to use provocative words to get people thinking... :-) I could expand on this a bit further, but the short version is - don't conflate an internal FA review with a rating category. Ignore the FA thing for now, just imagine we had a situation where we had 40,000 stubs, 26 Starts and 30,000 B class articles. That might make you think that the criteria for Start had "failed" in some way, no? And you might want to make them better? In this case one might think that if there's an argument for getting rid of A altogether as a FA-lite, and other people want to introduce a new category of B+, one could kill two birds with one stone and just designate B+ articles as, um, "A"? I just throw that one into the pot for discussion. :-)
    • (BB2FA) I quite understand the "momentum" thing - I just wish I had the tenacity for that. :-) OTOH, you say you need to "slow down" a bit, and perhaps a Phase I in which you just use DANFS plus say your bookshelf to get to "good enough", then go and work on sister ship articles and generally "breathe in" other articles, then go for the full-on library/NYT searches etc in Phase II once your brain has had a bit of quiet thinking time, might also work? Once the article is in some kind of shape, it gives a structure that can encourage other people to contribute from references you may not have, and that diversity of contributors is a strength. (as well as saving you work!)
    • (On B/GA)In fact, you don't even need to get all BBs up to GA for you to be giving good service to your readers. IME articles seem to "come alive" somewhere between C and B on the standard classification, and to my mind the problem with overengineering MILHIST B is that it doesn't recognise that transition to something that's useful to the reader in the same way as an article in Janes or a Naval Institute Guide etc. The information therein may be factually correct, but it's not specifically referenced because readers "trust" Janes or the NI - or in Wiki terms, they assume Janes and the NI are writing in WP:GOODFAITH. I don't want to get mixed up in Zulu's argument so much - indeed it's unfortunate that we're interleaving - as I fully accept the need to assume "no trust" in the ultimate FA evolution of an article, but I think to do the same at Start/B level is effectively saying your fellow editors are not editing in WP:GOODFAITH - and at that stage the "best efforts" of WP:GOODFAITH-and-potentially-knowledgeable editors is more useful to the readers than nothing, although obviously fully-refed is better still. Again it boils down to that cost/benefit thing of how you use your time to serve your "customers" in the best possible way. Note that we are just talking Start/B here, not the A/FA level which is a different kettle of fish. You could probably do a basic sort out of all 40-odd US BB's to "useful" standard (even if that was only C/low-B in standard classification - wikify, sections, remove obvious crud and POV issues, but not really adding that much "new") in a weekend of graft given that many are OK already.
    • (Minas Gerais) - I think you need to read WP:CSB and then read it again. :-)) "didn't see or do much of anything" indeed! I think a Brazilian might argue that the lead ship in arguably the ultimate evolution of the pre-dreadnoughts was interesting enough just from a design POV, let alone seeing more active service - you know, actually in a war - than BB-18 and BB-43-8 put together. That Brazilian might ask what's so notable about a career consisting of "Launched, goes on vacation to Hawaii, gets sunk within 5 minutes of seeing an enemy for the first time" - and he might have a point. :-)))) As an aside, seeing your list, I'd personally assume that there will be people on en.wiki that will get round to sorting out 20th century British stuff - but anything from Continental Europe is generally in pretty bad shape. Perhaps if you have family connections with any of the countries on the Baltic or Med, they would be good ones to go for? Italy had a considerable navy for instance. As a "breadth" man rather than a "depth" person, I find myself filling in a lot of those kinds of gaps, and I kinda prefer them to domestic articles in many ways - you certainly learn more and it's kinda fun finding out about stuff that is somehow similar to ones you know, but utterly different in other ways. Plus it's a good counter to anyone accusing you of lacking WP:WORLDVIEW. :-))

Anyway, it feels like this discussion has been constructive on both sides, but bearing in mind WP:PPP, I have Kippers to cook in my Kitchen and I should probably just let you get on as well - I believe you've got a bit of a deadline to work to? :-) Cheers Le Deluge (talk) 20:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Ed, I understand what you're saying I do genuinely appreciate the offer of help with regard to formatting/MoS issues in articles. But I still respectfully disagree with your zealousness regarding page references etc.
Using the Lee-Enfield article as an example, I have used five major sources for the article: Ian Skennerton's The Lee-Enfield(which is acknowledged by every military firearm collector as being the definitive text on the subject) along with their Small Arms Identification Series companions (by the same author and held in the same regard as The Lee-Enfield), a facsimile edition of the 1943 Basic Manual of Military Small Arms by W.H.B Smith (another respected author on the subject of military firearms, and written in the middle of WWII), various articles from Australian Shooter and Australian Shooter's Journal magazine (which covers a lot of the "anecdotal" stuff not found in Academic or Technical works), and a reprint of the 1929 War Office Textbook of Small Arms. They are listed in the "References" section of the article, should anyone wish to read them to gain a fuller understanding of the subject.
The Lee-Enfield Article is a very, very long, very, very involved article. I have provided an insane number of in-line references for most of the stuff in the article, which is frustrating because it's incredibly time consuming and results in me having to pore through reference texts that I already know the contents of (The Lee-Enfield is 608 pages long, FTR) to find page numbers to back up statements that I know are correct because I've read them in the book somewhere, or in (multiple) other reference texts (which I may or may not have a copy of handy), or from Knowledgeable And Respected Posters on Prominent Forums on the Internet, or have discovered myself through first-hand experience (which is disqualified under WP:NOR, but that's another rant entirely).
There is a point in an article, I feel, where an editor has provided more than enough in-line citations, print references, external links, and other supporting information that a certain percentage of stuff in the article that is technically "unreferenced" (in that it is not supported by an in-line cite) can and should be allowed to pass under both the WP General Reference guidelines and as a form of "professional courtesy" (I'm not sure if that's exactly the term); i.e. we are all (or should be) Gentlemen/Lady Scholars, many of whom have been on Wiki for a number of years, and having established our credentials as Upstanding Members of the MILHIST Community, I think that some leeway (or "benefit of doubt", if you like) should be given with regards to uncited statements that are consistent with the rest of the information in the article, aren't too outlandish, and are NPOV.
For example, Ed, if I was looking over one of your ship articles and saw a statement added by yourself to the effect that the USS Whatchamacallit had twin propellors made of titanium instead of steel, but no cite, I would think "Well, Ed knows his stuff and he's a reliable chap, and if he says that's the case then he probably just can't find a reference for it at the moment but knows it's correct, so I'll take his word for it." Obviously this sort of thing needs to be employed carefully, but I trust you can all see what I'm getting at. (And I'm not singling Ed out personally, he just had the reply before mine :p) Look, ultimately, I don't think people actually go and look up the page references from stuff they see on Wikipedia, and the in-line cite requirement is basically to keep everyone honest. Which is fine, but ultimately it gets to a level where an article's editor has made their point (ie, I'm not making this up, and if you're that interested you can look up the specifics here), and adding more and more and more in-line cites from the same reference(s) just ends up being redundant, time-consuming, frustrating, and most importantly, unrewarding. Commander Zulu (talk) 01:24, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

(@ Le Deluge)(deadline) - yes, I have a deadline, but if I really have something to do on Connecticut, I will delay replying here. :)

(@ Start example) - good thoughts. Remember though, that we want a review that can reassess the article - if you don't want a rating, there is the MILHIST peer review and the 'pedia-wide PR. :) You're right though; I see entirely where you are coming from now. While I still don't think that A is too tough, what could we lower? I mean, the prose standards are low enough, and I (sort of) lowered my references expectations (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Triangle Hill (and I fixed some issues myself)), I don't think that we could lower much.

(@ B+ & A) - in theory, on the surface, that sounds perfect. The problem is that we want to have a rating process for A-class articles :)

(@ BB-FA) - we'll see if I can force myself to stop :)))

(@ B/MILHIST B/GA) - is it just me, or are we arguing the same point on two different planes? I want "C" to go between start and the MILHIST B (taking the place of the normal B, though with slightly lower citations), while you want a lowered B.

(@ Start/B/general referencing (for Zulu too)) - I think that general referencing is fine for short stub/start/B and very short GA articles. It's not ok for A-class. This is even implied by the WP:1.0/A criteria: "Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate." I.e. as in-line citations are definitely not minor things for FA, they have to be addressed in A-class reviews.

(@ Minas Gerais) - LOL! BB-18 did not do much, I already know. :D But alas, no family connections outside of Britain, Poland or Germany - might do the first, don't want to do the second (:/), Parsecboy is planning/is doing the ships I would want to do. And yes, I am well aware that I violate WORLDVIEW, thanks. :P I review all kinds of milhist articles though! BTW, Minas Gerais was a dreadnought, not a pre-dreadnought :)

(@ Zulu)(@ everything, though one reply above too) - The problem with what you say is that it violates WP:V. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."

I know that MILHIST may be seen as a radical project to some with its stringent B-class criteria and one of two projects with a real A-class system, but even we aren't going to go against V.

If it's really that frustrating, and you are using the same reference that often, put on citation at the end of the para, with a page range...e.g. <ref>Author (year), pp. 1–10</ref>. Now, I don't think that FAC is going to like a citation that has a page range of 15–60 or something like that, but I can't image that 10 pages-ish would be a problem (though granted, I've never tried that).

And for the record, "Knowledgeable And Respected Posters on Prominent Forums on the Internet" are reliable... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 21:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that, at the moment, I've decided not to try and take Lee-Enfield to FAC since it's far, far too much work and it's extraordinarily unrewarding. I'd be happy to ::leave it at A-class and go and work on something else (I'm working on Lewis Gun at the moment). Honestly, I don't care how "Good" a MILHIST "B" is, it's still a "B" and for an ::article as important as Lee-Enfield I just don't think that's enough. And if Knowledgeable & Respected Forum Posters are reliable, why not MILHIST editors? What if they're both? And if you're prepared to let me cite myself posting on a prominent firearms board, how is that any different from just withdrawing your objections to the uncited material in the article, supporting it for A-class, and letting everyone move on?

As for referencing, I notice you're citing the FAC requirements again- A-class isn't FAC, which I respectfully think you're forgetting. Should I decide to take Lee-Enfield to FAC, then I can support the "this para isn't cited and that para needs a page reference and this reference needs an access date" thing. Also, I'm not asking for the entire article to be given a pass as "Generally Referenced"; the point I'm making is that the article is so exhaustively referenced anyway that what's left should be allowed to pass under the General Reference rules. The time it would take me to find a page cite for every. single. thing. in the article could be put to far, far better use improving some of the other MILHIST:WEAPON articles, which are in dire need of attention. Can you see where I'm coming from here? Commander Zulu (talk) 00:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, after the reviews you've been getting and dealing with it probably won't be too hard. :)

(@ Knowledgeable & Respected Forum Posters) - by this, I thought you meant experts, authors of books etc. posting on forums. Was I wrong?

Evidently I didn't get my point across. :/ What I was referring to with the first FAC comment was entirely about the WP:1.0/A criteria for A-class article: "Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate."

The second FAC comment (the page range thing) was a thought for if you wanted to go beyond A-class with a citation of "Author (year), pp. 55–124". I wasn't trying to make A-class into FAC, but my apologies for not being more clear.

I can see where you are coming from, having been totally frustrated with going back and finding references for The Sword of Shannara once upon a time, but A-class is supposed to be an intermediate step somewhere between GA and FA; it's only natural to expect referencing standards to increase... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:33, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you were referring to now by the FAC thing. Sorry, my misunderstanding; I missed the Wiki 1.0 thing. As for Knowledgeable and Respected Forum Posters, I was referring to people like myself who have a lot of knowledge on certain subjects, who have been around for a long time (most of them far longer than myself), and are generally acknowledged to Know What They're Talking About. Most military firearms collecting boards have several members like this, and in some cases (such as the Nagant M1895 revolver) they may be almost the only readily accessible sources of information the subject- they may not be published authors, but they are experts. And even so, if you're prepared to acknowledge an expert on a forum as a reliable source, why not that same expert here on Wiki? (Not that I'm saying I'm an "expert", just trying to figure out the logical disconnect here). Commander Zulu (talk) 01:55, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it took some hunting (I knew that I had read it somewhere before), but I finally got it: the relevant policy is WP:SPS. "For example, material may sometimes be cited which is self-published by an established expert on the topic of the article, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• • (A)"The problem is that we want to have a rating process for A-class articles :) " Well that's one of the issues under debate - do we? It's clear that the Project wants some kind of internal pre-FA review, but there's nothing saying that has to be linked to A class, and indeed the A class criteria say only that "Peer-review may help." As for what to drop - personally I prefer the "sense" of the summary version of A, "Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing." Which sounds more like a B++-type classification than the "only minor bits of styling to go" version, it admits some missing content and more serious style problems. I'm wondering whether the way to go is to require GA (which will get rid of a lot of the obvious nonsense), then have "under development", "pre-FA internal content review", "pre-FA internal style review", FAC. The content review might be of variable duration depending on the number of subject experts available, and getting through that might prove to be the "Class X" that would suit "lazy" :-o) subject-experts like Zulu. It would also prove a bit more logical than the current "A is sort of higher than GA but you don't need GA for A" branching, which is one reason why I wouldn't miss losing A altogether. There's no "obvious" answer to my eyes - but I think it's important to involve the people who have "fallen off the wagon", the people who have done good B's or GA's but who haven't progressed to the exalted heights of GA. The structure needs to encourage those people as much as suiting the regular FA-fiends.
  • (B/MILHIST B/GA) - in some ways it is the same plane, in some ways not. For me you have to have B lower than GA (not least because we're already trying to avoid these "quantity" levels between the "quality" marks of GA and FA) - and by analogy with A/FA, B should be some kind of internal preparation for the Wikipedia-wide benchmark of GA. And once B is a stepping stone to GA, I'm not sure whether C is necessary - but C is a whole different argument....
  • (Minas Gerais) - Isn't it the same problem as the South Carolinas, it depends on whether you only count armament or whether you require steam turbines as well? :-) Still, if you say it's a dreadnought it gets worse, as then it's the lead ship of a class that was ahead of Japan, Germany and all the other Euro powers. Anyway, I don't want to go on about it, I only picked it as a fun example of some of the red links on the big BB list. :-)Le Deluge (talk) 02:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(@ A) - the first part of that is a good topic for discussion on WT:MILHIST, and the second part is perfect for WT:1.0. Not here :)

(@ B/GA blah) - I think that B has to be below GA too, if only because B doesn't give anyone a -somewhat- thorough review. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:34, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Even though there is room for some use of "self-published" sources, the way I read that is that it's in reference to self-published books and websites, not general forum posts/discussions. I mean, I might know that poster TheGunGuru on TheGunForum (Made-up username/forums, any resemblance to an actual poster/forums entirely coincidental etc) is an acknowledged expert on a particular firearm, because I've been posting on the same forum as them for years and when I have checked their info out it's been good, but how am I supposed to prove that as per WP:Proveit? In many ways it would actually seem harder than just taking my (or any other MILHIST editor's) word for it. I mean, at least someone here can check another editor's edit history and say "Gosh, that person has provided many reliable references, contributed extensively to subjects on this topic, and is generally acknowledged to Know What They're Talking About". Incidentally, I'm not sure "GA" is much of an improvement over "B"; it conveys an image of "It's alright, but nothing special". And frankly, if GA is just "B but with a few more references" I don't see the point. Here's how I see it: B= A bit average, but it'll do. GA= Alright, but nothing special. Better than B, but still needs some work. A= This is as good a treatment of the subject as you're going to get without spending a lot of money on specialist reference works. There are plenty of in-line cites for the obvious stuff and a decent bibliography in the article; but there's a few MoS issues and some non-controversial unreferenced stuff in there, but nothing that affects the overall quality of the article or the information in it. FA= As for "A" class, but with Is dotted, Ts crossed, everything referenced, and perhaps a little more polish on it.
At the moment, I see no practical difference between an ACR and an FAC review, which bothers me because I don't necessarily want to put an article up for FAC. If I wanted to have an article considered as an FAC I'd list it there, not at the MILHIST ACR. I'm sure a lot of other editors feel the same way, and that's part of the reason I think we need to tweak the system a bit. That way, we're still maintaining our academic integrity without telling people "Sorry, your work isn't good enough because this sentence isn't referenced, even though 98% of the rest of the article is." Commander Zulu (talk) 04:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) I've got to quit this conversation with you, alright? I can't keep trying to explain what verifiability is....if you want that changed, bring this up on WT:V. A-class is the second-highest class possible on WP, and as such, it requires everything to be referenced with in-line citations in keeping with our three core content policies. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we're talking at cross purposes to an extent. I know the WP:V policy; my point is that it's being too stringently applied for A-class. Basically, I'm saying that Near Enough should be Good Enough with regard to this sort of thing for ACR, with "100%" kept for FAC. If you'd like to help me out, though, I'm undertaking a major overhaul of the Lewis Gun article and am finding that I'm repeating my sources a lot; I'm still not sure how to condense them down, if that makes sense. Commander Zulu (talk) 06:21, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(B/GA blah) - so Ed, if you agree that B is less than a GA, you're either saying that Wikipedia as a whole should up the requirements for GA (ummm, not quite WP:SNOWBALL but it's close), or you're saying that the referencing requirements for MILHIST B should be no more demanding than those required for GA, namely "in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". In which case you might as well just go with the standard requirement for B referencing namely "any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited".

(Ed vs Zulu) You might want to look at Wikipedia:When to cite "Not every statement in an article needs a citation, but if in doubt, provide one". FA guideline :"claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate" versus A guideline :"well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources". While I think Zulu is somewhat underestimating the A requirements, I think if you don't need a citation for every statement even in an FA, people could cut him a bit of slack as well. Le Deluge (talk) 11:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break I

I'm going out on a limb here since I have only been keeping a loose eye on this ACR related discussion, but given that A-class is itself under siege by WP:1.0 it may be in our projects best interest to adopt a "wait and see" approach to the 1.0 discussion and see what happens there before dashing out to reset our A-class review in any major way. In this manner we can tie this discussion and a potential discussion about encyclopedia-wide ACR changes into each other and kill two birds with one stone. Also, one uncited sentence won't cause an article to fail an ACR, our MoS explicitly states that some articles use a per paragraph citation system, and its that basis that people tend to object on: a lack of citations for a paragraph can and frequently does result in an oppose. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be no clear consensus to change the way we currently assess for A-Class, but even this discussion has served as a reminder to reviewers not to be over-strict in applying our criteria, I think it's been worthwhile. EyeSerene^talk 08:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

As do I. Commander Zulu (talk) 10:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Charles D. Anderson

I commented that I felt that I would normally give this article a B but in this case deferred to the opinion of Kresock who felt that it did not make the grade. This after giving a B rating to six other similar articles. So I felt obliged to explain myself.

Kresock felt that it is still 'start' because:

1. More info is needed from additional resources for this general, such as expanding on the skimpy Early life and Postbellum sections;
2. it needs a pic;
3. two book summaries are not broad enough coverage.

The article therefore fails questions #1 and maybe #5. Being an orphan doesn't help much either.

My reasoning on this was as follows:

1. The article contains the birthplace and burial burial place of the subject, and details of what he did before and after the American Civil War. While I've flunked articles for statements like "he spent the next 30 years as Senator for New York" and leaving it at that, in this case it appears that his term as a tax collector in Houston County, GA is of little moment.
2. Having struggled to locate pictures of 20th century generals, I did not find it remarkable that no photograph of a 19th century person was available.
3. I did not consider that having only two biographical sources should rule it out at this level.

However my approach was based on my experience as a 20th Century military historian. I had no intention of second-guessing someone who is an expert on the 19th Century, who knows more on the subject, like the availability of photographs. (I also wasn't second guessing whether Confederate "generals" are notable per se.) Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Assessment requests as a separate page?

What would be thought of making the assessment requests a separate subpage, and then transcluding it back into this page? It would keep the moderate amount of assessment traffic from cluttering the edit history of the rest of the article, as well as provide for faster page load times for those of us who use the assessment requests section regularly. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Kirill ^[pf] 12:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh, didn't even have to say "What a good idea - let's do it..." Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Operation Deny Flight

Hi all, the article Operation Deny Flight has been listed at FAC now for almost 4 weeks, and has drawn virtually no reviewers. So, I'd like to ask you to kindly take a look at the article and then participate in its FAC so that the article can finally pass, or we can resolve whatever issues need attention. Thanks so much! Cool3 (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

How does this page work?

I am finding the whole assessment process very obscure, and I have to say it is about to stop me contributing articles, as I find it very frustrating.

I posted a request for B class assessment of Alexander Cavalié Mercer here on 7 April. It got one response on 9 April, criticising the citations, but before I had even seen the response both the request and the response were deleted by Revision as of 00:59, 10 April 2009 (edit) (undo)Abraham, B.S. (talk | contribs). I only found the response by going back through the revision history of this page.

Why were my request and the response deleted? Have they been put somewhere else? In which case I can't find them, so I don't suppose any other contributor can. Is it normal for responses to be deleted within 24 hours, and for requests to be deleted in three days?

I had hoped for more input than one comment, which actually gives no help in improving the article. The B-class review of citation seems to rely on quantity rather than quality, with 34 inline cites for a 21-paragraph article being judged inadequate. I had understood that where a long passage is all derived form one source, one cites the source at the end; but it seems that even to progress beyond start-class it is necessary to go through the entire article putting in page references to the same book for each statement - though that isn't what the help pages say.

If adding citations is going to take longer than writing the article (and the citations are longer than the article) I have better things to do with my time.

A request for peer review produced two comments, which I have dealt with, but no comments on citation. Cyclopaedic (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

This page is intended to be used for quick assessments against the quality scale. Requests for assessment aren't archived due to the number which are received and the fact that there's generally little content beyond the assessment which is placed on the article's talk page. If you've improved an article after it was assessed or would like a second opinion please relist it. If you would like detailed comments on the article then the best option is to request a peer review through the process set out at WP:MHPR. I hope that's helpful. Nick-D (talk) 08:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really. For comments to be deleted before the author has the chance to read them isn't helpful at all. The comments on the peer review are inconsistent with the quality scale assessment, in that the B-class appears to be denied on grounds of citations, but the peer reviewers don't seem to have any problem with the citations. No-one has done anything at all on the article's talk page, just left it as start-class.

Is a quality assessment judged complete and deleted after only one person has looked at it?

If an article is still start-class after I've worked on it for three months and responded to all the suggestions made, I'm obviously wasting my time. Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the assessment - entire paragraphs of the article (including most of the 'Waterloo Campaign' section) are unreferenced, so B-class criteria 1 ('It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations') isn't met. All the other criteria are met, though, and this was included in the assessment. User:Skinny87 has today posted comments in the peer review noting that the article contains unreferenced material. By the way, sorry for telling you how to suck eggs on the peer review - I didn't realise that it was already up and running. You've attracted more comments in it then I have with my current PR! Nick-D (talk) 11:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that the assessment was valid, it probably should not have been removed less than 24 hours after it was posted. I've generally seen a wait of a week to remove old requests. Perhaps this could be formalized somewhere to make sure that nothing is removed before everyone has had a chance to see it?

Yes, the main issue I see here is that it appears this assessment may have been removed a little precipitously in the quest to clear the page - I think Joe's right that it would help to formalise how long these things stay up, whether it be a full week or a matter of days. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, weighing in now for the first time. I think this is a case of where the assessment system sometimes fails to encourage contributors. I have been going through the 23,000 odd articles with incomplete B class checklist for the past few weeks and have found a number of posts where quite infuriated contributors have vented their frustation over the system, saying that they do not wish to contribute anymore because of issues they have with the process.

Largely I think this is due to the fact that sometimes when assessing articles quickly some assessors (myself sometimes also guilty) do not leave comments on the talk pages on articles as to why they haven't made B class or what can be improved. Also to an extent, I think some contributors do not understand that there is no C class in Military History and therefore some very good articles remain at a Start class. For some people this is like a slap in the face with a dead fish. I don't want to start the whole C-class debate again as it has only just finished after the last election, but I feel that perhaps maybe sometime in the future the idea needs to be revisited.

I was the one who originally assessed the Alexander Mercer article as a start class article. To be honest, I feel it is a reasonably good article, and it would be a C class if it existed. However, as I noted afterwards on the MHA page it wanted for citations in a few paragraphs. That is all. I was not querying the work that had been put into it, or the quality of the citations. I would go through and add the citations myself if I had the book. However, I think what this illustrates is that the ratings system is somewhat arbitary in nature. However, I don't think we could produce a system that is any better at the moment. That is just my opinion. Perhaps the way to overcome this is if, as reviewers, we all make a conscious effort to leave detailed comments on the talk page of the articles we review. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll: autoformatting and date linking

This is to let people know that there is only a day or so left on a poll. The poll is an attempt to end years of argument about autoformatting which has also led to a dispute about date linking. Your votes are welcome at: Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 11:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternate History Novels???

I was looking at the Category:Unassessed military history articles and the following three articles were listed:

• 1862 (novel)
• 1945 (Conroy novel)
• 1945 (novel)

These are all Alternate History novels. Do they really fall into the scope of Military History? --dashiellx (talk) 11:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd have them within our scope; "Note that the project generally covers only those depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is therefore made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented depictions of fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of actual military history would no longer be relevant to them—such as futuristic warfare in Star Wars—are not considered to be within the project's scope." I don't think that they are that divorced from reality. They're counterfactual history—how one change could have effected an entire chain of events. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 13:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that the scope of Military History is broad enough when it is confined to things that actually happened, or might still happen in the near future, without trying to imagine what the world would be like if some events had been different. For one thing, how does one criticize alternative history without either accepting or opposing its point of view? I suppose it can be done, but not in a historical manner. Let's leave this one to the literary people. PKKloeppel (talk) 14:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

My position has always been that if the alternative history in question made use of accurate military aspects like military hardware, tactics, and so forth then it falls within our scope since we are in a better position to handle information related to such matters. From this perspective then I say the books fall within our scope. It is important to note though that when this position is considered our project is no thte main project per se, the main project is either the books/novels project or the film project, depending on the medium used to convey the story, and the addition of our tag in such situations merely means that we are making ourselves available to answer question on the military aspects of the work in question. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

It may be slightly off topic - but as the project currently has a War Films task force, would it make sense to create a War Books/Stories/Fiction (not sure of title) task force, also? I don't have any idea what this would entail in terms of setting up and maintaining (and as such in that regard I'm really probably only adding a problem, rather than providing a solution as an old CO used to say) but what does anyone else think? Also, is there scope to create other task forces, as some articles don't use to fit into any of the existing task forces. I can't remember where it was, but seem to remember someone directing me to a category of military history articles that have been assigned to the 'no' task force (i.e. no=yes), as opposed to articles that haven't been assigned a task force yet. Apologies for being a bit indistinct. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Replying to one part—as a coordinator of WP:NOVELS (albeit, one that does nothing...), I've proposed a War Novels task force, but I think that the consensus was that it would be too much work to set up for a task force that would be dead. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest changing War Films to something like War in Popular Culture, that would include Films, novels, and songs (I think there was a debate over songs a while ago, but don't remember the result). Perhaps this could reinvigorate the TF by adding members with more interests? – Joe N 20:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The logistical difficulty there would be that films is run as a joint task force with WP:FILMS, and I suspect that they would have little interest in rescoping it that way. Kirill ^[pf] 01:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, now I'm seeing video games on the list? My fear here is that the scope of Mil History is being expanded to the point where it will be unmanageable.--dashiellx (talk) 11:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, we already have ~90,000 articles in scope; a few thousand more or less aren't really going to make any difference in the long run. ;-) Kirill ^[pf] 14:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Back to basics

Alternative history is by definition non-historical, as in, it did not happen, people. History happened. Alternative history didn't.

Georgejdorner (talk) 03:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Explosion in number of unassessed and articles without task force

What happened? I thought I'd been keeping on top of these and suddenly I log on and there are over three hundred! Does anyone know what happened? AustralianRupert (talk) 09:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like from a sampling of some of the fort articles, that MenasimBot tagged them yesterday. — Bellhalla (talk) 10:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, bots creating even more work for us humans. Oh well, I guess it keeps me off the streets... AustralianRupert (talk) 01:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

List class

Surely there should be an option to class an article as a List? I wanted to assess List of military writers as a list, as it clearly states in the titles of the article that that is just what it is; a list. Would it be possible to create this parameter? Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk | _Sign 19:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I always thought that our project intentionally does not have this class to encourage lists to be improved and move up the assessment ladder, with a goal of FL instead of FA. – Joe N 20:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the case; lists should be assessed using the normal article scale. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 04:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Operation Crossroads

I read through Operation Crossroads and think it's excellent, and should be a GA candidate. Anyone? Tempshill (talk) 04:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Based on the criteria ([1]):

1. Well-written:
   1. Yes
   2. Yes
2. Factually accurate and verifiable:
   1. No
   2. Yes
   3. Yes
3. Broad in its coverage:
   1. Yes
   2. Yes
4. Neutral:
   1. Yes
5. Stable:
   1. Yes
6. Illustrated, if possible, by images:
   1. Yes
   2. Yes

So, a good article, yes; rated so, no. TARTARUS ^talk 20:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

A couple of style issues will have to be addressed:

1. There is some inconsistency in the pronoun used to refer to ships, either "it" or "she." I prefer "she;" the manual of style permits either, but not both.

2. Measurements expressed in feet, pounds, tons, miles, etc., should be accompanied by their SI equivalents.

Aside from that, this is a good article. PKKloeppel (talk) 22:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Some unreferenced statements are present in the article and there are a few MOS issues, but not huge. Nominate it and see what happens! You've got nothing to lose... :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 23:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion requested

I've just assessed former FA Defense of Sihang Warehouse, which I felt has too many citation gaps (as well as some POV and image issues) to be B-Class. I therefore rated it as Start; am I being too strict? EyeSerene^talk 13:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It may seem that way due to the amount of detail in the article but, no, don't think that's too strict. In fact its length brings into sharp relief the inadequacy of the citing by current standards, let alone any other issues. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Ian. It's the first time I've seen an article go from FA to Start, but I honestly can't see how B can be justified in this case. EyeSerene^talk 17:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. I had a look also, but lacked the moral courage to rate it as a Start. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

---

Boy, this article beings up a lot of questions.

I have had some questions myself about the spacing of citations. One editor has told me there must b at least one citation per paragraph.

When writing, I add a citation whenever changing sources; this may be every third or fourth para, or three times within a sentence. My reasoning is, the info can thus be checked against the source. Of course, with a citation required every para, there will be a lot of duplicate cites in my work.

In the present case, three of the six external links are in Chinese and the other three are to movie review sites. I see no way to use cites to check accuracy without being bilingual (which I am not).

More troubling to me is a slight violation of NPOV. I believe the author is trying to remain neutral, but there is a subtle lean towards the Chinese side.

To put it bluntly, I think it would take a bilingual editor to evaluate this article. Any other ratings assigned by anyone else, whether Start Class or Featured Article or anything between, is a grope in the dark.

Georgejdorner (talk) 18:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Good points. When to cite is not, I think, something that can be prescribed too rigidly (although obviously we attempt to provide guidance at various assessment levels). Your method makes sense to me, as do others I've seen in use. However, our assessment scale is fairly well-defined, so I don't believe assigning a rating is as much a grope in the dark as all that ;) EyeSerene^talk 19:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Vanguard Industries

It appears that the Vanguard Industries, Inc. article has been deleted, but the talk page has not — Talk:Vanguard Industries, Inc.. Should the talk page be deleted if the article has, or what should be done with it? Currently it is just sitting there in the list of articles needing attention to task force link. — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:05, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, thanks for the notice. EyeSerene^talk 08:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Senior Foreign Service

Can project members please take a look at this article? I don't believe it falls into our project's scope, but would like to get some concensus on the issue before removing the tag. Please go to Talk:Senior Foreign Service and add your two cents worth. I will be happy to do whatever concensus determines. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree (with you and the comments on the article page). Feel free to remove the tag as you see fit. EyeSerene^talk 08:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Farleigh Hungerford Castle

This projects banner is currently on Farleigh Hungerford however I've now moved most of the info re the castle into a new & expanded article at Farleigh Hungerford Castle. Should the banner just be moved across or deleted & the new article put up for assessment?— Rod ^talk 13:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

it should be moved, I think. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Broodseinde

The Battle of Broodseinde article is very close to a B class article in my opinion. It still needs some citations, though. I have gone through and fixed most of the MOS issues (might have missed some) and done a brief copyedit, but don't have any sources. If anyone is interested, it might be an easy kill to have it promoted to B class. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Combat Logistic Battalion 4

An editor is making unhelpful edits to Combat Logistics Battalion 4. These may be jokes (use of the term Pog for logistics soldiers, complete over use of acronyms, etc), however, they are not encyclopedic in my opinion, and as such I have given the editor a warning about making "joke" edits. This article needs a lot of work (only a stub) at the moment but is on a topic I don't know anything about (US Marine logistic unit). I only came across it during a patrol of new articles for tagging with the mil hist tag. If anyone is interested in improving the article, I would appreciate it. Also, it needs more eyes on to prevent further unconstructive edits. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Copied to: WT:USMIL#Combat Logistic Battalion 4 for input.  Roger Davies ^talk 04:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Recreation of deleted content

Hello, can an administrator please take a look at NPC Nationals Championship? It is essentially a recreation of an article that has been deleted twice (once by AfD and once by speedy deletion). The previous article's name was Lou La Luz (an article that has some military content as the subject is a serving soldier, but the creator has now recreated it under a different name). While I believe that the subject is a decent individual worthy of respect, he has been found non notable by concensus in an AfD and constant recreation of the article flouts the rules of the community. A speedy delete tag has been placed on the article again. Thank you. 115.129.4.97 (talk) 22:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. Please note that reports like this belong at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents if the speedy deletion process isn't sufficient, and shouldn't be made here. Nick-D (talk) 23:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Add to template

Could someone add Napoleonic fiction to the talk page template. See comment on Template talk:WPMILHIST. SADADS (talk) 01:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Translated Battle of Szőreg, Battles of Komárom in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848

User:Monkap and I have completed the translation (from HU:WP) of the Battle of Szőreg, and have started work on translating the Battles of Komárom, which we shall probably complete within the next couple of days. They are battles in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (though they were in 1849). I bring it to your attention in case you wish to add them to your project. I'm not sure if simply adding your template to its talk page would suffice, and I don't want to have to familiarise myself with any complicated nomination process, so I simply note it here.

A word of warning: we are primarily translators and not military historians. Of course we hope to achieve accuracy, but our aim is mainly to provide as much as HU:WP does, as a starting point for others to fill in or – heaven forfell! – correct them, taking them onwards. Our approach is to start at the individual battles (of which we have also done Battle of Mór and some edits to others in that campaign) and slowly coalesce into the larger overview articles. We hope we've got the right military terms e.g. for munitions, cannon, pincer movement, and so on, but we can't always be entirely sure, since we are not consulting original sources but mere translating from HU:WP. At that point our expertise ends and we hope others can be handed the baton.

Fortunately (for us as translators, at least), the "Battle of..." articles stick quite well to the purely military aspects and do not cloud it much with the politics etc.

I'm working on putting together a better map (in SVG format) of the Kingdom of Hungary, from which derivative maps can be easily created e.g. battle maps, but that will take a little while. Si Trew (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Komárom now done. Only Battle of Schwechat to go, then at least we have basic coverage (as good as HU:WP) of the individual battles. Si Trew (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI, all the battles in this campaign can be found easily from {{Campaignbox Hungarian Revolution of 1848}}. Si Trew (talk) 08:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added the project's tag to the talk page as they are definately within our scope. I've not assessed them, though, as I have no knowledge of the subject. Thanks for your contribution, though. — AustralianRupert (talk) 09:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. In the future, is it enough for me just to add the tag myself? (Unassessed of course.) Does that bring it to your attention via categories or a watching bot or something? Even if it is a grey area, it's probably easier for me to add it and someone on this project remove it, rather than continually ask here. Si Trew (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• • Yes, its fine for you to add the project tag to the talkpage yourself. That will mean that the article then appears in the category of unassessed military history articles and someone will come along and take a look and assess from there. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

While I have your ear, can I ask a couple of points on the translations? I appreciate this is probably not the best place to ask, but I am sure you can point me in the right direction.

• Our use of the words "army", "legion", "troop(s)" is somewhat inconsistent across the articles. Hungarian tends to use "legion" or "troop", but this may be a false friend. Is there a technical definition of these words (suitable for the period)? Hungarian WP, like e.g. France, tends to mix words as elegant variation, but I should like to stick to a consistent term.

• • This one is difficult as those words all have technical and non-technical meanings, some of which may be modern incarnations. For example a legion could refer to a certain sized military unit (I believe), while army and troop also relate to certain levels of military formations, they can also be used generically to talk about an army, i.e the Australian Army, or a number of troops. Long story short, I'd suggest trying to stick to what the source says as it might be trying to use the term specifically, rather than generically, that is unless you can be absolutely certain about their meaning. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• The articles often talk of the commander meaning him and his army. e.g. Perczel attacked, Dembínsky withdrew, etc. I presume this is acceptable on articles of this kind?

• • Yes, I believe that this is acceptable to the project. I've seen this done in other articles and we are, as always, beholden to the sources. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• There is no consistent name for the Hungarian side. (Hungarian insurgents, Hungarian army, Hungarian revolution army, etc etc). I'd like to settle on one, but is there any advice which?

• • Not sure on this one, sorry. Anyone else? AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• I am inclined to reijig the articles so that Hungary is the first belligerent in the infobox. Obviously that box is designed to be scrupulously neutral, this is simply a matter of natural reading order; since the articles are grouped as being part of one conflict, a Hungarian one, it seems to make sense Hungary always goes on the left, and its various enemies on the right. Within the text we have tried to be scrupulous to avoid words such as "the enemy" etc (the HU:WP does this, but that I suppose can be more liberal with the term than we would like to be here).

• • I think this would be fine, but perhaps other members of the project would like to comment on this so we have consensus? AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks in advance Si Trew (talk) 18:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• • If you've got any more questions, please feel free to contact me via my talk page. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

A class above GA class?

A-Classification trumps GA-classification on the Mil Hist scale? I ask because I was fixing the categorization of Elmer Gedeon (I noticed it as WP:MLB's only A-class article, we don't really use that class) which is a GA but also more recently got a Mil. Hist A-class review. Staxringold _talk^contribs 17:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, articles which have gone through the formal A-Class review process are considered to be higher than GAs. (Are other projects using scales with GA higher than A now? The original scale had A above GA, and I wasn't aware there were any major efforts to change it.) Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe so Kirill, both SHIPS and Aviation have A above GA just like we do: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Assessment and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Assessment. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

And 1.0 has it higher, see WP:1.0/A —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• Huh, guess I never got the memo. Staxringold _talk^contribs 07:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's more complicated than that :P A-Class articles that have passed a GA review also retain their GA status unless/until they are awarded FA status. However, even though classes are technically awarded by projects, in practice, GA status is automatically accompanied by an award of GA-Class. Because we only have one place in the template, an article's GA-Class is no longer recorded when it gets promoted to A-Class... even though it may still be listed at WP:GA. In summary, GA-Class is replaced by A-Class, but GA status still exists alongside A-Class until an article passes FAC. I hope that makes sense! EyeSerene^talk 23:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Holy Mackerel batman, will there be a quiz on this? I hope not. Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Bibliography and citations

Could someone else chime in on the assessment of Smedley Butler? I'm having problems understanding the organization of the bibliography, and giving the editor a hard time about how it's organized. The editor is using templates, but the entries are not consistent (punctuation). But I don't want to give Kumioko a hard time if this isn't actionable. I'm pretty sure it can't go to FA like this, though. Someone who knows more about these things H E L P !!! Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

how many images are appropriate?

Mr. B and I were wondering about the image requirements. What is the number/quality/kind of appropriate images? I've recently edited Karl Eugen, Prince von Lothringen-Lambesc, and although it has an info box, it only has one image. I cannot find a picture of the man. Is an image required? I'm not taking this through fA, just want to get it to b class and call it quits. What is policy on this? Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Consensus on that matter is that any number of images is appropriate, so long as they are resonably spaced out and do not leave larger blank white areas in an article. We count tables as images so at the moment your article would meet B-class requirements for visual aids. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, the definition of 'supporting materials' is pretty broad so including an infobox but no image is cool. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

A couple of assessment related questions

I have been going through all the Medal of Honor recipient articles and cleaning up the assessments and I have found several with assessed I don't think they qualify for. A couple of questions just to clear things up for me rather than bombard the assessment page.

1. Does a B class article need to have inline citations, or simply have the reference on the article? My opinion is the inline citation should be present but I have found several (actually quite a lot) that do not. Here is an example of that issue Harold W. Bauer.

   Yes, inline citations, generally at least one per paragraph, are required for MilHist B-Class, so this rates a Start only as it is. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

2. If an article has an infobox, persondata, structure and covers the basic who, what, when, where, why, and hows, does it rate as start class even if its somewhat short? Here is an example of an article thats currently rated as a stub that I think could be upgraded to start class, although I am on the fence about this one myself. Hence the need to get clarification. John Denny

   I'd tend to rate this Stub even though it has the infobox since there's so little info but others may have a different opinion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

3. There are quite a few articles that are rated as C class. Although I just recently found out that the milhist project doesnt recognize it (I think they should by the way) the Biography and other projects do and several are assessed as C. An article currently rated as C class that might need to be downgraded to Start is John E. Murphy but before I start degrading articles I wanted to get a second opinion. Does anyone have any advice on this? Also, I used AWB to look at the articles that are rated as C class under the milhist project and there are thousands.--Kumioko (talk) 23:03, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

   This should be Start in MilHist because there aren't enough inline citations, and probably also not quite enough content as well. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for takeing the time to answer my questions. --Kumioko (talk) 23:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

overlap with wikiproject Germany

Is it permissible to ask that if you're assessing an article for this project, and if you see that it overlaps with WikiProject Germany, would you please give it the same assessment there? We have a 200+ article backlog, and very few people doing assessments. No way the three of us still doing assessments there will every catch up. Thanks. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

As a rule, yes. For the most part all project adhere to the standards set forth by the 1.0 project, so in general if an article meets standards for stub, start, B, Ga, and FA-class by one projects standards then the other projects will also assess the article as such. The only time this is not the case is with C and A class; C-class standards shift somewhat depending on the project's definition of C-class, and only a very limited number of projects recognize A-class; therefore these two assessments should not be added to the assessment table of other projects unless you understand what the project in question considers C and A class to be. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Medal of Honor related articles

Over the past month or so I have been going through all the Medal of Honor related articles varifying their assessment status, makingn notes and creating a page to track it. This is not a formal project, just smoething that I created to give myself a starting point to start building up the content of the Medal of Honor related articles. I though I would post this out here as well in case others are interested as well. If you look at this page Medal of Honor assessments other than Amerian Civil War (ACW) you will find tables oif all of the Medal of Honor recipients other than those for the ACW with their assessment and some rough notes. This page reflects the same for the ACW Medal of Honor recipients and this page reflects those that still need to be created. The ones who are lined out are already done, although some are still stubs and need work. Just a few notes about the state of the articles in general:

1. All have infoboxes
2. Most have persondata
3. All have references although some need to be cleanup and expanded
4. Most have a link to at least one applicable portal
5. Most have a link to at least 1 list
6. Many still need photos
7. A little over half the recipients have pages but a lot still do not, most of those that still need articles are in the Indian wars or the American Civil War.
8. I am currently working on cleaning up the talk pages making sure they all have appropriate project banners (At a minimum they should have biography, MILHIST and United States), task forces and general info tags (needs photo, persondata, infobox, etc.).

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. --Kumioko (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Unassessed military history articles

Is there any reason why we need subcategories of unassessed articles? Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Not in my opinion; but a few projects with whom we operate joint task forces have templates that automatically generate them, and those categories then show up in our category tree. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 05:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Backup on Assessments

This is not a big deal, but I just wanted to let everyone know that there is a small backup of articles that have been requested for assessment that have not been assessed. I have assessed a few. Thanks and Have A Great Day! Lord Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 19:39, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Questions relating to the use of portals

I have posted some questions and comments related to portals at Wikipedia talk:Portal#Question relating to portals. I am interested at getting other comments/opinions related to the use and maintenance of portals. --Kumioko (talk) 16:39, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

About Unassessed Class

I'm struggling with how articles can be assessed as unassessed. There doesn't seem to be an unassessed class, with a type definition, yet it regularly is used in the listings. I thought it might be a bot thing, registering when someone had set out from the assessment page to look at the page but failed to leave an assessment. I now notice articles previously assessed being reassessed as unassessed. Could a more experienced person explain the rationale here? Thanks Monstrelet (talk) 18:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

They are recorded in the logs as going from stub to unassessed when an article is removed from the project, usually because it is not within our scope. Sometimes a user will remove the rating of an article as a way of asking it to be reassessed (when the correct procedure is to list it at WP:MHA#REQ. Unassessed is the generic class if there is no class offered which is why it always shown in the listings. Hope this helpsWoody (talk) 10:22, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah! It's all a bit clearer now. ThanksMonstrelet (talk) 18:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

William O. Gallery

I've noticed over a period of a couple of weeks that this article is see-sawing between start and stub. Nothing is being discussed on the talk page. It may be that some sort of assessment warring is taking place that may need co-ordinator attention. Monstrelet (talk) 06:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

There was a duplicate milhist banner on the talkpage which was assessed as stub, it was confusing the assessments. I have now removed the duplicate banner and used the B-class checklist to maintain its status as start. Woody (talk) 10:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Woody. Start seemed more appropriate than stub.Monstrelet (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent reassessment of WWII german subjects

Noticed a crop of WWII german articles had been raised from start to B yesterday without going through assessment request. Checked a couple SdKfz 234 and Schutzen. Both assessed by Dodo19. Didn't think either made B, though were good starts. Don't really have the knowledge to really know how good they all are. Could someone else take a look? Monstrelet (talk) 18:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

unnotable ships

After reviewing Buggie's German submarine U-1023, I am left wondering if some of these ships should have an article by class, and within that article, the individual ships covered. Perhaps for some of the class of ships, or type, or whatever, it is not worth having individual articles on each ship, but instead to have a larger, more comprehensive article that pulls together the information on all (or most) of the ships, and for the ships that have enough material to warrant their own article, they can be broken out. Just a thought. I've seen a lot of irrelevant articles (not just on ships) that seem to me to be better covered within a larger article about the kind of ship. Aunt Ruth (talk) 15:45, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The matter's been raised before; per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USS Illinois (BB-65) articles on ships with little to know history can be considered notable enough to stand on their own, but there are limits to this position - the Montana-class battleships, for example, redirect to the class article due to the lack of material needed for stand alone articles for the ships. 70.132.225.193 (talk) 10:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a long-standing convention that all warships commissioned into navies are individually notable due to the ready availability of sources. While in many cases its not possible to write more than a few paras (and I agree with the start-class rating for this article) its generally possible to write a lot on German U-boats and it may be possible to expand this article. Nick-D (talk) 08:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest, then, that until this article is expanded, it remain as a subsection in the class article, or a separate list of ships of this class, that have short paragraphs and perhaps a picture. It seems excessive to insist that just because a ship is commissioned into a national navy that it is notable enough for its own article. The recent snafu over the Habsburg class ships of the Austrian navy is a good example, also. Each of those ships should be part of a larger article; they have the "same" history, with minor variations, and the entire article on each individual ship would have been better suited as part of the Habsburg class battle ship article, with subsections on the three ships. Perhaps "unnotable" is the wrong heading. Perhaps "ships with short careers" or something else would be better. auntieruth (talk) 15:01, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

standards for articles about military historians

Are there standards for articles about military historians? Basics of what should be included, etc.? Please point me toward them. auntieruth (talk) 15:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I've not seen anything specific, but I'd have thought that the things to cover would be general bio details like birth, death, places of such, education, important works, etc. Sorry I can't be of more help with this. AustralianRupert (talk) 14:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm. You'd think we would have something specific. An historian bio articcle must include x-y-z, in addition to the basics of a biography (a-b-c). auntieruth (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

C Class ?

Hi all I thought as a project we had not adopted the C class rating ? If so there appears to be a number of C class rated articles here. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 13:58, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it has something to do with the mark up. For some reason it reads whatever the highest rating is. Thus if the Australia project rates at a C, but we rate a Start, because the mark up detects other project banners that have activated the military parameter, then our cat recognises the other project's rating. At least, I think that is what is happening here. I might be wrong. AustralianRupert (talk) 14:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Didn't see this back in June but the answer is: other project tags (take Bio for example) have joint milhist task forces with a parameter in their banner, so if a bio article is rated as C for biography it is also C for the Military biographies task force as a result of the template markup. Woody (talk) 21:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft maintenance squadrons being deleted

Just an FYI in case this was missed, but it appears that several maintenance squadron articles have been deleted. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Any links to specific articles so I can see take a look? Woody (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Another referendum on implementing C-class?

The last one was I thing 1.5 years ago, and since then the C-class concept has evolved throughout wikipedia. I think it would be appropriate to see if people here are thinking it would be ok to implement it now. Nergaal (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy think tank#Implementing C-Class. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)