Talk:Eagle Scout/Archive 1

other countries eagles

I'm a little bit worried about having the history of the Philippines Eagle scout here. Would that thereby state that we should go through the history of the highest rank in scouting for each country with a scouting program? or should each of those be seperate pages, linked to the scouting pages of each country? Lyellin 05:26, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)

• So far, with only two awards represented, it seems OK. If we do evolve to many more Scouting program's awards (if they are named Eagle) then someone could do a reorganization. Perhaps a page that indexes all Scouting program's highest awards (whatever their names) would be interesting. Bevo 19:54, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

• I think perhaps the best method would be to create a page indexing all of the various Scouting's highest honors, and then seperate ones for each one. It's more work, but I also think more appropiate, especially if we begin to list histories in the like. Maybe I'll start to do that. Anyone know of other scouting award pages on here yet? Lyellin 01:57, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)

I've done some searching off what links to the scouting page, and I can't seem to find any other highest awards that have articles yet. Gentgeen 07:24, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

copyright of content

• message to 65.240.65.201

• I have reverted the edits you made to Eagle Scout. While I appricate your illingness to help, we are not allowed to copy content from other sites. The copyright of this site says that all of the information used here needs to be explisitly decaired as free content. I'm sure that some of this information is quite usefull and we can definatly put it back so long as we do it in the correct manner. If we are to use statictics like the number of eagle scouts, we need to cite where they came from. For the list of eagle's please check out List of Eagle Scouts (it needs some work, i did most of it myself.) also there is a whole page devoted to List of BSA rank requirements which you might want to help on. In any case, welcome and if you have any questions of ir I can be of help, please contact me on my talk page. Cavebear42 20:35, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Statistics on number of U.S. Eagle Scouts

Can anyone find a source for the claim that "Only two or three percent of Scouts who join ever attain [Eagle Scout]."? And perhaps some more detailed numbers? --Slowking Man 10:16, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Not every boy who joins a Boy Scout troop earns the Eagle Scout rank; only about 4 percent of all Boy Scouts do so. scouting.org Cavebear42 07:27, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

someone has added that it is only 2% in California. I think that this is interesting but 1. im not sure if it relivent to the article as a whole and 2. it isnt cited. i got the 4 percent number as cited above. please list your citing here before readding. for now, i will remove it. Cavebear42 21:10, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Removal of the two examples of Eagle Scouts

The part about the two black Chicago kids was removed because I thought that it seemed to have just been stuck in. Not that it belonged in that particular paragraph. Also, the two kids have not gone on to be of any historic note. They weren't the first blacks to attain the rank, the article didn't state that they had any learning disabilities that they overcame, etc. If someone wants to expand the article to include a section as to the statistics of being both an Eagle and being black, then that's fine. Talk about Hank Aaron or Willie McCool would fit more for that section of the article than just two kids who went to college, in my opinion.

Dismas

the link to the court of honor web page fits right in with this. i have removed the text and the link we are disscussing before. this appears to be the personal agenda of someone who feels that this is special. WHile I aggree that it is special when a scout make eagle, it only belongs in this article if it affects the badge or its standing in america. i dont think that the first black eagle or famous eagles would even belong here, we maintain a List of Eagle Scouts on another page which is for famous eagles. a stat about black eagles might fit but in the spirt of the brotherhood of scouting, i would prefer that we dont attempt to start segragating our eagles into racial groups. Cavebear42 08:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Once the Court of Honor page gets set up, there will be different sections, since the Eagle Scout Court of Honor is a different ceremony all by itself. Zscout370 21:54, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Response to Above Comments

When an African American young man attains the rank of Eagle, it is noteworthy indeed. It is a rarity for anyone to attain this rank, especially black inner city kids. The efforts of these young men should be included on the Eagle page. Either that or a separate page created with a link to it. The Court of Honor link shows the public what can be included in this important ceremony. It depicts an example of an Eagle Court that was well organized. This is especially helpful to anyone in the process of planning such an event. Therefore, it should stay.

Lastly, I removed names from the Eagle list who are criminals for the reasons listed below:

This section should be reserved for those individuals who have attained scouting's highest rank, the Eagle Scout award. Listing the name or names of serial killers and pedophiles is a disgrace to the badge. Anyone who has earned the Eagle award as a youth, then later becomes a serial killer, rapist, or any other type of criminal, forfeits his award or the right to claim name to it. That person is a disgrace to the others who behave in law-abiding ways and uphold the honor of the badge. I was appalled to see the name of a serial killer and pedophile listed here. So to get the attention of the Wikipedia community, I feel it is necessary to add this statement in defense of the Eagle Badge. I will only identify myself as the proud leader of an Eagle Scout. I would like to see the badge's good name upheld. I am sure that every Eagle Scout and Eagle family would agree with me. If I see another criminal listed, I will remove his name in order to PROTECT THE DIGNITY AND HONOR OF THE EAGLE BADGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please respect this very unique badge and list only those individuals who are living up to the standards of an Eagle Scout, both in the past and especially in the present!!! Please help to uphold the dignity and honor of this distinction by keeping Arthur Gary Bishop's name off of this privileged list! This also goes for any other criminal!!! According to the BSA, only those who are living up to the high standards of the Eagle rank have the right to claim name to it. Criminals do not even measure up to God's standards so you know they don't measure up to scouting's!!! Thanks. Tina Reed, MA, LPC (Scout Leader/Minister-in-Training) --Sistertina 16:06, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Protecting the dignity of the eagle badge. Look. There is a boy at my school who is an Eagle Scout. He's black. He's an honor student. He's made tremendous achievements. But he doesn't deserve an entry. To be on a list like this solely because of a list like this defeats the point of the list. I'm sure that they are great kids, but there's no reason for them to be on the list if they have not done something noteworthy outside of the community they are part of. The killers on the list are noteworthy for something outside of the community they are part of, and are listed here for reference purposes, not to detract from the badge. All you do by removing those entries is alter the Wikipedia in a negative way. This has nothing personal against the Boy Scouts. It's just a list of those who are noteworthy who happened to be Eagle Scouts. If there were a list of Christians, would you remove the killers and criminals from that list, solely because they "do not measure up to God's standards"? I'm sorry if this comes off as a bit harsh, but I can't understand your reasoning. Please leave a message on my talk page, so we can talk more in-depth, troop leader to ex-scout. Segekihei 21:24, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am an Eagle Scout, and I believe the addition is inappropriate. The only Eagle Scouts listed here should be ones who are famous for a reason unrelated to being an Eagle Scout. It does not matter if they are famous for feeding the poor or raping children -- to prove that these criminals are an exception, you need only compile a more complete list, where this handful of bad people will be obvious exceptions to the rule of greatness. Tuf-Kat 21:58, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I am an Eagle Scout as well. Troop 52, Hinsdale, Illinois. Does it bother me that someone who acheived their Eagle rank went on to become a murderer/serial killer? Yes. Although I can see why those men have been listed here. They have made history in some way, however dubious and despicable. And they acheived their Eagle rank. President Nixon resigned his office before being impeached. President Clinton was impeached. Should they be removed from a list of Presidents because of the disgrace they caused to the office of the President? Meanwhile, Mr. White and Mr. Reed have not had a significant historical impact. Yes, they probably overcame adversity while growing up in Chicago. This is not of historical note since many people find their way past growing up in bad neighborhoods and continuing on to college.

A Scout is reverant and should be reverant of not only his own religious beliefs but those of others as well. Since not everyone even believes in a god we cannot go by any one god's standards. It is similar to the old adage about the victors writing the history books. If we write the articles by what we interpret one god's standards to be then we are ruling out everyone else's ideas that don't meet those requirements.

As for the Court of Honor link, I suggest you write an article for the Court of Honor since there still isn't one. If you provide your link as an external link it may be approved by the Wikipedia community. Dismas 02:56, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Before I begin, I'll state that I, too, was a scout in my youth. However, we must remember here that we're creating an encyclopedia, not a family album or a scouting yearbook. Wikipedia has no need to protect the dignity and honor of the scouts any more than we have to protect the dignity and honor of the IRA, the Nazi party, the KISS Army, the Church of Satan, or the Lower Wilimington Ladies' Crocheting Club. In other words, the purpose of an encyclopedia is not to make anyone look good (or bad, for that matter), but to present a well-verified and complete view of the cold, hard facts. It is one of the cruelties of history that "bad" people are often more well-remembered than "good" people. My grandfather was a great man, but will his life ever be as well-studied and widely recognised as Hitler's, or Genghis Khan's? Of course not. Our task as encyclopedia editors is not to prune history of the facts we don't like, but to present a complete and impartial viewpoint and let the reader choose for themselves. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:29, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Just thought I should also weigh in. I am an eagle scout. I think that this list, as incomplete as it is, already shows that the few bad are nothing near the majority of great eagles in this world. To the comment "I am sure that every Eagle Scout and Eagle family would agree with me." we have already shown this as wrong and I hope that this page reads as that the majority of eagles who are also wikipedia editors have shown up to say that we don't feel that the dignity of the badge is in question, truth is more important image, and we need to quit fighting over these few edits and stick to the rules of an encyclopedia. Noteworthy makes the list, whether you like them or not. Listing 2 scouts because of their race is not noteworthy, we've covered this in detail. We will take votes or protect pages if we have to but I think that we can come to an agreement here as reasonable people. Also, wikipedia is not a collection of links. I feel that that page (which I read pretty closely) is not a very helpful resourse for planning eagle courts. It would be more helpful to find a link to the offical BSA planner (should one exist) but I too would not be opposed to it being in the external links section of Court of Honor. Cavebear42 08:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As with some of the names on the Eagle Scout list, we should only add if needed. And as with anything, there is some people who wear the Eagle with honor and those who tarnish it. Granted, there are those who tarnished the Eagle Scout rank and those who wore it well. But when you get to some of the names, like Michael Moore or the young Eagle Scout that sued, we could be fighting over their names for ages if we have a list of Infamous/Famous Eagle Scouts. BTW, I am also an Eagle Scout, however, a Scout is Honest and we must tell the truth about our own, even if the truth hurts. Zscout370 19:14, 7 Feb 2005 (EST, USA)

I agree with most of you. Why we're deleting ANYONE from the list of Eagles, IMHO, is junk. Once an Eagle, Always an Eagle, whether you're the best person or the worst person in the world. Part of the charge that we all took was to the Scout Oath and Law, and I see nothing in there that says that we have to disown our own brothers, especially ones like Michael Moore. Scouting teaches us to be respectful of others, even if we disagree, and what kind of example do we really set for future Eagles if we can't even acknowledge a guy who used his love of film for his Eagle project and the improvement of the world? - Jeremiah Cook 03:03, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

eagle scout oath

I just saw this added to the page. I can find no official mention of an eagle scout oath anywhere in bsa literature. i did some searching on the net and came up with this discussion where they appear to have agreed that there is no eagle scout oath. I'm pretty sure about this but would love for someone to prove me wrong if you can find it somewhere. Cavebear42 23:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I removed it because there is no official oath, AFAIK. I am an Eagle Scout and I never took any special oath (there is a Boy Scout Oath, however). The ceremony where someone receives the Eagle award may contain a special oath, such as the one cited, but there are no rules about these ceremonies. Any oath used in them must be specific to a certain troop, area or individual ceremony (an oath used by a lot of people, even if not official, could still be relevant for this article though). Tuf-Kat 00:32, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

• • Ok, but I do wish to mention that this Oath that I took was during my Court of Honor and I remembered other scouts took it when they achieved Eagle. However, I find it surprising that this oath is not universal. Sorry about that yall. Zscout370 03:28, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • You haven't seen it in the literature because it doesn't exist, and I speak from experience. There is an organizational oath, but not one specifically for Eagle Scouts. It may be part of a local (troop/district/council) tradition, or a part of a particular Court of Honor design. I know mine did not include such a thing.
      • There does exist an Eagle Charge (http://www.usscouts.org/eagle/eaglecharge.html) and the Eagle Challenge (http://www.usscouts.org/eagle/eaglechallenge.html). The Challenge is printed and published by the BSA (even though my referenced links are not). The Challenge only requires the Eagle to listen to the words. It should also be noted that at the time of the Court of Honor, which traditionally is when these are read, the Scout is already an Eagle Scout. For all intents and purposes, a Scout is an Eagle Scout the moment his application is signed by the Council Exec (after passing the Board of Review) and his application is submitted and accepted by the National Service Center. The official Scout Oath is the only oath required of any Scout attempting or advancing in any rank. Any responses required of an Eagle during his COH are purely for ceremonial pomp and dramatic effect, as he would be an Eagle with or without the Court of Honor. SoCalTed, Eagle Scout (04 JAN 2006)

Eagle Projects

Just heard about them and I'm wondering if someone in the know could describe them here. Sebastian 21:11, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

wow, maybe we need an article if you cant find it on the wiki. the eagle project is a community service project led by the eagle candidate. the scout must first come up with a written proposal. the project must benefit the community in some way a and show the scout's leadership skills. after getting it approved, the scout exeicutes the project and finally writes up a detailed report of what he did. the project's validity is judged on the above criteria. for a quick example we will use raising a flagpole as a project. a scout says that he wants to put up a flagpole at his church and help promote patriotism. project is approved seeing as how this can be a benefit to the community. scenario 1: scout talks to the pastor who approves the project and donates the money. scout then calls the flagpole company and hires them to do the job. case closed. this project would fail. scenario 2: scout gets pastors permission to do the job. he organizes fundraisers and has 20 scouts working under him to get them money. he calls the city and gets a permit for the task. he consults a professional who advises him how to best do the task and make sure that it is done correctly and safely. he then purchases the flagpole and organizes the team that will raise it. the team raises it under his direction. this project would pass. the point is that leadership was shown and that the job was done by the scout, not his friends and family on his behalf. hopefully this gives a good start to this discussion at least. feel free to hit my talk page for more info or emails. Cavebear42 08:24, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Well, if you suggest of making a Wiki article for Eagle Scout projects, I think the basic requirements can be covered and examples of well known Eagle Scout projects. Those we can find on our own. Zscout370 19:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • i'm a little hesitant to create "well known eagle projects" because this could quickly turn into "add mine to the list" due to the fact that you would be hard pressed to find a project which people know about coast to coast. while i think that there should be an article and that example might be helpful, that could turn vanity real fast. Cavebear42 00:24, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Agreed. I think the Boy Scouts had examples listed in the "Eagle Scout Package" they give everyone who wants to go from Life to Eagle. If you want, I can find this booklet and use the examples from there. Zscout370 00:34, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • More in depth info on how to plan and carry out an Eagle Project may be more appropriate for the Wikibook on Scouting. Tuf-Kat 00:39, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • Good idea Tuf, I like it. I know there is a PDF version of the booklet I mentioned before, and I personally think that might ok to include on here. Zscout370 00:44, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • Prob not. almost everything that BSA publishes is copywritten. it would not be appropriate to include it here or on wikibooks. if you wanted to read and write in your own words the examples in the packet with links to the bsa external pdf, it would be great. i dont regularly edit on wikibooks but if you were to work there, you must also create original content. Cavebear42 00:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
            • Indeed, BSA materials are copyrighted and can't be included verbatim on any Wikimedia project. Tuf-Kat 03:40, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
              • I added a little blirp on the Eagle Scout Project. Change it on what you think seems fit. I don't know if we should give it its own page though. I know from experience that I can write a lot more in detail about it, but some of it would be more tips and personal comments rather than anything that should be in an encyclopedia. Wikibooks could work for a guide to scouting though. RENTASTRAWBERRY ^{FOR LET?} röck 03:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

To me, this section reads more like a how to, than a section of an encyclopedia article. While it is good material, I do agree that WikiBooks would be a more appropriate place for this material. I have been thinking on this for some time: it might be time to start doing some work over at WikiBooks. --Gadget850

With no other discussion, I deleted this section. The text would be very good as a start to a WikiBook. --Gadget850 19:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Scout Knot

Question, do you think it will be ok if we add an image of the knot to this page? Zscout370 02:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Seems reasonable since the article mentions it. You have an image handy? Dismas

Yes I do. I have a picture of the actual knot that I will upload. I will try to upload the medal and the Eagle palms soon, also. Zscout370 16:04, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

the knot and metal would be great. there is an Eagle Palms article where the palms would be better suited. Cavebear42 17:30, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I added a separate section in the article, called Eagle Scout Devices, where we can display the various devices worn by Eagle Scouts. Zscout370 19:38, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Eagle Scout of the Philippines Moved

The text regarding this award has been given its own page. The text remains unchanged.

Notice

Hey, I created an article: Court_of_Honor_(Scouting). I welcome anyone to edit it (once I remove the in use tag). Zscout370 (talk) 02:00, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Correct uniform placement of the medal?

I'm an Eagle Scout, wearing my uniform to church for Memorial Day.

I usually don't wear the medal for fear it'll end up in the wash.

But today being Memorial Day I thought I ought to wear it since I'm wearing my Class A Uniform.

But I didn't know which pocket to put it on. I googled for the answer, and here I am. It's not in here, and I can't edit it because I don't know the corrent answer. If anybody else knows, could you add that detail? Thanks. :)

The medal will be worn on the flap of the left uniform pocket (where the insignia is placed). This is placed below any knots you have earned. See http://www.mninter.net/~blkeagle/eagmedal.htm Zscout370 (Sound Off) 03:16, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

In addition, I have seen some Scouters wear their Eagle medal on a suit jacket on the left lapel at an Eagle Court of Honor, but I'm not sure if this is appropriate. KC9CQJ 09:11, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wear a lapel pin in situations like that. My medal is in a case/shadow box. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 15:08, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The only thing I wan't to mention to you is that if you are an adult wearing the uniform you should only have the Eagle Knot on. If you are still in scouting you can only wear the medal if you don't already have the patch sowed on. RENTASTRAWBERRY ^{FOR LET?} röck 03:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

When two badges have the same meaning, only one may be worn. Eagle is the exception to this rule: the medal may be worn when the badge or knot is worn. Reference: Scoutmaster Handbook, 1981, page 334. Normally, this is for ceremonial occasions such as a Court of Honor or Scout Sunday. --Gadget850 17:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC) (oops, forgot to sign this)

Improvement

Since this article has been nominated for improvement, I thought I would make a few suggestions:

• Move much of Eagle Scout rank in the BSA to the lead in. Move the NESA and DESA references here. Done, needs a lot of cleanup.
• A short history. Started section, but no text yet.
• Current requirements: tighten the text, more emphasis on leadership and service.
• Expand service project.
• Include palms (image?). Found it at Eagle Palm!
• Move Interpretation of the badge design to Insignia. Tighten this up
• Similar awards: move the lead in info on Philppinnes and Queens, add GSUSA Gold, Venturing Silver and anything that some folks might consider comparable.

BTW, scout should be lower case except when referring to specific persons or when it is a part of a name, title or rank.

Any other thoughts? --Gadget850 19:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I am considering removing Interpretation of the badge design altogether, as it does not really add anything to the article. If we keep it, it really needs a lot of cleanup. --Gadget850 14:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Any objections to removing this section? --Gadget850 11:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

With no toher discussion, I deleted this section. --Gadget850 19:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have made some corrections to the History section, based on Terry Grove's excellent work on the Eagle Award. --Emb021 20:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Arrow of Light and Eagle

The Arrow of Light is Cub Scouting's highest award, and as such is on par with the highest awards/ranks in the other program areas. Hence the ability of Boy Scouts to wear the insignia past the age of 11 and of adults to wear the corresponding knot. Thesquire 08:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Thus the use of comparable, not equivalent. I like what you did with that section. --Gadget850 10:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Badge/Medal

Looking at several references (Scout Handbooks, Insignia Control Guides, etc) the cloth patch is consistently referred to as a badge and the pin on emblem is a medal. Also the other rank pages use badge for the patch. --Gadget850 11:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Eagle Scout Userbox

How about making a Eagle scout userbox? Place it below. Dustimagic 19:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

See my user page for an Eagle scout userbox. It also adds you to the category. Rebelguys2 created it. Rlevse 19:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Scouts and the U.S. Military

Eagle Scouts who enlist in the US military may receive advanced rank in recognition of their achievements.

Is there anything out there we can cite? I've heard this before, but I haven't been able to find any verfiable sources with a quick Google search. I remember that Rlevse is retired from the U.S. Navy, and he could probably vouch for it, at least. -— Rebelguys2 ^talk 18:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

During my Army and Scouting careers, I jhave had Eagles Scout who enlisted at E-2. I changed this to may some time back, because it must be in the enlistment contract: there are other issues that may negate the Eagle.

• Air Force: [1]
• Marines: [2] (PDF)

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Very cool. Thanks! — Rebelguys2 ^talk 20:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they can get E-2 or E-3 automatically, depending on what is being offered at the time they join and which service they join. Rlevse 22:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The wonders of Google :-) Rather hard to pick it out though, but that's become a bit of a speciality of mine. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Revert War on Eagle Percentage

Stop the revert war on the percentage of BSA Scouts who make Eagle. As Gadget850 has provided an official BSA cite for it, this is settled. Not to mention the people who keep changing it to 2% don't even have the integrity to get an account and sign their name. Any further reverts from 4% will be reported as vandalism. Rlevse 22:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC), Scouting Project and Portal coordinator.

Returning of Eagle Scout Award

Anyone think something should be included about people returning their Eagle Awards to BSA HQ in response to BSA v. Dale or the atheist Scout being kicked out? Worldtravller 20:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No. This is about the award, not people's feelings towards it or BSA. This is more appropriate for Controversies about the Boy Scouts of America. Rlevse 21:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Worldtravller 02:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge of Eagle Palms

Propose merge from Eagle Palms. The article is short, and can certainly be tightened up enough for s section in the Eagle Scout article. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Support I always thought it was odd to have palms separate. Rlevse 18:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Support What Rlevse said. --Naha|^(talk) 20:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Support I've always kind of thought of the palms as a addition to the eagle rank not something seperate. --CCWorld 02:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

OK: I will do this in the next day or so. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

done --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Badge Symbolism

I'm just too tired to look this up right now, but this looks like it was taken from one of the ceromonies. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I cut this as it seemed to be ripped from some of the ceremony stuff. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Award Kit

It might be good to show the award kit given to an eagle scout (ie. mothers pin, award, mentor pin, father pin, and i think there was something else in there. also, a picture of the eagle certificate would be nice. the two problems with that are that first of all we need to decide whose to use, and second of all, do we blur out the name. i'm fine with using mine but i'm afraid people will take it as me trying to gloat or something. any takers?--preschooler@heart my talk - contribs 06:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

name

What's the purpose of the word "rank" in the title? The rank is called "Eagle Scout", not "Eagle Scout rank". — Dan | talk 23:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

To distinguish Eagle Scout as used here from a person who is an Eagle Scout, the Eagle Scout badge and medal, etc. Rlevse 23:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Originally, there were separate articles for each rank. After combining the other articles, rank got left in the Eagle Scout article. It's been moved now. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

GA to FA

• Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) was made a Good Article. Rlevse thinks it has FA potential.
• Rebelguys2 doesn't think it's a very well-written article at all, but it is well cited. These were some of his other comments:
  • The main problem is that the text is extremely choppy.
  • There's really not that much content in there; we should expand the article so that it's comprehensive
    • expand the history
    • perhaps add more data about how to obtain the rank
    • add a section about the Eagle Scout rank and how it relates to how it's perceived by the public, in pop culture, in history, etc.)
    • rewrite it so it's not just a long list.

What then do we need to do next? --evrik 21:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, I agree with Rebelguys2...it has the potential, but it needs work first. Rlevse 21:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The next step is to work on one of Rebelguys2's suggestions one at a time. Rlevse 21:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
    • The grammar and choppiness of this article are easy to fix. I think the main problem will still be comprehensiveness...I recommend sending this article to Wikipedia:Peer review soon, to get new sets of non-Scouting-affilitated eyes give some suggestions of what's missing to the general reader. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 17:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Great idea. Let's plan on that by the end of the week. Rlevse 20:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Evolution of the Eagle Scout Badge

It appears that much of this section (prior to my last edits) is copied from Dr Murray's The Eagle Badge page. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The section from "The types and years of the badges are" are and a footnote crediting the website as such (#15). Perhaps each type should also be credited. Any summarization or re-write of the information would have a look of outright plagiarism. So the question becomes…

• Should the article include information on the changes in the patch?
• If so, do we continue using the work and crediting Dr. Murray or do we move try to re-phrase and summarize his work with the four other sites that describe the patch through the years?
• If not, does this section stand alone without the describing the changes and rely on the scans?

I have also written to Dr. Murray requesting permission to use several scans of his Eagle Medals for this article and will ask his assistance to update this article.--dep369 17:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)Dep369

• I think if we credit him (which we already did), that would suffice for crediting purposes. If we get permission for the medals, that'd be great. I like the way Gadget850 left the wording as of this moment. Rlevse 17:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• We still have to fix the text. Before I started to fiddle with it, most of it was copied directly, and I only made a few changes. Please look at WP:CP and WP:NPS. There is more room for improvement in this section. I'm still wiped out from 4 days of Wood Badge staff, so I'm going to let it lay for now (I was just making too many typos). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hot tub! After reflection (and a long soak), the text of this section MUST be deleted and replaced with text that is not in violation. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• I put a line with a ref to a footnote. However, I am not sure this is the best way to do this. Perhaps we should just put it in the reference section OR if we get his permission, it be okay to use. I think it'd be hard to rewrite what he wrote and do justice to the badge variations. Rlevse 01:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• I took a stab at it- let me know what you think. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• • I like it. Rlevse 13:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think this closes this issue. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Improvements

Lead-in:

• Needs a bit more polish. Wimvandorst worked this

Needs more work. Not sure about the title of the new section. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• "only Boy Scout rank held for life." This is nagging me. If someone slapped a cite tag on it, I couldn't answer for it. reworded to worn on adult uniform and added uniform manual ref

Of course- it has the knot for adults! --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

History:

• When did Eagle go from a merit badge to a rank? added
• When did the badge move from the sash to the pocket?

Interesting. My 3rd edition handbook (1933) has Eagle as a rank, but it's still in the merit badge section. The illustration of the uniform shows Star and Life on the bottom of the merit badge sash and Life on the left pocket. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, very interesting; I've left a question on this on the forum at USScouts. When we get this answer, I think we should submit this for peer review, then later FAC. Rlevse 11:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Badge introduced in 1924. added
• Palms in 1927. added
• Square knot in 1947. added

Insignia

• Polish

Evolution

• Re-write to clean up copyvio issues.
• Fold beginning paragraphs into the types.
• Move wear on sash to history.
• The Type 1 shown does not have a Good Turn knot, contrary to the text. However, [[3]] does show a T1 with knot. figured it out

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Section name: How about History of the Eagle Scout badge. This would match other Scouting article titles.
  • Then what about badge vs rank? Rlevse 18:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm proposing a change of the section name from Evolution of the Eagle Scout Badge to History of the Eagle Scout badge. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC) someone changed it already --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Could the wide badges picture be done differently, e.g., two rows of four badges? Then it'll fit much better on the average screen. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC).

Good idea. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit shorter now that I merged the type 8 series. What do you think? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Better although not complete yet. I split the table to show what I mean, which comes out better in narrow windows (or large print). Perhaps a completely different layout altogether, e.g., separate pictures all right aligned? Give it a try if you feel like it. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC).

Copyright issues

And another thing is that the text of the Type 1 to 8 is a literal copy of Ref-12 (Craig Murray's website). This is probably a blatant copyright infringement, isn't it? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC).

Fraid so, except for some edits I made before I noticed. See the section above. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

If you spent anytime reading the pages by Dr. Murray you would soon see 1. No Copyright on the text, only the scans by a third party. 2. The front page of the Eagle Badge states "It is my intention to bring you a little history about early scout badges. This is research by me and others who have spent a great deal of time learning about and categorizing these early scout badges. It is my hope that what you learn from these pages, you will pass on to others for the greater enjoyment of scouting. I welcome any questions, so please feel free to e-mail me." It encourages others to "spread the word". Dr Murray has been contacted and I will let everyone know of his thoughts on this matter.--dep369 02:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)Dep369

Lack of a copyright statement is not enough. To use text from another source like this, there must be an explicit statement of use. In addition, the page does note "The information about the badges was obtained from A Comprehensive Guide to the EAGLE SCOUT AWARD by Terry Grove." We have no idea how much text was used from the Grove source. Please: let's just get past this and do it in our OWN words. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Type 1 image. If you read the text, it states that the first patches issued for the World Jamboree contingent was the only one of the TYPE 1 Patches to have the "Good Turn" knot. Hence all other Type 1 patches would not have the knot. If you look at the scans om Dr. Murray's site, you will notice this also. I did not include a scan of every subtype, but tried to keep it simple. Aside from the few badges issued to the Jamboree contingent, everyone else was awarded the patch that is shown. Maybe it's time for everyone to read everything before jumping to conclusions.--dep369 02:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)Dep369

I finally figured that out after looking at the list of sub-types. That link wasn't real obvious at first. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Issue resolved --Gadget850 ( Ed) 10:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

ebay

We made it to ebay! Take a look at items 7768944704 and 7769471125! --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Improvements (2)

• The lead-in got chopped and needs work. did minor work
• The "everday life" section needs work, starting with the title. combined with lead
  • did some tweaking myself- much better --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
• Needs a reference to Eagle Scouts in pop culture, perhaps drawing from Scouting in popular culture made direct link in See also section
  • good --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
• Photos: Eagle ceremony; presentation kit
• History of medals to match the badge history this can come at a later time--Ed; done, didn't see your comment, need photos with approval, which I asked for--Rlevse

Looks good. I think it should be simplified to match the badge history.

I reorged it by manufacturer, so that the names were not repeated on every line. I then cleaned it up to make it match the badge history in style. At least I now know what "925" means.

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

• I've been thinking that the badge and medal history really pulls the focus away from the subject proper. Perhaps this should be split to History of Eagle Scout insignia. Thoughts? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Some of the Eagle Insignia only mentioned here: hat pin, ribbon, knot, father's pin, mother's pin, mentor pin, lapel pin. Then there's a bazillion other bits of memorabilia produced over the years. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

• If so, why don't we set up a new article dedicated to the history of all the rank and postion patches? I have patches for most types and probably can have other contribute to the cause. With that said, should the notable eagle list be merged with this article? It would be nice to name some great American's that received their Eagle badge, like President Ford and Astronaut Neil Armstrong, Baseball Player Hank Aaron, Director Steven Spielberg and Sam Walton of the Wal*Mart fame. Your thoughts.

--dep369 16:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)Dep369

• • I've been thinking that too Gadget850. I also feel put the notalbe Eagle list would cause the same problem, so it should remain separate. At most, I'd only mention a very few of the most famous Eagles, with a link to the main list, which is too big too merge anyway. Rlevse 18:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• • • I think that we should just leave a link to the list of Eagle Scouts – it's extremely long, which is justification for giving it it's own article. At the same time, mentioning just a handful of Eagles would likely force someone to cry that the article is biased, since we'll be keeping some names and leaving out others. As a side note – the list of Eagle Scouts notes that Hank Aaron is not an Eagle.
    • I really don't mind either way about the history, as I think it really fleshes out this article at the moment and isn't overbearing like a list of notable Eagles would be. At the same time, the order of sections seems a little random, so I'm going to flip the Insignia section with the opportunities section, so that the Insignia section immediately segues into information about the medal and patch.
    • Finally, I've been thinking about pruning the Similar Awards section; in particular, the list of awards in other BSA programs. Is the Arrow of Light really comparable to Eagle Scout? I haven't heard of anyone really thinking that. At the same time, the list is really sparse – I'm sure we could draw a parallel to the highest award in every Scouting organization in the world. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Considering that Arrow of Light, Eagle Scout, Silver and Quartermaster are the only current youth program knots that adults can wear, then I would consider them to be comparable. I think Wood Badge might not belong here though. I've added every similar non-BSA award that I can find. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I replaced the image in the table in the lead, Image:BSA eagle.jpg, with Image:Ctf3.jpg, which Rlevse recently uploaded. Revert me if I'm wrong; I'm going from his edits to the table that it's the most recent version. Is Image:BSA eagle.jpg going to be useful as another medal version? — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• • THe image you replaced would be useful as a medal version if we can figure out which one it is. Rlevse 21:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Scout outside Boy Scouting

At lease half the text is about the Eagle in Scouting. This needs a better name. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you missed the details, so I agree that it needs a better name: the whole text is about the Eagle Scout outside BOY Scouting. This 'boy' word was inserted intentionally. How about things like:

• Eagle Scout beyond boyhood
• Eagle Scout in later life
• Eagle Scout in adult life

Met vriendelijke groeten, Wim van Dorst (Talk) 10:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC).

Pruning of the lead text

It is my perception that the lead text should define and summarize. The previous text did IMHO do that well. The pruning of the lead text gives me the impression of a downgrading edit without purpose. Would you please explain the edit? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 10:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC).

• You are going to have to define "previous", as there have been a number of edits lately. Statements with "weasle words" were removed. My last edit as of yesterday was to remove the reference to Palms and wear of the medal and badge. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• I'm writing of the edit that removes the reference to Palsm and to the wear of the medal and badge. The version before that was of my own hand. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC).
• Ah: so many changes in the last week.

<opinion mode> The badge and the medal are NOT the Eagle Scout. The lead-in should be a quick overview of the subject, and these are not the core. Indeed, the image at the top should be of an Eagle Scout Court of Honor or of a service project in action (I've been looking through my archives). The lead-in does need at least one more sentence, but I have not been able to visualize it.</opinion mode> --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

But also note Featured Article criteria specify the intro should be an overview of the whole article. I suggest we leave the medal and patch in, put something in the intro about it, and see what happens when we submit for FA. Aside from that, I also agree the intro needs 1-2 more sentences but haven't come up with anything good yet. Everyone feel free to take a try at it. Rlevse 01:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• Aha, Ed I see your point. As Rlevse points out, this article is mostly about the rank or award of Eagle Scout (with the requirements and insignia that come with it, and much less about the boy or person Eagle Scout. It would make an interesting section, though, probably just before 'After becoming an Eagle Scout', indicating what makes a boy to stand out and why he does the things you must do for becoming an Eagle Scout. Tricky, though, as that would definitely incur a lot of weasle words and very difficult NPOV discussion. Personally, I feel that this encyclopedic article must just stick to the hard facts, and the palms (it redirects here) and other insignia are a significant part of that. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 07:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC).
• Thus my use of <opinion>. I have a number of other opinons on Eagle Scout, but they don't belong here. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:00, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• Added the badge and medal: thoughts? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I like it. I still think 1-2 sentences more would be good, but again, I'm having trouble coming up with something good.Rlevse 13:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Better, but not there yet. I'll give it another try. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC).

So, I redid it the opening text. My intention is as follows:

• First a defining sentence: rank as well as boy
• Then putting the picture in the US society: since 1911 over 1.5M Eagle Scouts. This whole paragraph is about the Scout, and not the badge and medal, which I'm intending to be facilitating Ed's opinion (I agree with him)
• Following a new paragraph about requirements and insignia, including Palms (they're defined in this article so must be in)

How about that? This is IMHO a balanced intro-text, so I would appreciate further changes to be supported by a good explanation here. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC).

I really like the intro now. I think we should go to FAC when I have the medal photos done, which should be in a few days. Rlevse 15:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Did you forget to add merit badge requirements for palms. As stated "Additional recognition can be awarded with Eagle Palms for completing tenure and leadership requirements" one would think that staying in Scouting and being a leader is all you have to do, where there is actual work that had to be done to recieve the additional honors. Just a thought.--dep369 16:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)Dep369

Good point, I just added it. Rlevse 17:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I reworded the first sentence again, to even better summarize and define. The title of the article is Eagle Scout, and therefore I followed the line of Ed's opinion further to explicitly word the phrase about the Boy Scout and not the the rank. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC).

Medal Photos

A Scouting buddy of mine here in my local area has a full set of Eagle medals I can scan and use to complete our medal graphics--just as the patch graphics are complete. My suggestion is that when I complete that (expect 1 week or less), and assuming we're not working any major article issues, that we take this article off peer review and submit for FAC. Rlevse 13:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• Cool! Any more thoughts on splitting this off? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I think we should leave the medals and patches in and see what is said about it during FAC.Rlevse 15:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• BTW: I broke down and ordered the Terry Grove book from Amazon. Should have it in a few days. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I see that the medals picture collection is complete. That is good, but the variety between them is very minimal: to an untrained eye they are effectively nearly all exactly the same, unlike the badges where even an ordinary interested reader can spot the obvious changes. Although it is worthwhile to have a complete collection somewhere, could a smaller number of pictures be considered for this article, e.g., one per producer? Perhaps a medal dedicated article could give all the pictures and details? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC).

And on a more technical note: the 9-pic wide table is too wide to fit even on my full screen browser window, inducing unwanted horizontal scrolling. And normally I don't even use full screen windows, and/or use a well readable (larger than standard MSIE I guess) fonts, so that even the 8-pic wide table of badges is too wide. That was the reason I split the badges table into two: if they do not fit next to eachother the browser will display the above eachother. I would think we'll have to give the picture presentations of medals and badges some serious thought. Please comment. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC).

Good points. I'll mull this over. Rlevse 22:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I just received the Grove book from an Amazon seller. At 182 pages, I've just skimmed through this, but the mass of information and detail is astounding. Per the preface, this is the last version- the next volume will cover from 2000 on; so if you want one, make sure it's the 20th Century Edition. I'll have to do a mini-review later. The Amazon feedback page is probably a good place for that. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

This book is amazing. It starts off with a history (nothing really new by now) including a breakdown of requirement changes. It lists the first nine Eagles and their merit badges earned, including a 33 year-old Scoutmaster and four of his Scouts. Then we have history of the medals, the badges, hat pins, boxes, presentation kits, wallet cards, certificates and presidential letters and more. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Rebelguys2 is an Eagle Scout and superb copyeditor. If it weren't for him, my History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America) article would not have made FA. He says he'll give this Eagle Scout article a good copyedit. Let's see where we're at after he's done. Rlevse 13:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a few things that I found a little unclear while wading through the article. I'm pretty sure I know what they all refer to, but I'd rather someone with a little more knowledge make the actual changes.

• In 1 History, we should explain what a gold eagle "device" is.
• In 2.1 Development, is there a better term we can use than "super" merit badge?
• Further in 2.1 Development, the meaning of, "to 16 of the 21," is a little hazy.
• In the inter-wiki list, there's a link to what I'm assuming is a Dutch article, nl:Kroonverkenner. It doesn't look like an article about the BSA's Eagle Scout, but an equivalent Dutch rank. Therefore, this one should go, while the Hebrew one looks good. Can anyone clear this up before it's removed? — Rebelguys2 ^talk 00:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Worked 1 History and 2.1 Development 16 to 21. For the "super" merit badge, that is what was used in the Scouting magazine article and I can't think of another way to word it yet. For inter-wiki, I ask Wimvandorst to work on that one. Rlevse 01:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• Indeed, the NL:kroonverkenner is the Dutch variant of the Eagle Scout. If someone could move it from interwiki to 'see also' that's fine with me, but I technically don't know how. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 16:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC).
• I suppose we could add it to the equivalent list- what does kroonverkenner mean in English? (I'm guessing 'kroon' is 'crown'). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It's already in the equivalent list, but without a link. As far as I know, you can't do a regular wiki link to an interwiki on an article page, just on talk pages--I don't understand why. WIM: Since it's short, could you translate it into English-and maybe expand a little, create the article on en wiki, and put it in the "Scouting by country" category? Then we can easily put it into the equivalent section as a link.Rlevse 17:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)...another reason to do it this way is people often object to FACs with foreign language links. Rlevse 17:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Dutch link is solved here. But the overwide picture tables are still there... Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC).

• I think that's it for major stuff except we need to decide what to do with the images in the medal and patch section. I'd like to at least figure out how to get the label and image lined up. Wim suggested groups of four for lower resolutions, but if they float, it'll misalign on higher resolutions. Rlevse 22:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Yep, I vote for working on the layout of medals and patches and then going for FAC. Wim's idea of groups of 4 patches and 1 image per medal company may be the way to go. Seventeen medal images can be a bit overwhelming. I also feel the those sections don't warrant a separate article. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO USE MY SANDBOX for layout experiments. I've copied the sections there. Rlevse 23:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
• I got the lines in the tables straight. I'm ok with putting it for FAC now if the other users are. If there is some other bit of info you'd like in the article, please add it soon. Rlevse 13:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• • How would it look if you split the tables by manufacturer?
  • I have to agree with a comment made earlier: these look very similar; especially when compared to the badge section. This is not intended for the serious collector, so would it be better to show only samples with major differences? Perhaps a collage or blowup with major changes.

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• • • There are 5 manufacturers, so there'd be 5 images, all in one row. To make the narrative match the images, a rewrite would be required. Then what would we do with the 12 unused images? I think the badge section is just fine. It's only the medals we need to tweak. Rlevse 16:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)...Going this route, the sample Foley and Clust medals are almost identical, the final group could go to 4. Rlevse 16:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I know it hurts, but I did it: I simply reduced the medals table to just the one for each producer (five makes it stand out from the two foursomes for the badges. I retained the producers' names to make the distinction, and I just took a nice looking one from the producers with several, albeit I intentionally took CFJ3 as it being the really current one. And it think the article FAC-ready now too. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC).

• I want to try to center the tables for medal and badge. Gadget is working on an alternate write up for the medals too....later on...got them centered using html blank tables. Waiting on possible write up change. Rlevse 22:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I wondered if you were still watching my sandbox :-). What do you think? I believe Murray's site is based on an older version of the Grove book, thus I going with Grove on some details. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I like it. I think if you make the CTF section like the rest of it, it will be fine. Rlevse 22:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Hey- I had to do some work today! I kept getting interrupted this afternoon, so I took it to the sandbox. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Guys- have at it! --Gadget850 ( Ed) 00:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• The new prose, non-list version is a very good improvement. That's for keeping. The centering of the tables doesn't come out optimally, though, so that needs further tweaking. Personally, I prefer left alignment, and notably the combined badges box Rlevse made yesterday or so, but is seems to have been changed for table centering again? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 07:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC).
• Thanks. As a list it was good, but it just didn't work as prose. I'm going to work the badge section as well. Since these are major re-writes, I'm doing them in my sandbox then moving them over. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

done --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Notable or cruft?

• The 4th Eagle was a 31 year-old scoutmaster, followed by four of his Scouts.
• BSA quietly dropped the signature of the President of the US from 1999 to 2002 on Eagle certificates.

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What version was that in? I can't find it. Right now, I'd say cruft for the 4th Eagle and interesting for the Pres' sig (I didn't know they'd dropped it for awhile). Rlevse 13:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

They dropped the signature after Eagle Scouts complained they didn't want Bill Clinton's signature on their certificates because of the Monica thing.

Check this news article out:http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=13204

Also from this site (http://members.aol.com/coffeeweb/LO/faq16.htm) I found this to be interesting:

The Medal and badge legally, are the property of the Boy Scouts of America and the BSA, through a local Council, can ask for those items back at any time. Have they? Only in extreme cases dealing with a massive child abuse or other unusual reasons. In most cases, if the Badge belongs to you, you may do whatever it is you would like with it. --dep369 14:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)--dep369 13:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)Dep369--dep369 14:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)Dep369

• • EAGLE ADULTS-BSA passed a rule change in 1952 to end adults becoming Eagles, but many councils kept allowing it anyway, so in 1965 they put in the troop job requirement, putting an end to troop scouts becoming Eagles. Until 1971 or so, Explorers could get Eagle until they were 21. Then the adult Eagle saga was over for once and for all. Rlevse 02:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• The Grove book has a section on the history of the wallet cards and the certificates. It notes that the signature was quietly dropped. It speculates that this was in response to the Clinton issues, and the rumour that Eagle Scouts were returning their certificates to National. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I guess that wasn't a rumour.

I'd say the 4th Eagle being an adult is notable, especially since it has been quite some time since adults were allowed to earn ranks in the BSA. --Habap 15:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We already mention elsewhere that adults could earn the award and during what years. Rlevse 15:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhap, since we mention that 8 of the first 9 eagles did not get star or life we could mention that one of the nine was an adult. (End of first Paragraph)Just a thought. --dep369 22:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)Dep369

• The fourth Eagle Scout was Sidney Clapp of West Shokan, NY. Clapp, a 31 year-old scoutmaster was followed by four of the Scouts from his troop. The Eagle Scout badge issued to Clapp was a Foley with a "double drop ribbon"– the ribbon was folded through the scroll and dropped behind and below the eagle pendant and was cut in a swallowtail. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 00:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Patch/badge/emblem

Patch is a generic term. Per the Language of Scouting:

badge

Usually lowercase when referred to badges that Scouts can earn: "Webelos activity badge," "Wolf badge," "Boy Scout badge," "merit badge"; however, "Wood Badge."

emblem

Do not capitalize: jamboree emblem, compass points emblem, Trained Leader emblem, and all of the religious emblems (God and Me emblem, Alpha Omega emblem).

BSA documents are consistent: ranks are badges. Other patches such as leadership are emblems. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Without BSA

Should the Robbins medal without the BSA be included to show an example of one? A row under the medal could state with BSA and without BSA.--dep369 12:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)Dep369

• Done. Good idea.Rlevse 15:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Medal layout

I switched the Stange to a Stange 5 as we have a nicer pic of that one. I also moved to images to the left as Wim mentioned, but I really do not like them floated left/right unless the text is beside them. I do like centered without text. I am okay with either way. I also added a single pic of one without BSA on it per Dep369, putting it separate as it seemed to make the group pic too big, leaving little side room for text and causing problems with low resolution monitors. Rlevse 15:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• I like it. Can we fix that stray sentence that ends up under the badge images? I've fiddled with it a bit and don't see how to do that. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Do you mean the text lines under the medal and badge images that look like they should be left-aligned? Not that I know of as the images have white space borders around them. I may be able to shrink the border a bit though. Rlevse 17:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• The last half of the sentence "switching to cotton in 1940." was rather orphaned. I moved some text: what do you think? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • That must be your browser or screen resolution. It looks fine on my work and home computers.Rlevse 20:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Left-aligned, with text at the right, all loose end wrapped up: I'd say it is done. This is really nice, and we should let it mature for a couple of days, so that it can be considered a stable article (requirement for FA). And then put it up on the WP:FAC. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 18:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC).

• • • Agreed. I'll Rebelguys2 to look again. Rlevse 20:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Gadget: on my screen the badge "orphan fix" looks worse as there's 1.5 sentences above the badge image now. Rlevse 23:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• Floated it right. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 00:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, I think it looks better floated left because as for the other images, 4 are on the right and 1 on the left, so floating this one left gives the article more balance. Rlevse 01:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Tweaking Language

I don't think this paragraph is accurate.

As Eagle Scout is the highest award in the Boy Scout program, it is considered comparable to the highest awards in other BSA programs such as the Cub Scout Arrow of Light, the Varsity Scouts Denali Award, the Venturing Silver Award and the Sea Scouts Quartermaster Award. It can also be compared to the Gold Award of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

I don't have an alternative. --evrik 13:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think he meant in the sense they are the highest of their level. I'll see if I can reword it. Rlevse 13:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the BSA awards, with the exception of Quartermaster are not necessarily considered equal. --evrik 19:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

They are neither equal nor unequal. They are equivalent in that they are the highest award of each division. I would be just as happy putting these in the see also section. Thoughts? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather leave it where it's at. I think the article is in excellent shape at the moment.Rlevse 21:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it is inaccurate, the arrow of light is given to 5th graders for attending several activities sessions, the eagle scout rank takes hundreds of hours of work, massive responsibility, and extensive planning and cannot be achieved by simply showing up.Tjb891 18:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

We're not saying they are equivalent in work, but in that they are equivalent in being the highest level ...I just changed this, hopefully it's less confusing now. Rlevse 19:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• I've made some small changes that make me happier with that section of the article. -evrik 18:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

• Just a thought... the Eagle Scout award is made by the National Court of Honor of the Boy Scouts of America. In this way it is unlike any of the other "highest awards," except for Quartermaster which, I believe is still awarded by the NCOH. The NCOH also awards the Medals for Lifesaving / Meritourious action and the Silver Buffalo / Antelope / Eagle. Should the article mention the National Court of Honor as the awarding auhtority of the BSA? --Jdurbach 18:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I like the idea. --evrik 16:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Include wallet card image?

Would it help any to include an image of any of the generations of wallet cards? --JohnDBuell 01:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

We'd need an old one (I don't think I have one) and we'd have to blot out names. But I think this is a possibility. Rlevse 01:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said, mine's from 1993. If anyone has a pre-plastic card one, or a modern white one to contrast that to, it could work. Or just put up a pre-plastic card one.... --JohnDBuell 01:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Did the design change between 1993 and 2003? If they did, I can scan mine. It's not in the best condition though. I think a friend of mine might have a more recent one is that one's different too. Counterfit 08:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Main page

Assuming this makes FA, I plan to ask it be on the main page on Aug 21, 2006, the 94th anniversary of the first Eagle Scout, Arthur Rose Eldred. Rlevse 15:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Great idea! --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• According to his wikipage, his birthday is 16th August. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 16:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC).
• 21st is the date of his Eagle BOR date, which is why I thought of that date. The BOR date is one's official eagle date. Rlevse 16:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I had seen that: I was just kidding. You're very focussed, aren't you? :-) Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC).
    • Yes, most people would call me anal-compulsive, extremely organized/efficient/punctual, and someone who gets things done on time. In other words, I'm a balance to all the touchy-feely, unorganized procrastinators and lateniks. Rlevse 21:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 0.5 Nominations

In the case of FA, we should also list it for V0.5 and then V1.0 when that goes live. I don't think History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America) would qualify because I think most people wouldn't consider the MB article "significant", but Eagle Scout would certainly be.Rlevse 13:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Since Gerald Ford is also listed, that makes two Eagle related articles! --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It got shot down. There's a big debate on the V0.5 talk page. Rlevse 12:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I readded it, per that big debate on talk, let another user review it like Titoxd. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 21:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Reviews are the luck of the draw. Thanks for readding though. Rlevse 22:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I feel that this article is lacking some very important information. Whoever wrote this needs to include the percentige of boys who actually obtain the rank of Eagle. (I believe the figure is about 2%) Next, the author needs to include more about the enormous undertaking and difficulties of becoming an Eagle Scout. As an Eagle Scout(silver palm), I don't think this article reflects on what it truely means to be an Eagle.

Then contribute those things to it. Rlevse 00:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

new Peerreviewer.js output

• The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question (due to possible javascript errors/uniqueness of articles).

• See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.

• Per WP:WIAFA, Images should have concise captions.

• There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City. (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)

• Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18&nbsp;mm.

• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view. For example,
  • apparently
  • is considered
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).

• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a.
• You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions (and the javascript checklist; see the last paragraph in the lead) for further ideas.

All in all useful recommendations, I'd say. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:53, 21 June 2006 (UTC).

initial responses

1. No.
2. N/A here.
3. No.
4. I don't even see a unit of measure, but I did fix some hyphens with –
5. apparently applies because it makes sense and there is no proof, rm considered
6. copyedit done
7. did that

Rlevse 23:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

military?

Somewhere, I have heard that the military officially recognizes Eagle Scouts by allowing them to enlist with an advanced pay grade, i.e., E-2 or E-3 instead of plain recruit. Or maybe it is just the army. Any clues? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.150.59.208 (talk • contribs)

Yes. It is in the "After becoming an Eagle Scout" section, with references 24 and 25. Took me quite a while to find those. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is offered by all services. One of my Eagles is enlisting in the Marines and I think he's getting E-2. The Army Enlistment Program documentation states the following about the pay grade for a candidate who:

(11) Has taken part in the Naval Sea Cadet Corps (NSCC) and has been awarded Quartermaster Award (Certificate) may enlist at any time at pay grade PV2.

(12) Has been awarded the Boy Scout Eagle certificate as a member of the Boy Scouts of America (Form 58–708) may enlist at any time at pay grade PV2.

(13) Has earned the Girl Scout Gold award certificate as a member of the Girl Scouts of America may enlists at any time at pay grade E–2.

So, it is true. --Habap 17:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Definitely true. I recall putting in the refs back then. I also personally know people who have enlisted with this benefit.Rlevse 18:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the most an Eagle Scout can enlist into the Marine Corps as is E-2. Which is the same as those with two years of High School ROTC, and a few other things. I've never heard of anyone enlisting as E-3, I don't think its actually possible in the Marine Corps. Gelston 08:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Missing Requirement

People have completed all previous requirements for being an egal scout and been outed later on or have admitted to not recognizing a god and been stripped or denied egal scout rank. I think that egal scout is a great acheivement but in fairness to the groups thta are defacto excluded even if they meet all the other laudable requirements it should at least be acknowledged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.125.106.82 (talk • contribs) 18:33 22 September 2006

As best I can tell from this, you believe that some Scouts have had their Eagle Scout denied or removed for some reason. As far as I know, no one who has actually earned Eagle Scout has ever had it removed. BSA policy is that once a badge, rank or award is earned, it is never questioned. I am also not aware that anyone has been denied Eagle Scout per se, though several have been denied membership in the BSA for various reasons. While denying membership does effectively deny Eagle Scout, it is a rather different issue, and it is covered in depth in Boy Scouts of America membership controversies. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

If we were to acknowledge someone who did everything but believe in God (which BSA believes is a core element of Scouting), why shouldn't we also acknowledge those who did everything except their Eagle Project? Or how about those who would have had enough merit badges if they'd just had more time? Or those that intended to make Eagle but never got around to it? If you complete all of the requirements, including living your life according to the Scout Oath (duty to God's in there) and Scout Law (don't forget a Socut is Reverent), then you're an Eagle Scout. Otherwise, you are not.

I do remember hearing that some Eagles have "renounced" their Eagle, but in the eyes of the BSA, as Ed states, once an Eagle, always an Eagle. I mean, wouldn't they "strip" it from murderers before athiests? --Habap 19:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, only a belief in a higher power is required and that is an individual thing. God is defineable by each individual in BSA. Neither church attendance, praying, membership in an organized religion, or any of that is required. One's idea of God could be a non-specific universal power. No where does it say "thou shalt be a Christian (or any other religion) and go to church each week. If an atheist doesn't like that, then he can go form his own organization. Rlevse 20:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Nothing I said indicated anything about organized religion or what form God takes. --Habap 21:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

benefits?

Howdy, I would like to see a small paragraph about the benefits of completing the Eagle award. Besides college, military, and career, what kind of discounts are there? The only one i know of is car insurance... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.132.133.60 (talk • contribs)

Car insurance? What company offers a discount? I would think that its going to vary by company. At one point, we had a list of various scholarships, but pared it down to the NESA administered scholorship[s and a note that there are more. If this is true, I would suggest you add a sentence stating that some companies may offer discounts. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Car insurance discounts are a trivial benefit and not worth mentioning.Rlevse 03:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'd be interested to see this in here, as I believe some others would as well. (As an Eagle Scout myself, this would be useful information) Kcbnac 14:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Not sure

I'm not sure why or how, but when you enter this page without being logged in, it has something on the page about maralyn monroe created the eagle scout badge. I'm not sure how to get it off or move it to another section. its on the very bottom below the references.All4One 00:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

IT was vandalism, lets us know if it comes back, should be gone now. Rlevse 00:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Note: Next time we get featured on the main page, lets get the article protected. This is going to be a mess to clean up. I feel like leaving it alone till tomorrow evening and then reverting the whole mess. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 03:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See User:Raul654/protection. Also, there doesn't seem to be a ludicrous amount of vandalism; a few editors watching the page should be plenty. --Slowking Man 03:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

As I've always said, we shouldn't have to fight vandals. Everyone should have an acct and every vandal should be ruthlessly permanently blocked. Rlevse 03:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The wiki powers that be refuse to protect the main page FA. Others don't agree, like me, but the ones with power hold the big card. When my MB article was on the MP, it got vandalized over 40 times. Rlevse 03:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

We are at 75 edits- some look valid, several are reverts and most are plain vandalism. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 03:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The 40 I mention were pure vandals, not counting reverts and valid edits. We have some valid edits tonight too, plus a few that don't matter, such as rearranging the table sides.Rlevse 03:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It isn't an issue of the "powers that be" deciding anything. I would gladly protect the main page featured article if there was a community consensus to do so, and I'm sure plenty of other admins would as well. However, protection is harmful, and should only be a last resort. --Slowking Man 03:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Totally disagree, we shouldn't have to fight the vandal scum in the first place and do you really want people coming in to see the MP article in vandalized form when they first come to wiki? And if you do protect it, Raul will just get on your case....yes, I've seen that happen. I have always and will always say the arguments for not protecting the main page are pure hogwash...for example, "here's one of wiki's best, just as you call it up with porn inserted by a vandal....Rlevse 03:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

While vandalism is a problem (and hopefully the proposed stable versions system will help to alleiviate this), I'm still convinced the benefits of leaving the Main Page featured article unprotected outweigh the problems caused. Both protecting the featured article and prohibiting anonymous editing have been proposed and rejected many times. Wikipedia's openness is one of its strengths, if not its strongest, and I predict that requiring users to log in to edit would cause Wikipedia's quality and popularity to quickly decrease. --Slowking Man 03:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. And the crux of the matter is that we are dealing here with an official Wikipedia policy, i.e. a standard that all users should follow. See Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy#When not to use semi-protection. The protection should be removed. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Might it be possible to freeze the page and then leave a section at the bottom open, in order for notes to be added, but only in that space? That way the whole article wouldnt have to be watched on fetured pages. not even sure if its possible, but maybe.All4One 02:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

Would it behoove this article to point out that the award though ostensibly for life can be and has been rescinded in cases of homosexual or atheist scouts? i guess the controversy is not pertinent to the eagle scout rank as such but rather to the BSA as a whole still it is a subject which has received some news in recent years and might be worth mentioning in some context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.229.27 (talk • contribs)

[New topics go at the bottom of the page- just click on the + beside Edit this page to start a new topic. Please sign you edits.] BSA policy is that awards are never rescinded. This has come up before- if you have a reference, please share it. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 04:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Gadget is right, BSA won't rescind them, that is UFL-Urban Folk Legend. Some have apparently turn in or renounced their Eagle award, but I have not seen proof of that either. The only story along this line that is verified true is that Steven Spielberg resigned from the BSA national board over this issue, but he did not turn in his Eagle award over it. Rlevse 11:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It is a lie to say that Eagle Scout is held for life. But if I try to edit to correct this with a neutral point of view, making no statements about whether this policy is "good" or "bad", it promptly gets edited out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.214.156.48 (talk • contribs)

Again, do you have a reference for this? A newspaper article, a web site, anything? If you have nothing beyond innuendo, then any such statement will be removed. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The anon doesn't know what he's talking about. Rlevse 02:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Rlevse is right, two of my brothers are Eagle Scouts, my third brother is doing his Eagle Project right now, and my mother is on a Eagle Scout Review Board (they verified that the Eagle Scout Candidates do everything they're supposed to satisfaction); and I can definitely tell you that it is held for life. Is verficiation needed for this? My brothers have all the printed materials at home, and I can add them as citations for the article. With Regards Zidel333 04:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
  • If you've got something that says "Eagle is held for life" or such, by all means. A web based ref is even better. If it's a brochure or something, it could be scanned and put into wikisource. Rlevse 10:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Notable Eagle Scouts

What are your thoughts on mentioning a few examples of notable Eagle Scouts in this article? I was thinking after the sentence "As such, they are disproportionately represented in the military, service academy graduates, major professions, business and politics" in the "After becoming an Eagle Scout" section? I think something like, "Many prominent American politicians, including several presidents (such as Gerald Ford), members of the U.S. military—including numerous Apollo astronauts, academics, and business leaders are or were Eagle Scouts" would give better context for the statement. As it is now, the statement feels kind of weaselish. Feel free to hack up my sentence, too; it's just an example, and it sounds kind of unwieldy, but my brain isn't working at full power right now.

Also, can someone find a reference for the number of Distinguished Eagle Scout Award recipients? I tried searching around on the BSA and NESA sites, and a little Google-fu, but I couldn't seem to turn up any numbers. --Slowking Man 09:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The number of DESAs is derived from a list Terry Lawson of BSA sent me, which is the list I used to build my Troop179 DESA page (yes, I counted them). A short set of example Eagles is okay with me, but I wouldn't get carried away with it. See List of notable Eagle Scouts, which is up for featured list right now.Rlevse 11:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

There are 1645 DESA currently on the list (copy the HTML table to Excel and it is easy to count). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're using my list, that won't have most of the ones from the last few years. I'd have to get an update from BSA to have them. the only ones of those I have are ones I happen to hear about. Rlevse 14:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thats why I used "under 2000" in the articles. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

When this is all done, I'm going to use the 16:46, 10 November 2006 version as a baseline and do a diff. I've seen a few good changes and I don't want to lose them amidst the sea of edits. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Reef Knot?

Why is the square knot refered to as a reef knot with the two images, but as square knot in the text. These patches are always refered to as square knots in BSA literature, never as reef knots. I didn't want to change them until I found out why. --Emb021 17:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone just changed it today, but only in the images. US and BSA useage is square knot. Revert if you want, but I'm not getting heated up over it right now. I figure we will have to go through this after the main page changes. I asked a couple of the editors who looked like they were making worthy contributions to hold off a bit. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• My last edit tried to fix it. --evrik ^(talk) 18:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. There was another image using the term and I changed it there also. I was more concerned that they may have been some upper level Scouting Project decision and it get into somekind of 'fight' if I fixed it. --Emb021 14 November 2006

BSA usage is square knot, especially for the insignia. Somebody got term happy. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Should this be added?

• "Eagle Scout Service Project in Africa". Retrieved 2006-11-14. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

--evrik ^(talk) 19:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It is good, but I'm don't believe it would add anything. Perhaps a list of notable Eagle projects? :-) --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, NESA now has a list of projects. [4] --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Palm colors

After the first three Palms are awarded, additional Palms are obtained by combining the colors such as "Bronze/Gold". These are very rare awards http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eagle_Scout_%28Boy_Scouts_of_America%29&diff=87811161&oldid=87811012 --evrik ^(talk) 19:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

HUH? What is the basis for this? Once a scout has earn a Bronze, Gold, and Silver Palm, they then get another Bronze and the cycle continues. I have idea what you mean by "Bronze/Gold". --Emb021 14 November 2006

I think it means that a Scout recieves another Bronze Palm, so he has, say a Silver and a Bronze Palm. I'll tweak the wording so it's a little clearer. --Slowking Man 21:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I've never seen/heard this phrasing (Bronze/Gold) used. --Emb021 21:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Bronze/Gold and refers to the combination of colored palms worn to show how many total palms you have. For example, someone with 25 MBs past Eagle would wear a Silver/Gold combo (15+10). I don't think Bronze/Gold is a legit combo though. Rlevse 22:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You are right bronze (5) + gold (10) = silver (15), thus you can never have have a bronze and a gold. Here is a nice little chart. In theory, you could earn up to seven silvers (15 * 7 + 21 = 126) as there are currently 130 merit badges. This would take 21 palms * 3 months = 63 months = 5 years 3 months. If you made Eagle right at 12 years, you could earn seven silver Palms. I don't think this is article worthy, just a thought experiment. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

the thing is I've never heard this phrasing of "Silver/Gold", etc. People say they have XX palms if they have more then 3 (ie have a Silver). --Emb021 14 November 2006

Total number

"Up to the end of 2005, 1,835,410 Scouts had earned the rank." I just got this statistic from the NESA office. --evrik ^(talk) 19:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you go ahead and add that (with a citation)? A more concrete figure would be great. --Slowking Man 21:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

While 1,835,410 is technically correct, 1.8 million makes more of an impact and sticks in the mind better. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Palms

There used to be a separate article about Eagle Palms, but I see its now gone and "Eagle Palms" points to this article. That's fine, but now there is no info as to what Eagle Palms are, etc. I think that a new section should be created containing the information in the old article. --Emb021 21:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I was just thinking that we need a paragraph on this. How about we wait until this goes off the main page and the edit-slide ceases? It is hard to be constructive at this point. Here is the old page for Eagle Palms. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. You're welcome to go ahead and add it. --Slowking Man 21:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'll make a temporary fix. --evrik ^(talk) 21:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I really didn't mean to imply that Eagle Palms should be unmerged, but that the info should be merged into this article. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think putting it into the main article is good enough. I just didn't want the information to be lost. --Emb021 21:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I added a section on Palms. Any issue with re-redirecting the old Palms article? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

OK with me.Rlevse 16:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• OK here too. What about doing some sort of {{db-histmerge}} and having the page deleted? --evrik ^(talk) 16:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

A redirect is fine- that is what it is designed for. Currently, Eagle palm and Eagle Palm redirect here. I don't know if the information from Eagle Palms did not get merged properly or got deleted somehow, but I was able to back and pull the pertinent information from the old article. -Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

It looks like there is a lot of vandalism on the page (probably due to it being a feature article). Should the page be 'frozen' to prevent this? --Emb021 21:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion above under "Not sure". The page was protected for a short period. We have a few more hours of this, then we can pick it back up. There have been a few good edits, and I asked a few editors who looked like they had something worthwile to hold off a bit. It looks like it has spilled over to the related articles as well. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See User:Raul654/protection. --Slowking Man 21:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I just noticed 2-3 vandals/reverts in just a few minutes in the article, and in looking at the history I saw a sh*t load just for today. --Emb021 21:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

This started yesterday evening and it hasn't stopped. There have been enough folks doing reverts that neither Randy nor I have beat our brains over it. We have been reverting the other articles that are getting some attention. Getting attention on the main page is suppose to be a good thing. This article seems better and better. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the history, there were 294 edits on the 13th and 14th. Out of these, I consider only a bare handful to be useful. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Similar awards

I'm thinking of splitting this into something like List of highest awards in Scouting or some such. I've never been real happy with this section and it is continually tweaked. I think it worked better when it was a list, but the list format didn't survive the FAC. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• why not. --evrik ^(talk) 20:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Try using a template. That's what we're doing on College football for awards, bowl games, conferences (soon) and other things that really need to be a list but can't because of the desire for FA status. z4ns4tsu\^talk 21:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it- I don't see any templates there. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

At the bottom of the article, there is a template for individual awards (Heisman, et al) and one for the bowl games. These both replaced long lists of the same information. We also just today created two more templates that haven't been put on the page yet, but will replace the lists of conferences. They're at {{NCAA DI-A Conferences}} and {{NCAA DI-AA Conferences}}. z4ns4tsu\^talk 03:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I get it now. The only problem is that the similars awards section gets edited fairly often- using a template will make it more complicated for editors. Something to think about though. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I sandboxed a list at User:Gadget850/Sandbox4 --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice, Gadget850. See: List of highest awards in Scouting. Dddstone 00:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It really should be "Scouting and Guiding". I was waiting until we resolved the WOSM/WAGGS issue. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 03:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Guides are Scouts too, it's one movement, if not whey did girl guide/girl scouts form into one organization--WAGGGS. It's like the difference in car and auto.Rlevse 03:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone noticed

http://markyork.blogspot.com/2006/11/eagle-scouts.html --evrik ^(talk) 21:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This one cracked me up. Raul654 03:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul, I rolled my eyes when I read that. It disgusts me that so many men (and it's always men) mock those who choose to become Scout leaders. --Habap 14:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was crass. It may have been satire, but still crass. Rlevse 14:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Scout Statistics

I made a revision to the to the After becoming an Eagle[[5]] section pertaining to the percent of Boy Scouts who attain Eagle, This revision was reverted soon after, to make clear my reasoning i will explain myself, by gathering two numbers from wikipedia on overall members found on Boy Scouts of America, which states there have been OVER one hundred million members, then the number of Eagle Scouts to have attained the rank, 1,835,410, using a calculator 1,835,410 divided by 100,000,000 equals .018 which is almost 2 percent not almost 5 pecent, I understand the citation of scouting.org says "...only about 5 percent of all Boy Scouts do so. This represents more than 1.7 million Boy Scouts who have earned the rank since 1912." but we must understand that the person who wrote this may have been "rounding" up or simply guessing at a percent instead of statistcally finding the correct amount. I feel that this should be voted on and a decision should be made otherwise the statistics contradict themselves. Please reply to this subject with your feelings on it.--Joebengo 02:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

You are presuming that this number is over the life of the program. If you consider that 49,895 Eagle Scouts were awarded in 2005 out of 879,789 Boy Scouts + 63,637 Varsity Scouts then it works out to 5.3%.[6] I recall the number was stated as 4% years ago. I think giving a percentage for the life of the BSA is misleading as the requirements have beeen changed over the years and the signifigance has changed from a super merit badge to a rank. There were less than a hundred Eagles in the first ten years- that is a big skew. I do think we need to clarify this. How about:

"In 2005, 5% of the Boy Scouting membership were awarded Eagle Scout."

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That does sound a lot better but it doesnt seem like the right fix for the problem permanently, would it be better to consider adding an additional section about the statistics of eagle scouts?

--Joebengo 01:37, December 25 2006 (UTC)

Just make it what it is, a whole para isn't needed, just one sentence that says something like "While the percentage of Scouts making Eagle Scout each year has been as low as 2%, in 2005 it was 5%." Sumoeagle179 12:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the lowest was in 1911 at 0%. We just had this discussion over at Scouter.com [7]- some claimed it was as high as 20%, but a lot of that was "gut feeling" numbers. I did some searching then, but there are no real sources. Let me know if you find anything. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

So what is the consensus here? "While the percentage of Scouts making Eagle Scout each year has been as low as 0%, in 2005 it was 5%.", or should we just put "Over the history of the Boy Scouts of America only about 2% have attained the rank of Eagle"?--Joebengo 04:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

How about ""Over the history of the Boy Scouts of America only about an average of 2% of Scouts have attained the rank of Eagle, but in 2005 it was 5%" ... with the ref of course.Sumoeagle179 14:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm really wondering just how much these numbers add to the article. The only reason to quote a percentage like this is to emphasize the "rarity" of Eagle Scout.

"In 2005, about 5% of the Boy Scouting membership earned Eagle Scout– over the life of the program, 1.8 million young men or about 2% of the total have earned Eagle."

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. We had numbers in three different sections. I simplified the lead-in and moved the others to history. I think this is now more clear. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"Eagle Scouts are expected to set an example for other Scouts and to become the leaders in life that they have demonstrated themselves to be in Scouting. As such, they are disproportionately represented in the military, service academy graduates, major professions, business and politics."

This statement is not at all supported by the citation. The citation only mentions statistics about people who were "Scouts" not specifically those who reached the rank of Eagle Scout. Since "Scouts" are undefined in the source we are left to assume they are claiming that anyone who spent a single day in the "Scouts" is to be considered a "Scout" and thus they statistics are biased. However, this is incidental. The main issue is that the stats don't relate to Eagle Scouts at all. So, the citation is a prejudiced source and it does not cite a neutral source for the statistics it claims. The two sentences about disproportional representation in "major professions" (whatever those are) are unsupported and the tone does not seem at all neutral. Since it is not supported by the citation or any real world statistics, I suggest it be removed completely unless a neutral source can back it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.94.250 (talk) 07:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Your claim is not completely accurate...one example, the ref shows roughly 2/3 of military academy students are Eagles, which means Eagles are a high percentage of military officers. I've also added another book as a ref. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)