Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Top Ten

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Shortcut: WT:MHSP

Contents 1 Top Ten Team 2 Verification 3 World War II 4 Assist a student project?

[edit] Top Ten Team

Who's interested in helping? Which articles to focus on, battle plan, etc --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Oui Mon Commandant! Allez! The Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale, je pense! Buckshot06(prof) 04:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sacré bleu, blue! Le baron de la Nuqueshotte est arrivé! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I will work on Alexander in August, September and October. It barely passes B class. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Cold War seems like it is close enough to FA (recent January 2008 A-Class) that it could be an easy warm-up for all of the work we'll have to do. -MBK₀₀₄ 19:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll get to work on World War I & World War II after I finish classes in mid-June. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 05:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll definitely be assisting. I'm actually just finishing up the WWII article now and am hoping to put it through peer review this week. After that's done, I'll go where the team requires. My time's a bit short, but I'd be glad to provide assistance on putting together frameworks and structure. Oberiko (talk) 03:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick update: Napoleon I of France is currently on-hold for a GA-Review. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 01:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Another update, Cold War is currently an FAC. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 03:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I find it ironic that it's almost easier to get an article about a small & obscure battle (Lochry's Defeat, Italian War of 1521–1526, Pontiac's Rebellion, etc) to FA-Status than it is to get the huge articles on massive conflicts to FA-Status. You'd think it'd be the other way around. Cam (Chat) 05:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It's one of the weaknesses of the Wikipedia model, really; the better-known a topic is, the more people will want to edit the article, and thus the more difficult it becomes to mold it into a coherent piece of writing. Too many cooks spoiling the stew, in other words.

There's probably some good way of approaching high-visibility articles that would avoid this problem, but I don't think anyone's come up with it yet. Kirill ^(prof) 13:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing with obscure articles is that nobody apart from the author knows anything about it, and the author can more or less push any POV they want, sherry picking sources with a certain ideology and so on. An article that is the subject of an arbitration case is sometimes more neutral than some FAs, even though sometimes the people in the arbitration case will incure penalties. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. In most cases, it isn't an issue of sources or verifiability (although with things like WWII casualties and stuff, there's certainly debate on the exact numbers), but rather prose & layout. If we were to include every little thing concerning WWII or WWI, the page'd be upwards of 200kb long (and thus a cure for the insomniacs on the encyclopedia!) Cam (Chat) 02:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Just another question. Should we put in a request with The FA-Team for copyediting, MoS, & formatting assistance? The work they've done in the past is excellent (9 FAs, 8 GAs), and it wouldn't hurt to have the external opinions (there are a lot of experienced editors on the team that we've encountered in the past in various aspects of wikipedia. The link checkers are there, the copyeditors are there) It wouldn't hurt to try. Cam (Chat) 06:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Verification

Please list yourselves with university affiliation

• Wandalstouring (talk) LMU, archaeology
• David Underdown (talk), The National Archives, Ok it's not a university, and I'm in the IT department, but I should still be able to track info down if necessary
• -MBK₀₀₄ SHSU, history minor

OK, my thought is that FA-standard articles are basically oversourced academic journal articles - oversourced because of the limitations of Wikipedia. I was alway taught that the first thing with essays, or an article as in this case, is structure. Get the structure right and one would be on the right track. Our two most looked at articles are WW1 and WW2. So I thought we'd be best to get advice from the professionals. Would you, MBK004, and Wandalstouring if you're interested, seek out appropriate history professors/lecturers etc., and ask them how they would ideally structure a encyclopaedia entry on those two wars? Hopefully that would take the form of a suggested table of contents - listing all the sections required. David, you've got access to incredible research resources; among which, no doubt, there are the contemporary official wash-up reports on some of the big operations. Maybe those will give us some ideas as well for structuring. Once you've found something out, lay out what you've got here and we can go from there. (Finally, to declare my affiliations, I did history and politics at Victoria University of Wellington and war studies afterwards at King's College London). Cheers and happy hunting Buckshot06(prof) 23:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would, but we are on summer break now and the professors I've been working with are out of the country over the summer. I'll be able to consult with them starting in August. -MBK₀₀₄ 01:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm archaeologist and our history department is a bit special, but I can try. Wandalstouring (talk) 07:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Skinny87 (talk) 23:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC) University of Kent, soon to be conducting an MA in History at University of Warwick. I'm free after the 21st, and I'll certainly pitch in where I can!

Skinny, assume you'd be able to have a chat to your professors on this subject after the 21st? Buckshot06(prof) 00:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Cheers! Cam (Chat) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC) I'm on good terms with several of the history profs at the University of Calgary. I'll see what I can do.

You can also try contacting people here [1]--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] World War II

Everybody interested in helping out with the MHSP effort should try to take a look at Talk:World War II#Replace last section; Oberiko, after much hard work, is finalising a new section insert and needs extra eyes on. Buckshot06(prof) 22:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, we've also run into some issues concerning the start-date of WWII, which is (as of three days ago) before ArbCom. Input on the WWII Talk-Page on this one is appreciated, as it's become the subject of considerable debate. Cam (Chat) 17:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assist a student project?

I wonder if assisting students working on a mil-related subject would qualify for a special project? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Commented on the main page. Please, don't split the discussion and comment there. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)