Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Participating in working groups

Working groups are informal pages that serve as a gathering point for editors who share a common interest or goal. Unlike task forces, which are concerned with a large element of military history (such as a world war or a time period), working groups are much smaller in scope and deal with a highly focused area of military history (like classes of warships, airborne warfare, the Italian wars, etc).

By their nature working groups will be self selecting; those who have a vested interest in a particular group will join if they decide they want to. As such, the membership in any given working group is apt to be low. Most working groups are interested in the improvement of article quality for a certain series of articles, usually as a pretense for a push either to Good Topic status or Featured Topic status, although some working groups may exist simply to help improve article quality without going for GT or FT status.

Before creating a working group you should first check the existing working groups to make sure that one covering your intended material has not been created. If you are satisfied that the material you wish to cover in a working group is not being covered by any existing working group you may create a new one. To create a working group head to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Task forces and scroll to the bottom of the page, you will find the instructions and section where you can name you working group and the task force it will be covered under. When these two areas are filled out press the "Create a working group" button and a preload template will appear. Fill in the scope and the articles to be included, hit save, and add the working group to the task force page in question.

As a courtesy to the project and its editors, please refrain from selecting names like "Operation: X" or "Project: Y" and choose a name for your working group that reflects upon its intended scope. While names like with words like "Operation:" and "Project:" may sound cool and encourage others to join your working group they do not reflect the general scope of the articles you will be covering, and for logistical reasons it would be easier for those interested in your working group to see in the name the general area of material to be covered by the working group. In rare cases where words like "operation" and "project" are the actual names of the articles in question (like Operation Crossroads or Manhattan Project) consider consulting with others on the project talk page to gain consensus for a name for the working group.

As the creator of the working group, be prepared to answer questions and provide assistance to others who join if they need it. Additionally, make sure that you update the articles status and scope as the working group moves along; if your goal was to ensure that all articles get to FA status and you have achieved that goal, it may be worth your while to change the goal from getting to FA status to retaining FA status.