Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Classical warfare task force/Archive 1

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Immediate Goals/Projects

Apart from the ongoing to-do list, perhaps we should have an overall goal, or marker?

I'd advance the idea of getting the Roman Legion, Roman Navy, and Military history of ancient Rome up to FA status. They're sort of the "core" of the whole Roman military history, after all. Thoughts anyone? - Vedexent

I'd wait for a few more people to join before deciding on concrete goals (see also the discussion on the main project talk page about whether we want to lump Greece into this task force or not). Aside from that, Military history of ancient Rome would probably be an excellent article to work on, as would the Punic Wars (← probably the Roman conflict most well-known to the layman). You might want to look at nominating some suitable articles for the project collaboration as well. —Kirill Lokshin 21:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at the Hannibal article? It seems pretty close to FA status and is a very good Classical warfare related article. --Darkfred Talk to me 21:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I currently work on Military history of ancient Rome and need some feedback. Wandalstouring 13:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles to Start With?

Just some ideas about what might possibly be goals or even "collaberation of the fortnight" for the task force. Comments?

Vedexent 01:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

How to Footnote with Etexts?

Here's a tricky question. How do you footnote/reference quotes from an electronic text? Normally, you'd give author, work, publishing information, and page number. But with etexts, there are no page numbers. With the Project Gutenburg texts, it might be possible to give line numbers, I guess. Thoughts anyone? - Vedexent 07:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Line number, maybe? My copy of the CMS doesn't seem to have anything meaningful on this point. —Kirill Lokshin 07:13, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's probably the best approach. I'd put a note at the top of the footnots section explaining that, but that's the most accurate approach I can think of. - Vedexent 07:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Second Punic War

There's been a request to merge some information from Hannibal to Second Punic War, and I figured the people who visit this talk page would probably want to weigh in . . . UnDeadGoat 06:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the fact that Hannibal stands on its own as both a biographical and a war narrative. I worry that moving or synopsizing any substantial portions for Second Punic War will lose the quality of this writing. As someone who reads historical articles mostly for the stories I may be in the minority. What I mean to say is that anything we do needs to be done right or not at all. Regards --Darkfred Talk to me 22:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I strongly support keeping Hanibal as an independant article. His influence has reached far beyond a single war and is an important military figure. Merging these two would be akin to mergin Erwin Rommel to World war 2.Dryzen 17:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The proposal isn't to merge Hannibal into the Second Punic war. The proposal is to move a lot of the detail about the Second Punic War in Hannibal to the Second Punic war article, and keeping a summary of the Second Punic war information in Hannibal, with a main template link to the war. That is just standard wikipedia practice. - Vedexent 17:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Would probably be worthwhile, too, given that Hannibal is too long, and Second Punic War is too short. Kirill Lokshin 17:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
That sounds much better. Some call it Hannibal's War and seems like the writers of the article took this to heart. I do agree that the information would be more at home in the Second Punic War. My fault in not researching the present request. Dryzen 19:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't disagree with merging, I just want to point out that duplication of information is not inherantly bad. :) Hanibal doesn't need eviserated it needs tightened. Second punic war on the other hand needs as much info as it can get. --Darkfred Talk to me 22:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


Ancient Near East warfare taskforce

Anybody interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Ancient Near East warfare task force? I need some more members to make it possible. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Ancient Near East taskforce? Neddyseagoon 15:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Can I Get Some Opinions?

Was wondering if anyone would like to comment on my comment at the bottom of the talk page of Military history of ancient Rome. The whole article wants to make me throw-up. --Laserbeamcrossfire 07:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

online sources

homepage of professor John Nicols offers many articles on the classical history, especially military and provides useful pictures. This subdivision is a good source concerning classical Greece.

Peer reviews

Samian War, Pericles, Alcibiades

I've added the infobox and the wiki-project template in the Samian War, an article I first created. But I've not done the rating.
I also intend to ask for a peer-review by the members of the project for Pericles. It was previously unsuccessfully nominated for FA and GA. But a lot of work is done by me and other Wikipedians. A general peer-review was asked by anoter User, but the response of the Wikipedians was not so warm. This general peer-review is still under way: Wikipedia:Peer review/Pericles/archive2. I expect for your support in both peer-reviews, because I strongly believe that this article deserves your attention.
I also intend to ask for a peer-review by the members of the project for Alcibiades. But I'm not sure if the article is yet ready.--Yannismarou 07:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review Request

I've just posted a peer review request for Third Servile War here. Any feedback is greatly appeciated :) - Vedexent 16:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Caesar's invasions of Britain

There's a new peer review request for Caesar's invasions of Britain that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 22:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Roman military

There's a new peer review request for Roman military that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle of Gythium

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Gythium that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Roman-Spartan War

There's a new peer review request for Roman-Spartan War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 04:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

First Peloponnesian War

I created an article about the First Peloponnesian War and I added the Wiki-project box, but I haven't done the rating.--Yannismarou 09:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The same with Second Sacred War.--Yannismarou 10:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Punic wars

I have been researching for some time and will rework the articles on the Punic wars. I welcome any reviewer. Especially for the new structure of the Second Punic War (see talkpage). Wandalstouring 19:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Separation of the rebels in the Third Servile War?

In including inline footnotes for the article Third Servile War, I ran across a bit of problem: in several popular descriptions of the war on the web, there is a claim that the slaves eventually divided, one faction under Crixus wishing to stay in southern Italy and continue to plunder the countryside, and one faction under Spartacus who were intent of fleeing north into Cisalpine Gaul and escape.

The problem is that I cannot find this claim in the sources. There is nothing in the sources to contradict this, and it is possible to speculate that this might have happened as:

  1. The slaves apparently spent the winter in two different geographical locations: the area around Vesuvius, and on the southern coast of Italy - making it appear as if there were two groups.
  2. Crixus and about 30,000 were later defeated by one of the consular armies while separated from Spartacus' group.
  3. Plutarch mentions that some of the slaves wished to stay and plunder Italy rather than escape over the Alps.

But nowhere can I find a reference that specifically says something like "Crixus and his followers split off the main group because they wanted to stay and plunder Italy, and went to winter in Thurii".

Does anyone know where this came from? Is this a possible interpretation of the histories that has just got repeated until it has become "popular fact"? - Vedexent 00:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It sounds logical. 120,000 are hard to feed in one camp. I will check it today. Wandalstouring 05:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks :) I don't doubt that they spread out - although at that point in the war there were "only" 70,000 or so according to Appian. What I'm wondering about is the claim that the rebelling slaves split into two factions, with two different goals. The current article reads that way. - Vedexent 06:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Didn't find a book today, will try tomorrow. Wandalstouring 16:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

restructuring Punic names

I have copied some pages from the Dictionnaire de la Civilisation Phénicien et Punique about the various names and connections we know about the Punics. Are there any objections if I translate and modify these and give links to all the seperate persons (up to 21 people per name): Adherbal, Bomilcar, Carthalo, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Himilco/n, Mago/n, etc. Instead of the usual disambiguation pages or articles on single persons. Wandalstouring 17:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't see any reason why that would be a problem. Kirill Lokshin 17:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Wait, now I'm confused. How would these be different from regular sets of articles with a disambiguation page? Are you planning to create a list? Or am I completely misunderstanding what's actually being proposed? Kirill Lokshin 17:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I plan to create several list articles, yes. they contain a little biography information.Wandalstouring 18:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this would be a better approach than simply creating separate stubs—combined biographies are extremely rare in Wikipedia. What's the benefit of having them as combined lists, in your view? Kirill Lokshin 18:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
The problem is confusing them, so they are numbered like Hanno (1), Hanno (2), etc. sometimes there is a reference that the known biographie stub of Hanno (2) is likely part of the biography of Hanno (1). That is why I think this is a good way to keep track. See, we have mostly confusing biography stubs, furthermore it makes references to other family members easier, like Hanno (6) was the son of Bomilcar (3) and the nephew of Hannibal (19). Nicknames and family names are unfortunately a rare thing. Wandalstouring 19:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, didn't think of that. That should be fine, then, so long as the ones that we do have more information for get branched out to their own articles as needed. Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Sure, and the more articles we get, the more we can branch out, but it will never be more than 20% of all leading Punics mentioned.
But I wonder how they communicated with so few prenames and it seems to have worked without much family names. Somehow it is like calling Mr. Smith. Perhaps they had a lot more nicknames than we know. Would be fun to get out some more of them, like Hannibal the Bald (invading Sardinia in PW II)Wandalstouring 19:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Your a wonder full nexus of informationWandalstouring, this tangent on the punic wars will greatly benifit the Wikicommunity with your dedication to filling even the perifial articles. I even thought that such a thing as the Dictionnaire would exist. Are you translating from french as you did with the german information? Mayhaps they used place of origin and adjectives or such as Hanno(6) when spoken in the present was connotative of the living Hanno whom was known in the field on wich the speakers where talking about. Akin to what is done within my circle of friends; The Mathieu that knows hockey, the Punk Mathieu, Mathieu de la vieille ecole... all colloquial surnames that would never be fond on offical documents.--Dryzen 13:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I "translate" from French, but I try not to make a real translation to avoid copyright issues. Wandalstouring 15:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Military history of Italy

Given the large number of Rome historians at this project, I came here to ask if anyone would like to help out with the Rome section of the Military history of Italy article. We already have done the Italian Wars section from Kirill, I'm doing the World Wars and maybe Risorgimento parts, but the Italian military history task force doesn't include Roman history specifically, so I believe it would be best to get an editor from here. -KingPenguin 11:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A-class reviews

A-Class review for Cretan War

There's a new request for A-Class status for Cretan War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 22:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cretan War

There's a new request for A-Class status for Cretan War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Caesar's invasions of Britain

There's a new request for A-Class status for Caesar's invasions of Britain that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


A-Class review for Roman-Spartan War

There's a new request for A-Class status for Roman-Spartan War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 14:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"Barbarians" - Gaul, Franks, Celts, etc.

Would Germanic tribes, Franks, Celts, and other "barbarian" peoples fall under the scope of this task force? I know that in general these things tend to be quite flexible, and it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world if I did tag such articles (or didn't). But as I don't focus on this subject, either in space or time, I'd curious as to your opinions and such. LordAmeth 23:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If they interacted with the Romans, I think they could legitimately be tagged; there's probably no point to making a distinction on the exact geography here, as they're all part of the same era of military history. Kirill Lokshin 00:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If the socio-political entity falls in the scope, 700 BCE to 500 CE, I dont see why not.--Dryzen 18:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested articles

The requested articles departement gets reorganized. The requests get moved to the specific taskforce. In case of error move it to a concerning task force.

Wandalstouring 11:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Already listed on the open task template. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 13:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Ancient Roman enemies and allies

This one needs splitting down, for reasons outlined on its talk page. Not strictly one for this Task force, but might drum up some interest here, I thought. Neddyseagoon - talk 22:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Roman-Spartan War

There's a new peer review request for Roman-Spartan War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Marathon

There's a new request for A-Class status for Battle of Marathon that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Siege of Eretria

There's a new peer review request for Siege of Eretria that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 23:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Take a look and post your opinion

http://library.thinkquest.org/04apr/00281/romans/rome11.jpg shows a Roman soldier. The question is whether it is a member of the light infantry, called velites, or of the heavy infantry, that would be principes or hastati. I have a conflict with a member of this project who thinks it is a velites and keeps adding this information in the Roman-Spartan War. Naturally I can tell him what I want, he doesn't believe me, so we let more people add their opinions to solve it. A clear point to disambiguate both units would be whether or not he wears heavy chainmail (velites don't). Wandalstouring 19:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Kirill Lokshin 19:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I was always under the impression that the heavier infantry (principes and hastati) had rectangular shields rather than oval ones; but I'm not sure if those may have been introduced at a later date.
(It's worth pointing out that the image isn't a very good one if the soldier's equipment isn't really recognizeable, of course.) Kirill Lokshin 19:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The shape and structure of the Roman shields were changing, yes. Wandalstouring 19:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a hastatus or principes, definitelly not a velites. 1) He's wearing chain armour (lorica hamata iirc), 2) he has a helmet, 3) he carries a heavy and a light pilum, 4) no pelt cap. The illustration in question is by Peter Connoly, in his Greece and Rome at War on page 304 the accompagnying text is: Late republican legionary armed with oval scutum, crude Montefortino helmet, mail shirt, two pila and sword.--Caranorn 20:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Can we be sure that the picture is an accurate presentation of anything rather than a pastiche of various bits of Roman-looking military equipment from a variety of specialties and/or times? semper fictilis 19:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
It fits with the descriptions and reliable images I can't publish here. Wandalstouring 19:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, that's good enough for me. semper fictilis 19:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Arverni Guard

Could someone source this please? I've trawled and trawled De Bello Gallico but can find no reference. Many thanks. Neddyseagoon - talk 00:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The story goes that the Arveni nobility (heavy cavalry) objected, that's why Vercingetorix is called king of the foot. Will be hard to find any evidence for them, although tribal cavalry troops of that size may not have been uncommon, there is some mention about the trevii having a guard that size.Wandalstouring 10:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Gothic armies (stub)

I'm trying to figure out the appropriate categories for ancient and for medieval warfare (or for Late Antiquity if it gets an independent category). I should probably add the category tags for ancient Roman allies and ancient Roman enemies as well. I am not familiar with similar pages for other 'barbarian' groups but some kind of standardization is probably appropriate. Jacob Haller 02:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You got them mostly right; it's just a capitalization issue. (I'm not entirely sure what the article is meant to cover; if it's dealing with the specific militaries of the various Gothic groups, it may be better placed a level down, in Category:Military units and formations of the Ancient era/Category:Military units and formations of the Medieval era.) Kirill Lokshin 03:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Structural history of the Roman military

There's a new peer review request for Structural history of the Roman military that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Greco-Persian Wars

In September that article was review a granted A-class status. The article has not had significant changes since. An editor though has appeared in the last days claiming that it is NPOV and inaccurate because its cited references are mostly of Herodotus and not to secondary sources. Your opinion on the neutrality and accuracy of that article are welcome on that article's talk page Ikokki 13:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Tessarakonteres

Some debate going on here, and verging on a revert war, over whether it's fictional/historical/mythological (and should be categorised as such), or any combination of the above. (IMHO, even if the ship never existed, fictional is unsuitable as it's not in a 'work of fiction' per se but a history, and mythological is unsuitable as mythology is generally many centuries earlier than 200 BC.) Any outside opinions/arbitration would be greatly appreciated. Neddyseagoon - talk 20:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Structural history of the Roman military

There's a new request for A-Class status for Structural history of the Roman military that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 04:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Galatian War

There's a new peer review request for Galatian War that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 16:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Major revision to the article on Philopoemen

Recently I read this Wikipedia article on Philopoemen and realised that despite the detail and effort that had been put in by previous editors, the point had been reached where a major revision to the article was required. The article had become much too long and was written in a style that was very difficult for the reader to follow. Therefore, I have removed what I considered to be unnecessary detail, as well as work to improve the grammar and layout of the article.

I would really appreciate feedback from anybody interested in this famous Classical Greek general and statesman on the changes that I have made to the article. Any additions to improve the quality and accuracy of the article would also be appreciated. --Chaleyer61 23:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Cleomenean War

There's a new peer review request for Cleomenean War that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 01:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cleomenean War now open

The A-Class review for Cleomenean War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 01:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

A mess in Dacian Wars

cross-posted of To-do dropped  here 8 Nov 2007 and talk:Dacian Wars
Dacian Wars
re: Roman conquest of Dacia has a number of articles that are repetitive and need reorganized. Moreover, appear orphaned with stubs remaining unpolished and unfinished. (I just stumbled in there!)
  • Naming of articles like First and Second Dacian Wars is non-sensical in light of origin in the actual first war before Trajan, and redundant to the Dacian Wars article itself. Some standard needs be applied and materials moved, as needed.
  • There are three separate battles of Tapae (near the village of Bucova, Banat in Romania) with two separate peace treaties with two Roman Emperors.
  • Strongly suggest renaming First and Second as second and third respectively, leaving first for the 87 AD-88 AD now as the article "First Battle of Tapae" (which covers the first two (Battles of Tapae) despite the title!).
  • Further, I surmise that "Tapae" itself was an outlying bastion as my recent wording in Dacian Wars says, but that needs confirmed, and with three Battles there, some stub of an article ought to be created for the place.
  • If First Battle of Tapae is accepted as the first war, then that needs renamed and fleshed out, with division into the respective battles. Its currently very sparse, and the whole is reliant on only a single web source.
  • I'll be glad to pitch in a bit, but the naming issues (and ignorance of the standards for such names) suggests I yell for help before acting too WP:BOLD. Unfortunately, I'm also hip deep in other projects, so... Help! (Can someone drop me a link to where this discussion goes after this to-do list post! Thanks) // FrankB 20:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Auxiliaries (Roman military) now open

The peer review for Auxiliaries (Roman military) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 12:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Messenian Wars

Both First Messenian War and Second Messenian War need a lot of urgent attention. Neddyseagoon - talk 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you say precisely what is disputed or requires our attention in these articles? Wandalstouring (talk) 12:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
If it is info that you want I think I would be able to help with that. Kyriakos (talk) 05:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Naissus now open

The peer review for Battle of Naissus is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 23:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Late Roman army now open

The peer review for Late Roman army is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 16:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Roman-Persian Wars now open

The peer review for Roman-Persian Wars is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 17:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggested move of Battle of Argentorate to Battle of Strasbourg

Here is a discussion about moving Battle of Argentorate to Battle of Strasbourg. Please drop by and leave a note. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


A-Class review for Greco-Persian Wars now open

The A-Class review for Greco-Persian Wars is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Wandalstouring (talk) 08:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Strasbourg now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Strasbourg is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Wandalstouring (talk) 11:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Auxiliaries (Roman military) now open

The A-Class review for Auxiliaries (Roman military) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Wandalstouring (talk) 08:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 20:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

triarii

I started a GA review on triarii. The article has content and structure problems according to my assessment and normally I would fail it(plus many dated sources from the 19th century). However, I decided to be nice and improve it after all that amount of work invested in the review. Its main editor Serviam is a bit possessive and dominates the field about Roman troop types of the Republic. He doesn't like my review and he doesn't like my "improvements". In his opinion it needs just another reviewer who has no clue about the Roman military to promote it to GA-class because on a superficial glance the article looks good. So I could need some help getting this article to acceptable standards. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

...--Serviam (talk) 13:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Arillery in the ancient world

Could I ask for some assistance in expanding the section for Ancient use of artillery in the Artillery article? Thank you in advance--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 07:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Late Roman army now open

The A-Class review for Late Roman army is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 18:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Classical warfare

A collection of Wikipedia articles is being collected together as Wikipedia 0.7. This collection will be released on DVD later this year, and will be available for free download. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles; a team of copyeditors has agreed to help improve the writing upon request.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 02:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


Disambiguation of Lysicles

I would appreciate your comments on my planned disambiguation of Lysicles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Disambiguation of Lysicles. - Canglesea (talk) 19:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:58, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Task force coordinators

Hi! The Classical task force coordinators are Roger Davies (talk) and EyeSerene (talk) who will be pleased to help with any questions or problems. Any suggestions for improving the task force would be welcome!  Roger Davies talk 00:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Retiarius

I must say that I'm surprised that today's featured article Retiarius is not tagged for MILHIST , same for Gladiator. Have they just slipped the net or is there a reason ? --Jim Sweeney (talk) 05:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the reasoning here is, actually. They could be considered sport-related topics rather than military-related ones; but jousting, for example, is considered in-scope despite that fact. This may warrant a discussion on WT:MILHIST. Kirill [pf] 05:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
I do hope this discussion wasn't initiated just to get the pun in about slipping the net :)  Roger Davies talk 05:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
That had also slipped the net --Jim Sweeney (talk) 06:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Added to WT:MILHIST for discussion --Jim Sweeney (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Changes to popular pages lists

There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary:

  • The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
  • The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
  • I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - tools:~alexz/pop/.
    • This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
    • This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
    • There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
  • The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
  • The data is now retained indefinitely.
  • The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
  • Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" - [1]

-- Mr.Z-man 23:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Nominations open for the Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process has started; to elect the coordinators to serve for the next six months. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on 12 September!

Many thanks,  Roger Davies talk 04:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Just a reminder but, with about 18 hours to go until nominations close, you'll need to get your skates on if you're thinking of standing as a coordinator. The election is based on self-nominations, so please don't be shy in putting your name forward. The last elections will give you an idea of what to expect.
Otherwise, voting starts tonight at 00:01 (UTC). Any member of the project may support as many of the candidates as they wish. You should cast your votes here.
 Roger Davies talk 06:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

"Arrow without a head"

I'm not in the habit of targeting articles for deletion, but I'm unable to find any evidence for the Arrow without a head as recognition for "officials in the civil administration" (suggesting the Roman Imperial era rather than the Republic) who somehow helped the legions. It's a very minimal stub, and not a single source is given. If someone could just provide even a "Further reading" note, it would help. I've done quite a bit of searching with various phraseology, and I'm beginning to think it's the product of some writer of historical fiction on analogy with hasta pura. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

New here

Hey! I just joined this project and task force (not to mention Wikipedia), and as someone who is really interested in this stuff, I want to get rolling. How does the task force organize improvements of articles, creations of them, etc? Basically, how does this thing work? lol --Reubzz (talk) 04:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Test your World War I knowledge with the Henry Allingham International Contest!

As a member of the Military history WikiProject or World War I task force, you may be interested in competing in the Henry Allingham International Contest! The contest aims to improve article quality and member participation within the World War I task force. It will also be a step in preparing for Operation Great War Centennial, the project's commemorative effort for the World War I centenary.

If you would like to participate, please sign up by 11 November 2009, 00:00, when the first round is scheduled to begin! You can sign up here, read up on the rules here, and discuss the contest here! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 13:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for The Battle of Alexander at Issus now open

The featured article candidacy for The Battle of Alexander at Issus is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 01:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Roman army in need of attention?

Only a visitor here but I was checking Roman army and was concerned about its structure and its relationship to Military of ancient Rome. At present, it seems to consist of two articles - a brief summary of different developmental stages, which acts as a portal to detailed discussions elsewhere, and a detailed (and well referenced) overview of the Army of the Republic. The Republican army is also covered under Military establishment of the Roman Republic, which approaches the subject differently but has few references. The question, I would suggest, is whether two portal articles are necessary and whether the Republican army would be better served by a merger of the two articles. Monstrelet (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

These are good questions. Addressing these concerns properly would take a huge amount of time and effort. I don't quite understand, for instance, the use of the term "Military establishment" here, because I can't think what Latin term this is translating. One problem with these overview articles is that they end up conflating material from different time periods to try to present a single picture of what the Roman army was, when it changed over time. But organizing the material under a title like the "pre-Marian Roman army", which is what scholars would call it, presumes that a reader comes to the article with more knowledge than we should presume for our Wikipedia visitors.
I would think that the article "Military of ancient Rome" should present a general overview of what kind of forces Rome deployed (including the army proper, the fleet, and the various type of auxiliary units) and how these were levied or recruited, with main-article links to each of these. It would also address the question of how military service was connected to political office (main article Roman magistrates), the concept of imperium (again, linking to that main article) — where the officer class comes from. And whatever else. The "Roman army" article would then be an overview, with sections on the pre-Marian army, the Late Republican army, and so on, with links to main article on each of these, if such exists; tactics, weapons, terms of service, army life, etc., any of which again might link to a more in-depth article. My view is that the broader the topic, the more clearly and simply it should be written, because readers coming to those article are looking for a basic introduction. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi, chaps. I'm the culprit. The original Roman army article was a skimpy, chronologically unfocused, unreferenced, rag-bag of factoids, mainly about the imperial army. This appeared to me wholly unsatisfactory, as "Roman army" is the most common search term used by the general reader for info about Roman military affairs. Therefore, in my opinion, Roman army should act as the main portal for the Roman military, giving a list of the main phases of the army's 2,000 years existence, and a summary of the main features of each phase.
This is very much a work in progress, as I have only completed the Early Roman and Republican phases. In order to speed things up, I am transferring wholesale chunks of text from other articles I have written, viz. Socii, Equestrian order, Roman auxiliaries and Late Roman army. Simultaneously, I am building Roman cavalry from its previous stub-status into a major article. Naturally, once the raw text is complete, a good deal of editing and pruning will need to be done.
One problem is that dedicated articles on the Republican, Imperatorial and Imperial phases do not exist, unlike the much better coverage of the later phases. Initially, therefore, much of that material will be included in Roman army. But the aim is that eventually, this material will be transferred to the dedicated articles, with only a bare summary remaining in Roman army.
As regards the articles Military establishment of the Roman Republic and Military of ancient Rome, I recommend that both be scrapped. The former has a long-winded and unusual title, where Roman Republican army would be much better, and is largely unreferenced. The latter is a (failed) attempt to deal with the broad socio-economic impact of the army. It fails to discuss the issues properly, giving one viewpoint only (mainly that of outdated historian Santosuosso) and has skimpy and tendentious coverage of a range of issues, including highly dubious assertions, such as that the late Roman army contained 700,000 effectives, which almost no up-to-date scholar would support.
Overall, please be patient and wait to see the final shape of Roman army before reaching any conclusions. EraNavigator (talk) 15:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good to me — as I said, this is a massive undertaking and anyone who commits to it deserves a wagonload of thanks. I'm more the kind of plodder who would spend a week writing an article on, oh, Roman cavalry phalerae or something equally minute. I agree with you about the titles. When you get a chance, could you look at Legio VI Ferrata and my comments on the talk page? A citation has now been given for what I consider an outright factual error, as there was no 6th legion in Gaul, but there are several questionable points. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
How intensely is the article being edited? I could check out monographs this week and create an outline for the article, if need be, but my main concern is that there be a decent amount of sustained collaboration on this it's too massive of a project to undertake on one's own. Is anyone up?Billare (talk) 09:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)Billare
Point taken. But I would suggest that those who want to get involved until I have produced the basic framework - after which, everyone is free (and welcome) to edit it as they see fit. EraNavigator (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)



Military of ancient Rome is a Wikipedia portal, which I think means it has no content of its own to speak of but relies on clustering pre-existing articles - seeWikipedia:Portal. The confusion is my fault for using the term in a generic sense above. It may need attention to content but I don't think it can be deleted. I'm glad you're working on this EraNavigator - your stuff on the Republican army seemed well put together (don't have the expertise to comment on the content). Over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history‎ they've been talking about setting up task teams to make a concerted push on major topics - can't think of a better topic in Classical Warfare to target for such an approach.Monstrelet (talk) 07:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Cleomenean War now open

The featured article candidacy for Cleomenean War is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 02:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Bronze Age warfare

I didn't see a task force for any period earlier than "Classical," so I'm posting here.

Currently, Bronze Age warfare is covered by a mere two paragraphs in the article Prehistoric warfare. I often run into TV programs on the History Channel and similar outlets that discuss the topic, so I'm hoping that someday this will interest someone in creating an independent article, particularly since this involves the Mycenaeans. If this article miraculously appears, could someone post a notice to the Trojan War talk page? Thanks. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Roman articles in need of assessment

There are a number of articles on Hadrian's Wall milecastles awaiting assessment here Category:Unassessed military history articles. They've been there for a while. Look fairly solid but anyone with the appropriate expertise want to give them a look over and clear them from the backlog? Monstrelet (talk) 11:15, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Acra (fortress) now open

The featured article candidacy for Acra (fortress) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 06:07, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

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