Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Military memorials and cemeteries task force/Archive 1

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Infoboxes

Several of the new infoboxes have very similar fields; it might be worthwhile developing a general {{Infobox Military Cemetery}} (with some fields optional, as needed) and using it instead of creating a different infobox for each country. Kirill Lokshin 20:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Ypres Reservior
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Ypres Reservoir Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery
Used for those deceased 1915-1918
Established1915
Location
50°51′12.1″N 02°52′39.1″E / 50.853361°N 2.877528°E / 50.853361; 2.877528

near 
Ieper, West Flanders, Belgium
Designed bySir Reginald Blomfield
Total burials2702
Unknowns
7
Burials by nation
Burials by war
Statistics source: Battlefields 14-18
Okay, here's an extremely rough draft that should provide a basic idea of what I'm talking about. Any comments or suggestions would be very appreciated! Is something like this going to be generally feasible to use? Kirill Lokshin 02:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I like it. It's better than I was able to come up with in my Sandbox last night. I'm going to put it into the articles and see how it looks in situ. ➨ ≡ЯΞDVΞRS≡ 09:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm particularly interested in knowing if there are any essential fields that would need to be added to make this usable. (There's probably some more work on the formatting that needs to be done, but that should be minor in comparison.) Kirill Lokshin 11:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I've also started a draft of the usage instructions; it'll need to be updated if we make any major changes to the parameters. Kirill Lokshin 11:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The only missing one I could think of was for a source for the statistics, needed because the CWGC doesn't provide an online breakdown (although, oddly, it does on a metal plaque in each cemetery itself) and others sites vary wildly in how they count and classify the dead. So I've added that.
Otherwise, this is flexible enough to allow it to be used for CWGC, Oorlogsgravenstichting and Belgian "individual" burials and Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge and Mémoire des Hommes "ossary" burials, which covers just about everything the task force is likely to do in the near future.
I like the formatting too. Perhaps a variation in colour somewhere for each war cemetery administration (red for CWGC, black for Germany, blue for France, orange for Netherlands, yellow for Belgium, white for USA seem to be the accepted colours) but that's likely more trouble than its worth to do for very little benefit.
I have a concern about the "total" and "unknown" fields, where some revision is likely to be needed as there are so many "grades" of unknown as to cause problems later; but I have to get clear what I mean by unknown before I can propose alterations! ➨ ≡ЯΞDVΞRS≡ 12:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Unknowns

Grades of unknowns:

  • No information at all - "A soldier of the Great War, known unto God"
    • Limited information - "A {nationality} soldier of the Great War, known unto God"
      • Some information - "A {nationality) {rank} of the Great War, known unto God"
        • Unsure of information - "Believed to be the grave of..."
          • Lost grave - "Known to be buried in this cemetery... Their glory shall not be blotted out"
            • Destroyed grave - "Believed to be buried in this cemetery... Their glory shall not be blotted out"

Sources usually seperate "no information at all" from the rest; some sources also seperate out "lost" and "destroyed". It can be seen that there's a difference between "unknowns" and "unnameds", but some sources treat the two as the same thing; others, like the CWGC, don't include "unknowns" in the grand total, listing them seperately, so you get two totals quoted - "total" and "total+unknowns".

I don't quite know my own position on this yet, as I say, but I'll have a think - the infobox wording might need a tweak to ensure that we standardise on one meaning of "unknown" so we don't join the drift that affects everyone else on this subject. ➨ ≡ЯΞDVΞRS≡ 12:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. I'm hardly an expert on this topic—the periods I usually work with didn't generally have military cemeteries—but would we also need some way to deal with things like the Piskarevskoye Cemetery? Or would that qualify as the "No information at all" type? Kirill Lokshin 12:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sgt. Patrick Stewart

Could i get some help with the wikipage of this Afganistan KIA. Also his family do want help in thier campain to get a appropriate memorial in the real world that might be of interest to you guys.Hypnosadist 12:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

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An obvious source of information

In the U.S., VFW Magazine in the past two years did an extensive listing of military memorials, national and state-level, that is as up-to-date as nationwide posts could make it, and thus well worth referencing.Joe 00:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for that, Joe! I haven't checked it yet, but the magazine mentioned appears to have online archives official and via FindArticles so these may be very useful sources. 〈REDVEЯS〉 18:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

War Museums?

Are war museums included under this task force? Many museums do have "memorial" in the name, but many do not.... LordAmeth 11:51, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, not sure. It's not something that I would think of lumping in here, quite honestly; cemeteries and museums tend to be somewhat different things. Kirill Lokshin 19:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Alright. Thanks. LordAmeth 14:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

New article suggestion

I have some pictures for this memorial. I've been looking through the guidelines and I think a separate article for this memorial would be OK. What do people here think? Carcharoth 14:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a workable article to me - go ahead and create it, and we'll go from there. Carom 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
OK. All done now. La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial. Let me know what you think. Carcharoth 22:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

New articles proposed

Following a visit to Plymouth, I've been reading about some of the Plymouth war memorials here. I have photos of the following: Plymouth Naval War Memorial; RAF and Allied Air Forces Monument; National Armada Memorial; and South African War Memorial. Are all these suitable for articles? I don't think we have articles on any of them. Shall I go ahead and create them? Carcharoth 21:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any reason why we wouldn't want articles on them, so please go ahead! :-) Kirill Lokshin 22:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, please do! Carom 02:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Museum Ships

Do you consider Museum Ships to be within the scope of your project? TomStar81 (Talk) 22:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

If they have some sort of formal designation as "memorials" or something similar, I would think so. Kirill 23:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Does that mean that USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), and USS Wisconsin (BB-64) fall within this project's perview as well then? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Kirill 01:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

So I decided to try my hand at tagging articles

but when I added the tag that I found here -- WPMILHIST}} it just referred me to the Mil hist project and not the Memorails section. How do I link the Spirit of the American Doughboy article to what I think I'm doing here? Or do I? Or, should I? I'm so confused!!! Carptrash (talk) 08:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You need to add the task force parameter: {{WPMILHIST|Memorials=yes}}. Kirill 13:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
A thousand thanks for a thousand generations or a thousand reincarnations. Which ever comes last. Now let's try it. Carptrash (talk) 17:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Please bear (bare?) with me

as I struggle and plod along. I've just added an image of a monument to the Alvin York article. Now it seems to me that it should be recorded in some sort of category or list or something noting that it is part of this project. I don't think that the monument alone warrents an arilce, but . . .... does it? I'm just looking for a direction to head in. Or away from. Or something. Carptrash (talk) 18:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is poor on categorising images. They're not central to our endeavours, so we don't really bother. Have you discovered the delights of Wikimedia Commons? The Commons is there for all multimedia files, to be used across all of our (Wikimedia's) projects and beyond. They have extensive categorisation of images uploaded there, so that people on various versions of Wikipedia and places like WikiNews and Wiktionary can find them easily. Images uploaded there are used in exactly the same way as images uploaded here - no further markup or knowledge is required.
As for Alvin and his memorial, notability guidelines would suggest that Alvin is notable, but his statue, unless it has sources separate from the guy himself, is less notable than him. So an article on the statue seems unlikely to survive. But a section (create it in the main article by adding ==Statue== in a free space and listing details with sources underneath) would be very good if you have sources for the statue's story. ➔ REDVEЯS likes kittens... and you 21:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

A belated thanks, Red . . . . whatever. Now here is my next issue. The Polar Bear Expedition was the reason for the Polar Bear Monument (there is a picture at that page) is in a midst of several dozen graves of soldiers posthumously brought back to the US of A and interred in White Chapel Cemetery. The cemetery is not a military one, but the presence of so many military related graves, plus the wonderful polar bear statue makes a possible inclusion as something that should be tied to here? Or not? Carptrash (talk) 00:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

One of my issues

is defining the edges of this project, so, for example, does this memorial fit in? Carptrash (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Carptrash! We're a subproject of the Military history Wikiproject. So we don't cover all memorials, just those that are erected to commemorate a war of some sort. So memorials to local events unrelated to war (civil, continental, international) don't fit. As an aside, the Ludlow Monument article terribly lacks context, giving no clue as to what the memorial commemorates other than a link to the massacre, so I can see why a merge is proposed.
Perhaps there is a demand for a Wikiproject on memorials in general? You've previously said you've got the pictures and the sources for several articles - that's what this Wikiproject grew out of: me having an interest, a piles of books and a stack of photos. With the never-to-be-forgotten help and hard work of Kirill, a new project was born.
If you think you've got material for, say, 20-or-so full articles and perhaps a similar number of stub articles (ones of only 5 or so sentences), then there's space for you to create a WikiProject and I'll be happy to help out. There's a guide to WikiProject creation at Wikipedia:WikiProject#Creating and maintaining. A degree of overlap isn't a problem (although 100% overlap of one project over another is perhaps counterproductive). WikiProject:Civilian memorials and cemeteries perhaps? ➔ REDVEЯS says: at the third stroke the time will be 20:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes, this helps. What I don't really have now is time - I'm already moonlighting here away from what January is dedicated to. (Not to mention needing to wash the dishes). However I am tryng to line up my ducks and whatever else needs to be set up so that when/if the time comes all will be cool. However, almost any massacre site is, almost by (my) definition, a war zone. And I agree that this is not much of an article, but I feel it needs to stand alone. Not be merged. A good side effect of it was that it somehow caught the eye of Howard Zinn's publisher who is going (at last word) to use my picture in his next book. We'll see. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 20:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

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Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery article, specifically Image:Alnc sign.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 01:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

American Battle Monuments

I recently picked up a great book that will really interest anyone who works on American Battle Monuments Commission articles. It is called "American Battle Monuments: A guide to military cemeteries and monuments maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission" by Elizabeth Nishiura. Published by Omnigraphics, Inc, 1989. ISBN 1-55888-812-8. At 470 pages, it is packed with maps, photos, and details. A really terrific resource for anyone on the military memorials and cemeteries task force. The book is out of print, but I found it online pretty easily (it was an early Christmas present to myself) ;-) -- K72ndst (talk) 23:49, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

I am looking for useful tips on getting Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial up to GAN. As a memorial it is unique because it is a preserved battlefield park dedicated the the Newfoundland Regiment but contained numerous sub elements. I don't have anything similar of quality to work off of as a template as most of the memorial GA/A/FA are ship / singular monuments, not field memorials. Please have a look at the current progress and offer suggestions. --Labattblueboy (talk) 05:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

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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.

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Military Tombstone Abbreviations

The article Military Tombstone Abbreviations needs attention. It's plausibly a valid topic for an article, though those active in this task force would know better if the topic is already covered elsewhere. Assuming it's not a deletion candidate, it needs renaming, addressing WP:CAPS at a minimum, as well as a decision as to whether to make this a U.S. military article or one about the military of multiple countries.

Its edit history shows the article to be primarily the work of a single contributor, a potential warning sign notwithstanding the recent new pages experiment. It was a WP:PROD right after the time of its initial creation, on the basis of WP:INDISCRIMINATE; the PROD was removed by its creator after a bit of work. I am mostly biased towards inclusionism but think this article needs some attention before it meets my minimal standards. Thanks. 72.244.207.143 (talk) 14:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Doesnt appear to be referenced, and perhaps should be List of American military tombstone abbreviations. May have some merit as a specialist list but not being American are the abbreviations any different from normally used rank abbreviations or are they just for USDVA cemeteries ? and it may be better to use headstones and memorials rather than the older tombstone. I think we need to be clearer what the article is about! MilborneOne (talk) 15:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Death project

The newly started death project is now being tagged - tagging is slowly occurring at cemeteries with military context there seems an overlap of the two projects - - any queries or comments - please feel free to go to the death project - cheers SatuSuro 05:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent activity on articles under this task force

It is more to do with a current contest that is in progress, but I couldn't help noticing that there has been a fair amount of activity on articles that come under the scope of this task force, and I was wondering if some discussion here might help focus some of the efforts?

The articles I wanted to point out are about WWI memorials (including a list article I created), and several of these articles were created or improved during the first round of this contest:

I'll wait a bit and see what response this gets, then point people here by leaving messages on their talk pages. Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Canadian National Vimy Memorial now open

The featured article candidacy for Canadian National Vimy Memorial 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 06:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

British-Pathe clips of memorial unveilings

I recently stumbled across the British-Pathe website when following up something about an article on one of the WWI memorials, and I went and made a big list of the clips (mostly of the unveilings) relevant to the articles I've been working on, as well as other articles within the scope of this task force. I'm dumping the list here, to make people aware of this, and so others can update articles if I don't have the time. There are many other clips on that website showing scenes at other memorials (unveilings, construction, memorial services), both for WWI and WWII memorials, so those here who are interested may want to follow this up further. Maybe add a link to the website on the main WikiProject page as well, as a useful resource? Of course, the clips are either still in copyright, or claimed to be, so the only way to tell readers about them is with an external link. With the volume of possible additions of external links, I'm being cautious - see the discussion here. The links need to be relevant to the articles concerned. Anyway, here is the list I got from a few minutes of searching on the British-Pathe archive website:

I'm going to add links to some of these now, in the external links sections of the articles I've been working on. Carcharoth (talk) 07:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

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Help - Runnymede Air Forces Memorial

Would like to bring the "Air Forces Memorial" page into line with other memorial pages. However using the template "info box military memorial" brings up a line "Total Burials" which of course is wrong as there are no burials at the memorial. I can't see how to change this. WyrdLight (talk) 17:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I suggest removing "20,000" from the "|total= " field, and just incorporating it in the "|commemorated=" field. According to the template documentation, the "|commemorated=" field seems to be for a number, while the "|commemorates=" field is for the actual description of who is being commemorated. See Template:Infobox military memorial. I hope this helps. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you - that looks better. WyrdLight (talk) 09:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

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