Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history/Archive 1

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Use of military rank for a retired officer

Hi there! I am trying to find out if an officer is retired do you still use his military rank when you speak of him? For example, if you are noting comments made by Norman Schwarzkopf after he had retired from the military, would you describe him as General Norman Schwarzkopf, General Norman Schwarzkopf (retired), general Norman Schwarzkopf, or just Norman Schwarzkopf? I have been trying to find this in the Manual of Style on Military History but I cannot find it. Thanks so much for the help!! AliciaZag13 (talk) 04:11, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I'd probably say "retired general, Norman Schwarzkopf, was quoted..." or something like that. Not sure if that helps. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. That sounds good. Can I press you a little further? Do you think it would be valid to delete the word "general" on the basis that he is now deceased or retired? Not sure about this. I would think not, as it seems if you are introducing his comment it might be worthwhile to orient the reader as to who is commenting, what his bona fides might be. AliciaZag13 (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
G'day, Alicia, as Schwarzkopf's notability is largely tied to his generalship, I would argue that it is probably important to provide adequate context. For a more junior officer, we could probably get away with "retired military officer, Joe Bloggs, commented..." or something similar. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks so much! So it seems there may not be a hard fast rule regarding rank. Looking around I found that if the person is a junior officer you wouldn't even mention rank for the subject's introduction in the article. But it might be if a retired officer is commenting as an expert on a military matter perhaps it would be appropriate to mention rank and that the person is retired. I think that would be what you are recommending for me. Thanks again for taking your time to help me!! AliciaZag13 (talk) 23:05, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
An officer retains his rank on retirement in the same way that a doctor does; it's not an appointment like being a "brigade commander". However, in practice, it's normally only more senior officers that use their rank and then often only when it's relevant. The format "Lieutenant General (retired) Smith" is sometimes used or "retired army officer, General Smith" works too. Bermicourt (talk) 12:42, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Operation prefix

At Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history/Archive 1#Style of operation names, it says to drop the "Operation" prefix from individual operations listed in a campaign infobox, pointing to Solomon Islands campaign as an example. However, that example does not follow the rule, understandably, since some of the items are named "operations", while others are "raids", "bombings", etc. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:17, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

How should specific times in a battle be written?

Many ship and battle pages that describe actions at specific times, have inconsistent formatting. For the most part, especially for US ships or battles described from US accounts (such as information copied from DANFS), 4-digit military time is used (i.e., "0630"). Sometimes, the hours and minutes are separated by colons. Every once in awhile I come across some that are separated by a single-quote (i.e., "06'30").

The Military History MOS seems to be silent on this particular point. How should specific action times be formatted? I suggest standardizing on the more common "6:30 AM" formatting, or even "6:30" (omitting AM/PM) when the context is clear (such as a battle only occurring during the morning hours, etc.). sbb (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

G’day Sbb, you should follow MOS:TIME. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:22, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, that's what I figured eventually. To be specific, I'm going with leading-0 HH:MM, as in "06:30". sbb (talk) 03:52, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
No worries. 24-hour clock is pretty common on military articles. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:50, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Numbers in battles

I have seen multiple articles on battles that have different ways of representing both strength of both sides and casualties. Some use parenthesis while others use enters, some are bold others not. If there is not a standard guide on it yet I would like to suggest:
1) For each nation put the nation's name in bold with a colon and then list those numbers. The same format for dates also.
2) If there is more than one piece put the overall on its own line on top in bold (if there were 1000 casualties put that first in bold then line break 100 dead line break 900 wounded). However if there is a country or date first do not put it in bold. Phoenix1494 (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Guidance on results

Main Duscussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history now archived here. (added by Cinderella157 (talk) 00:42, 26 June 2020 (UTC))

Per discussion at WP:MILHIST, around issues caused by the use of the terms described below which have led to several disputes and edit warring, I propose the following is added to this page (as a subsection of Usage and style):

Results

When describing the outcome of a military event, care needs to be taken to avoid original research. Terms like "decisive victory", "marginal victory", "tactical victory" can have different meanings in different sources. For instance, a battle described as decisive may have directly led to the conclusion of the conflict, led to a change in direction of the broader conflict, had a clear tactical outcome on the battlefield with no lasting strategic implications, or a number of other possibilities.

These terms should only be used when they reflect a consensus in relevant reliable sources. When these terms are used in articles they should have sufficient context from the surrounding text to make their meaning clear. They may also be used as part of a direct quotation from a specific person. They should not be used in an infobox, as there is no ability to give a broader explanation in that location.

I believe this draft supports editors in dealing with broader issues around these terms (that different sources can and will use them in different ways), and directly addresses the most problematic uses (in infoboxes).--Nilfanion (talk) 16:10, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Text in the main article body is already governed by existing policies and guidelines such as WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Text in the lead is governed by MOS:LEAD. Project-specific guidance such as this is not therefore necessary. I also think any argument based on the use of such project-specific guidance will in every case be overruled by Wikipedia-wide policy and guideline. I would, however, support an amendment under the current {{infobox military conflict}} entry in the "Primary infoboxes" section to explicitly restrict the result parameter in the Template:Infobox military conflict to one of only two options, "X victory" or a linked "See aftermath", per the current template documentation. Factotem (talk) 16:37, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I think this is a supplement to WP-wide criteria around this matter, and as such is no different to the other parts of that section. Normally if a reliable source says "This battle was a decisive victory for Y", that can be used directly in article. However as that term can mean various things, it is not good to use a stand-alone statement in an article. Even if its just restricted to infoboxes, having a section in Usage and style is superior to adding it to the infobox section. The practical impact on body text ought to be minimal, but treating the matter in this way allows the infobox side of things to be addressed more descriptively (in the infobox section would be a one line "don't do it", this is a two line "don't do it, because ...").
A side note - IMO three options should be possible (to allow inconclusive, when that's clearly the case).--Nilfanion (talk) 17:01, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Comment: It is not that such terms need to be directly quoted but rather, attributed to a specific person. On the matter of "inconclusive" it is often a matter of nuance and what is clearly the case (or not) for some, becomes a matter of debate for others. I tend to concur with Factotem. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 22:48, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Also posted at Milhist: I would observe that it is not uncommon for legislation of a government to give voice (and legislative force) to a document independent of the legislative process (the law) - such as various national standards (eg: Standards Australia, International Organization for Standardization or British Standards. Given this, I see no reason not to emulate such a process and question that the correct place for the guidance must be "in MOSMIL itself". Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Per the comment: treating the matter in this way allows the infobox side of things to be addressed more descriptively (in the infobox section would be a one line "don't do it", this is a two line "don't do it, because ..."). My edit to MOSMIL gives the "because": "The "result" paremeter has often been a source of contention. Particular attention should be given to the advice therein." Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:31, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

See my most recent edit to MOSMIL [1] that closely paraphrases the previous comment by Factotem. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 13:17, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Comment: I'm going to take the middle ground here. While I agree with Factotem that the core policies apply to the whole article, I see no harm in emphasising areas where editors need to pay particular attention - as Nilfanion says "a supplement" which explains a specific guideline so editors understand the rationale as well as the rule. Picking up Cinderella157's point about laws/standards etc: I don't know about the Australian legal system, but in the UK laws are published with explanatory notes setting out the reasoning so the public can understand the "spirit" of the law as well as the letter. I think we can do the same here. However, I'm not sure the text suggested by Nilfanion goes far enough. I think we need to set a higher bar and the assumption should be more in line with Factotem's suggestion above, as reflected in the latest edit to the project page by Cinderella57. I'd also tighten up some of the wording - I think we should specify that we're concerned about synthesis and undue weighting, highlight some of the obvious reasons for bias, and segue into the actual wording of the 'law'. I've taken the liberty of suggesting some amendments below. Wiki-Ed (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Results

When describing the outcome of a military event, care needs to be taken to avoid original research, particularly synthesis, and expressing a non neutral perspective, specifically in terms of weighting. Terms like "decisive victory", "marginal victory", "tactical victory" can have different meanings in different sources. For instance, a battle described as decisive may have directly led to the conclusion of the conflict, led to a change in direction of the broader conflict, had a clear tactical outcome on the battlefield with no lasting strategic implications, or a number of other possibilities. Sources may also distort the impact, for example for nationalistic reasons, so extra care must be taken to establish whether there is a genuine consensus view.

When these terms are used in the article text they should have sufficient context from the surrounding text to make their meaning clear, especially when used as part of a direct quotation from a specific person. However, these terms should be avoided in an infobox where there is limited scope to give a broader explanation or to reflect nuances. Terms should be restricted to "X victory" or "See aftermath" (or similar) where the result was inconclusive or does not otherwise fit within these restrictions. It may also be appropriate to omit the "result" altogether.

I give qualified support to Wiki-Ed's proposed text though I think the punctuation needs tweaking and suggest: Sources may also distort the impact (for example, for nationalistic reasons), so extra care must be taken to establish whether there is a genuine consensus view. My observation is, that the "problem" is with the "result" in the infobox and not really with main text - so we are trying to fix something (in part) that isn't really broken? The outstanding issue; though, is where to put it? Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Not helpful. Look, vague statements to avoid OR are not needed and not useful. Saying to use the RS consensus as if they follow the info box definitions and no other terms is unrealistic. It would help to describe more specifics on what the options are, what each label means, and how it is determined against the reality of historians using words other than any of the labels. Is “dramatic” to get judged as supporting “decisive” or not? What else counts and how ? Get a mechanism that resolves this instead of more vague words. Markbassett (talk) 05:18, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

I can understand the desire to clarify rationale, but I think all we'll succeed in doing is increase the scope for disagreement. Taking Wiki-Ed's suggested text, for example:

  • The start of the second para ("When these terms...") will, I'm fairly sure, be interpreted to mean only those terms listed in the second sentence of the first para.
  • Similar issue with "...these terms should be avoided in an infobox..."
  • "...should be avoided..." does not 100% rule out their use
  • "[use "See aftermath"] where the result...does not otherwise fit within these restrictions", will, I'm fairly sure, be used to argue for "See aftermath" because, for example, "Decisive victory" in the Battle of France does not fit within the restrictions (people can be very selective when it comes to deploying guidelines to support their positions).

So that I'm not just being a naysayer, the following amended text might close some of these 'loopholes'

Results

When describing the outcome of a military event, care needs to be taken to avoid original research, particularly synthesis, and expressing a non neutral perspective, specifically in terms of weighting. Terms like"decisive victory", "marginal victory", "tactical victory" Qualifiers (i.e. adjectives) that describe a result (for example, "decisive", "marginal", "tactical", etc.) can have different meanings in different sources. For instance, a battle described as decisive may have directly led to the conclusion of the conflict, led to a change in direction of the broader conflict, had a clear tactical outcome on the battlefield with no lasting strategic implications, or a number of other possibilities. Sources may also distort the impact, for example for nationalistic reasons, so extra care must be taken to establish whether there is a genuine consensus view.

When these terms qualifiers are used in the article text they should have sufficient context from the surrounding text to make their meaning clear, especially when used as part of a direct quotation from a specific person. However, these terms should be avoided qualifiers should not be used in an infobox where there is limited scope to give a broader explanation or to reflect nuances. Terms should be restricted to "X victory" or "See aftermath" (or similar) where the result was inconclusive according to reliable sources or does not otherwise fit within these restrictions. It may also be appropriate to omit the "result" altogether.

I am, however, certainly no expert in constructing loophole-free, quasi-legal text, and fear that any attempt to explain will simply add fuel to the fires of dispute. Factotem (talk) 10:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

On the subject of the "See aftermath" option, I would be very wary of any text that suggests it is a dispute resolution option. It should be triggered only when the sources do not clearly identify a victor, not when editors argue over the nature of the victory. Factotem (talk) 10:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I have quoted the template doc and underlined two parts.
    • The doc confines the result to the immediate outcome. It was considered necessary to constrain the assessment in time to avoid clouding the issue with longer term effects. Neither proposal captures this. Of course, main text may capture such issues.
    • I observe that "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat" uses two terms (not just qualifiers). While I have no intrinsic objection per term/qualifier I think "terms" was sufficiently clear.
    • I would not omit "or does not otherwise fit within these restrictions". "Inconclusive" is itself, a possible result and suggests "see Aftermath" only applies to this case rather than the other possible qualifications of the result.
    • "where the result was inconclusive according to reliable sources" clouds rather than clarifies? Must there be a consensus in the sources that it was inconclusive or is it that there is no consensus in the sources as to the outcome. I would omit it. However, the last sentence in the proposal may better be replace with that from the infobox: "Omit the "result" parameter altogether rather than engage in speculation about which side won or by how much."
    • "When these terms...": Wiki-Ed's "list" in the first para is preceded by "terms like", so it is not exhaustive. Therefore, I do not see the issue you suggest. Just an observation.
    • I have no problem with making the language more emphatic.
    • Your last point is unclear. ""Decisive victory" in the Battle of France does not fit within the restrictions", since this guidance deprecates "decisive?"
    • I think that there is still a problem with the punctuation in the last sentence of para 1 and particularly, that something is required after "for example".

result – optional – this parameter may use one of two standard terms: "X victory" or "Inconclusive". The term used is for the "immediate" outcome of the "subject" conflict and should reflect what the sources say. In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link or note should be made to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the Aftermath section"). Such a note can also be used in conjunction with the standard terms but should not be used to conceal an ambiguity in the "immediate" result. Do not introduce non-standard terms like "decisive", "marginal" or "tactical", or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". Omit the "result" parameter altogether rather than engage in speculation about which side won or by how much.

Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:22, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
In the absence of any objections, is this text going to be added to the main page? I see debates continuing and it would be good to get the additional clarity written-in. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
@Wiki-Ed, my experience has been that such debates are quickly resolved by an action IAW the info box advice and a reference to same (or MILMOS now). I understand the intent is to give greater weight to that advice. My edit to the main page does that. It could be made more emphatic but people on WP tend to object to the overly prescriptive guidelines. As to continuing debates, if they do not read or continue to ignore what is written, no amount of words will resolve or remedy this. I think what we have is adequate. Just point to that - debate (arguement) as to the result, over. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:47, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Flagicon

Hello. I have noticed that for many battles and wars, monarch's royal standards are used instead of a national flag in the Commander section of the infobot, but this does not appear to be a written rule. Would this also apply to non royal people, Example John F. Kennedy Please, if someone could resolve this that would be great! -User:The_Radioactive_Box

Could you give an example or two? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:07, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Of cource:

Here you can see on the Russo-Japanese War page that instead of the Russian and Japanese flags being uses, both nations Imperial Standards are used instead. I use this example because it is a important article. In these articles (bellow), flags of Coat of Arms that are associated with that commander are used in place of a national flag of their allegiance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_rebellion_of_1803 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallachian_uprising_of_1821

OK, just working through these in no particular order, for Irish rebellion of 1803 the Union Flag is the flag of the British Army, so it is correct, and the United Irishmen flag is used for the United Irishmen, also correct, so I'm not seeing what the issue is. What are you suggesting should be used instead in that case? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:38, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I was mainly talking about the Russo-Japanese War where there are imperial standards for the monarchs. But this rule is not official. I am requesting for this rule to be made official in the MOS. The Radioactive Box 6:50, 27 December 2020 (EST)
Generally I think you'll find lukewarm support for flagicons in infoboxes in the first place, let alone a MOS change that entrenches it by mandating using personal standards for political leaders, but if you want to pursue it, the place to start a RfC is here. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:40, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Is it, or is it not OK to use "decisive X victory" in the "result" parameter of {{infobox military conflict}}?

The WP:GUIDELINE here at MOS:MIL#Primary infoboxes for {{infobox military conflict}} says in part that the "result" parameter: should be restricted to "X victory" or "See aftermath" and In particular, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or "decisive victory" are inappropriate for outcomes. Coupled with the template docs which define two standard terms: "X victory" or "Inconclusive", and admonish: Do not introduce non-standard terms like "decisive", "marginal" or "tactical", or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". It seems pretty clear to me, but maybe I'm missing something. There's a slight inconsistency in that the template docs allow "Inconclusive", while the MILMOS instructions do not (which should probably be rectified at some point). See the discussion at User talk:GenQuest#Decisive for contrarian views and background as to why I'm raising this question (and comment here and/or there as appropriate). Mojoworker (talk) 19:02, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the guideline reflects discussions of this at WT:MILHIST: my memory is that there has been general support for including terms such as "decisive" victory in the cases where there is consensus on this among reliable sources. The problem is that random editors tend to add these terms without supporting sources, or in contradiction to the sources, as modern historians tend to be wary of considering the results of any military engagements and campaigns "decisive". Nick-D (talk) 00:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I think we could improve the MOS to emphasise that if the academic consensus cited in the body of the article is for a particular result description (whatever that may be), we use that, but if it there isn't a clear academic consensus, use "See Aftermath" and explain there. We should drop "decisive" from the admonishment, but retain the rest of that guidance. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:34, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Fairly recently, WP used to promote qualifying levels of victory, per sources, but no more. Apart from the fact that there's no universally agreed definition of "decisive" etc., the most practical reason is to avoid starting pointless edit-wars. Infoboxes are for terse, indisputable facts. Subjective qualifications of victory don't fit this.
On "inconclusive", this has been allowed. --A D Monroe III(talk) 00:45, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi all. A D Monroe III's assessment (ante this guidance) reflects the situation fairly accurately. A case in point would be the Battle of Trafalgar. The guidance being discussed was workshopped in the discussion above (#Guidance on results) and was done in conjunction with a fuller discussion at WT:MILHIST (here), with notifications for transparency. There had been some "lawyering" that the guidance in the template doc carried no weight and could be just ignored.
The template doc had long deprecated any qualifiers except "decisive". It became apparent that this too was problematic (per A D Monroe III), largely because many editors were applying their own interpretation of its meaning or would argue over whether there was an "academic consensus" as to the result. I do not disagree with the position of Peacemaker67 expressed above, but life (WP) is rarely so pure and never so simple. The changes to the template doc were discussed at the template doc talk page in conjunction with this discussion at WT:MILHIST.
While I was ultimately responsible for both sets of changes, these were made with the utmost transparency and open discussion. While the guidance (as it now stands) has not stopped editors from adding qualifiers to the infobox of their favourite conflict, I do believe that it has had a positive result in resolving contentious (and potentially disruptive) disputes over what the infobox should say - it is no longer a question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Regards, Cinderella157 03:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I think it can be improved, as detailed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Peacemaker67's post above, which reflects the requirements of WP:V and WP:NPOV. The admonishment against 'Pyrrhic victory' should also be removed, as in a small number of cases that's historians' consensus. Nick-D (talk) 05:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

My query was how the guideline should be interpreted now as it's been worded for the past two years (since I've been accused of misinterpreting the guideline). Certainly consensus can change, and perhaps it has, and we should open a conversation to discuss changes. But (as I raised elsewhere) does the word "decisive" in the infobox add appreciatively to the reader's understanding of the article? My opinion is that if someone "reads" the article just by scanning the infobox they miss all nuance anyway – they won't find out the battle was decisive, but they won't have any understanding of the topic anyway. Is it better to disallow "decisive" in the result parameter (even where it would be a valid result, based on WP:RS, and described that way in the article) than to have a bunch of WP:Randys going around adding "decisive" to the outcome of "Battle of Foggy Woods" just because he thinks it's appropriate? Mojoworker (talk) 06:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the guideline isn't as clear as it should be, and should be modified, but if the RS agree it was a decisive victory and it is well cited in the body, there is no obstacle to putting it in the infobox. On the other hand, I would revert anyone putting something in the infobox that wasn't cited in the body. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
While there is an inconsistency of "inconclusive" being permitted I believe that the edit capture the consensus of the discussion to deprecate the use of descriptors such as "decisive". Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The OP here is linked to a discussion at User talk:GenQuest#Decisive. That discussion is in regard to a minor edit skirmish over removal of "decisive" from the infobox for Siege of Vicksburg. That article is an interesting case study.

  • The word "decisive" is used nowhere in the readable prose of the article.
  • In the infobox, "decisive" is supported by two reference.
    • Rawley, James A. (1966). Turning Points of the Civil War. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8935-9. OCLC 44957745. This reference has been in place for some time. Pages 145–169 are cited. This is a whole chapter that also covers Gettysberg. Searching the chapter for "decisive" returned one hit in the chapter at page 159: "but to go forward to a decisive victory". Rawley is quoting from Rhodes, who is inturn quoting from U.S. Grant of himself. Rawley's book has some seven chapters (in addition to an introduction and afterword) that presumably correspond to what he identifies as "turning points" in the war. With so many turning points, one might conclude that the war was going around in circles.
    • Vicksburg Campaign; History.com online website; accessed June 2020. This was added just recently. In the introduction it reads: "The Siege of Vicksburg (May 18, 1863-July 4, 1863) was a decisive Union victory during the American Civil War (1861-65) that divided the confederacy and cemented the reputation of Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85)." That is the only mention of "decisive" in the source. The source does not develop the reasoning for making such a claim.
  • The Aftermath section has only two references. The first (History.com) is a claim that the 4th July was not celebrated in Vicksberg until recently. The second is to dispute this claim.
  • In 2009, there was a discussion at the article TP about describing it as a "decisive victory". The discussion focused on the semantics of the term and whether it might thereby be described as decisive. I see no discussion to determine the academic consensus cited in the body of the article that describes this as "decisive".

This is precisely the sort of situation that the guidance (and the discussions leading to it) has sought to address - and has been moderately successful (IMO). Peacemaker67, would you be removing "decisive" from the infobox at Siege of Vicksburg? An academic consensus cited in the body of the article sounds straight forward but in practice, it will often require (result from) an analysis/synthesis of the various sources to arrive at a conclusion. This is precisely what we discourage by policy. And any discussion that concludes to retain "decisive" will likely be synthesis by committee. Having said that, do better if you can (sincerely). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

that article is a poor example. Two sources, one of which isn’t academic, is hardly a consensus. I personally wouldn’t even use the website, and would seek half-a-dozen specialist academic sources on the Vicksburg campaign and see what they say. If most said “decisive”, then I’d go with that. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:35, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
That article is both poor and typical. I probably wouldn't use the website either. Not many have your rigor. Therein lies the problem. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:42, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. As to rigor, this collection of IP edits are what prompted me to consult the template docs and the MOS:MIL guideline and kicked off subsequent events where I also removed "decisive' from the Vicksburg infobox, and eventually brought us here. Maybe the IP editor should've stuck to editing Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, but we are left to deal with the fallout. The WT:MILHIST discussions linked above and at #Guidance on results seem rather compelling to me, but it seems perhaps I've reopened a two year old can of worms. Mojoworker (talk) 20:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The consensus in the previous discussion was that terminology was all right but could not be used recklessly, leading to the aforementioned change in guidelines. Unfortunately, it was soon taken by some to mean a complete taboo against any terminology. I agree with Peacemaker67; a change in guidelines would be very useful to clarify this. A removal of the admonishment against "decisive" and the rest, as he suggested, would be useful. If that is too far, a compromise could be as follows (changes highlighted):

On MOS:MIL : In particular, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or "decisive victory" are inappropriate for outcomesmust be used carefully.

On Template:Infobox military conflict : Do not introduce non-standardExercise restraint while introducing terms like "decisive", "marginal" or "tactical", orand do not introduce contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat".

This would both serve as a cautionary notice against using the terms recklessly, and would also permit their usage where verifiable and/or undisputed. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, in discussion on this guidance, there was arguement against a concerted action (like a bot run) to the effect of the guidance. Hence, many examples of "decisive" and the much earlier deprecated "Pyrrhic" persist. I have made a fairly random sample of articles from a WP search for "decisive victory" and "pyrrhic victory". The articles that follow are every 10th article (or the first article thereafter) using "decisive victory" or "Pyrrhic victory" in the result field of the conflict infobox. I do not see that any of these articles come close to the standard suggested by Peacemaker67.

Since 8 March 2009, the template doc has contained this advice: "The choice of term should reflect what the sources say." Since 30 June 2010, the doc has added this further advice: "It is better to omit this parameter altogether than to engage in speculation about which side won or by how much." The conclusion is that even these fairly explicit cautions have been ignored. I would also point to this discussion leading to the 2009 amendment (see also this discussion). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 09:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Another issue that could be addressed in the documentation/guidelines is the weight sources give to the use of the term "decisive". I've seen arguments made that sources X, Y, and Z all call a victory decisive, but when you look at them, they've simply used that term in passing, as an adjective. They do so in much the same way that they might call a victory "accidental", "great", "memorable", "unexpected" or "extraordinary" (real examples, as discussed at Talk:Battle_of_Flodden#Not_decisive_victory). I agree that if sources devote significant attention to the decisiveness of a victory (and there is of course consensus in them about that), then the qualifier might reasonably be added to the infobox. But we should not be giving undue weight to the mere use in a source of an adjective. Factotem (talk) 10:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I looked at the previous discussion before reverting Mojo's deletion from the infobox of the phrase, and kept on looking, trying to find a discussion where actual consensus was established for the changes. I'm still not seeing justification for the deletion, especially in the cases where numerous references use the same description as an outcome. The case of Seige of Vicksburg has several references which referred to the US Federal forces victory as decisive, so it's not an example of SYNTHESIS or non-Neutral. I quickly picked a couple to show this, there are more references (and probably better ones) out there. At the time, I didn't add any to the article body (my bad), which is easily corrected by editing.

I think there is a definite need for additional input here before making any of the discussed changes permanent. Perhaps this should go through an official MfD(?), or whatever, to develop a wide consensus regarding additional MilHist articles going forward. I agree with User:HalfdanRagnarsson that non-referenced usage should be discouraged, but cited instances should be allowed, per our mission of encyclopedicly reporting of the sources' content; and I most certainly concur with User:Peacemaker67 above. ~ GenQuest "Talk to Me" 13:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi GenQuest, per the case study above, neither of the two references cited in support reasonably support this. PM and I both concur that the History.com is a weak source. Rawley describes Vicksberg (in conjunction with Gettysberg) as a "turning point" (not as a decisive victory?). Where decisive does appear in the cited text, it is a quote of Grant referring to his own actions. The quote does not represent an academic opinion. So, unless there is something else in this source I couldn't see, Rawley does not support this either. PM concludes that the Vicksberg article is a poor example for retaining "decisive" (as it stands). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:24, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

This is regarding Cinderella157's list of errant pages. He's right in a number of the cases he mentioned - they do not fit reasonable standards, and are in for a cleanup. However, a few pages listed are indisputably decisive or pyrrhic. Specifically:

  • Poltava  : There is consensus that it broke the back of Charles XII's power. I haven't seen a source disputing this.
  • Yorktown  : Yes, there are some who state that the war was effectively ended earlier, but from a military point of view, Yorktown was decisive.
  • Dundee  : It effectively ended Charles II's military attempts to get back the crown. Again, no contradictory sources.
  • Plataea  : While there are disputes over whether Salamis was decisive - the reason why that page does not have the word - it is generally agreed that Plataea finished any hopes Xerxes had of conquering Greece in that campaign. No controversy here either.
  • Long Sault : It was much costlier for the Iroquois than the French, both tactically and strategically. Here I concede some room for dispute, but the prevailing opinion is that it was a pyrrhic victory.

I suggest providing better sources, not removing the words in question. There are a good number to cite. Also, this collection does not reflect all pages using or requiring the words. It's true that the terms are ill-used on a few pages, but that doesn't imply that we've to remove them from the many (probably the majority of) pages where they're valid. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 13:50, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

The list was captured by the methodology described so as to be a random sample. I have reported the first 10 articles identified by the methodology for each term. The point is that none of these articles (as they exist) come close to meeting the standard put forward by PM. Until they do reach such a standard (or similar), any arguement falls to speculation about which side won or by how much. From the random sample, 100% failed. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
@Cinderella157: But they can be easily refined to those standards. Most pages across Wikipedia, not just WP:MILHIST ones, will fail to meet some standards of their field when subjected to scrutiny unless they are frequently edited ones (and even then, they can be mired in edit-wars). None of the pages mentioned above are oft-visited or regularly edited; this is the source of the problem. On the other hand, note the page on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It uses terminology like "partial victory", "strategic failure", etc. but meets Peacemaker67's standards, because it is a regularly-edited page. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 09:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
On the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the infobox tries to capture the complexities of the result and fails. There is no detailed reporting of the analysis of the result that shows the academic concensus as to what the result is (or how the sources disagree). It is certainly not clear how this is claimed to be a partial Jordanian victory (except that there are two sources that apparently support such a claim - not 6 and no reasoning from the sources why they make the claim, since the citations are only given to support what is said in the infobox). The only thing that is clear is that Israel was to be allocated an area but in consequence of the war, got more (and as far as I can see, in every respect?). However, the body of the article doesn't even specifically describe this as an Israeli victory, let alone substantiate this with a consensus of sources. On this basis, I am not seeing how this can reasonably be said to meet Peacemaker67's standards. As to the sample articles, until they are refined to such a standard, it remains speculation that they can (or will) be refined to such a standard. Until then (not withstanding this guideline) it is reasonable to challenge such terms when applied without explanation in the body to capture the nuance of their meaning. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:26, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
It is generally (not unanimously, but still) considered a partial Jordanian victory for good reason. Jordan, which wasn't supposed to get anything, was basically doubled as a state, defended the bulk of what it wanted and even got the Old City, which was supposed to be under a complex UN arrangement (which all sides disregarded). Latrun was also something of a gain for them (I'm not really clear who that would have gone to under the original plan). So that, in my opinion, is correct. For the debate on terminology, it has been interesting, but I don't really see a conclusion emerging from this. Regards and good luck, HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 17:46, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Current wording:

The infobox does not have the scope to reflect nuances, and should be restricted to "X victory" or "See aftermath" (or similar) where the result was inconclusive or does not otherwise fit with these restrictions. In particular, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or "decisive victory" are inappropriate for outcomes. It may also be appropriate to omit the "result".

The advise about the "result" is so clearly out of sync with the lack of advise on the size of the list for combatant[s] and [[commander[s] in this guidance. Why? It seems to me that this was something that was added because of a specific problem or problem (just before its addition) and I think it is covered far better by WP:V than micromanaging the issue here.

I think that the current advice on result is totally inappropriate. It seems to have come about because of people worried about inappropriate use by some editor (to which I presume the comment in the guidance "The 'result' parameter has often been a source of contention." alludes). The way to resolve this is not by a prohibition on the usage, but by advise to follow the usage in reliable sources (and allow the usual long term editorial consensus to be achieved as it is for any other disputed fact). The current Battle of Asculum does not just say "Greek victory" it say "Greek Pyrrhic Victory" and so it should! However because of this guidance it is followed by four citations!, to try to stop ill-informed editors attempting to change it. The idea that anything but a simple victory, or defeat, should be replaced with "See aftermath" is ridiculous and uninformative. The Battle of Waterloo was clearly a "decisive victory", and so should the result field in the template be left out, or the content of the result field be "See aftermath"?

What I think the section should say is something link this:

The info box does not have the scope to reflect nuances. As with the other parameters, the result field ought to be terse, succinct and reflect the consensus in reliable sources. The content of the result field should reflect the outcome that appears in the lead and will usually be a two worded summary of "Paty victory" or "Party defeat".

-- PBS (talk) 12:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Tank naming conventions

I see that User:QEDK has added a guideline to this page that, in its current form, states, "all articles documenting tanks should include 'tank' as a part of its title, generally appended at the end." This convention does not appear to be universally folowed across Wikipedia tank articles (see: M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, Challenger II, T-72). In any case this would fly against WP:UCN. I can't find any discussion or attempts to solidify around a consensus for this change. What is the reasoning behind it?

I could get behind a change that something like, "where disambiguation is needed, use natural disambiguation" (e.g. M113 armored personnel carrier), and "treat natural disambiguation as common nouns." Schierbecker (talk) 20:11, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

@Schierbecker: There's a footnote linked to the RfC. --qedk (t 愛 c) 20:43, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
@QEDK:, thanks. Missed that. I would argue that is the wrong forum for a change that affects so many articles. (also, it is sus that two of the contributors to that discussion are prolific sockpuppeteers, but that is besides the point.) Schierbecker (talk) 21:21, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
It was an RfC using the WP:FRS - quite common to do so, the forum can be anywhere but interested contributors are pinged to such discussions by a bot and it's also listed on different central templates, if turnout is low, probably just means not enough people were invested. --qedk (t 愛 c) 06:26, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

On maintaining NPOV terminology

This military history manual of style currently has very little stipulations designed on maintaining a neutral point of view (NPOV) in article titles and contents. Only WP:MILNAME has a somewhat useful rule of thumb:

  • Non-neutral terms such as "attack", "slaughter", "massacre", or "raid" should be used with care.

What prompted me to look here for guidance was a recent discussion at Talk:Izium mass graves on whether or not to change its name to "Izium massacre". The result was no consensus; a compromise has been reached to not mention the word 'massacre' in the title or body of text, but that putting it in two 'massacre' categories is acceptable for now (pending the outcome of official investigations into what happened). Given the intensity and length of the discussion, I think it would be helpful if the MILHIST style manual adopts more stipulations to provide guidance to editors working on military history-related articles like this, not just on article titles, but on article contents and categorisation as well. Each of these have proven to be points of contention, and will likely apply to many other articles yet to be written (or perhaps retroactively to articles that currently exist).

Fortunately, we can gather some rules on usage of the word massacre from other policies, guidelines and essays.

  • WP:MILNAME itself refers to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events), where the section Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)#Maintaining neutral point of view seems entirely dedicated to this issue, which is helpful. (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) is helpful for non-military events). Some of its material can be reused here.
  • WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECENT, WP:NPOVTITLE/WP:NDESC and WP:OR/WP:SYNTH were invoked by several editors (including myself) at the discussion, but it is not always easy to apply these general rules to military history topics specifically. I think it would be valuable if we wrote a summary of these rules when applied to milhist articles with a few examples.
  • Talk:List of events named massacres has much more specific criteria for inclusion of 'events named massacres', and I think these criteria should also be adopted by this MILHIST style guide, and customised specifically to military events.
  • The Category:Massacres and its subcategories do not appear to have inclusion criteria. The category itself just features the description A massacre is a specific incident which involves the killing of people, although not necessarily a crime against humanity. The numbers of killed range from just a few people to many millions. The common factor for massacre is multiple people being violently killed by other people, though intentionality and legality of the killings are not distinguishing factors, unlike mass murder. This text seems to be the result of multiple editors passing along and making changes over time without much discussion, sometimes with edit-warring (e.g. 19 April 2022). The fact that the category:Massacres was nominated for deletion at least 4 times also shows that it remains a difficult category to group (often milhist) articles with. (The application of the Talk:List of events named massacres criteria seems useful to resolve this issue.)

It seems to me that the above examples show that a centralised guideline on naming or referring to military events that were or could have been 'massacres' (according to some, but not others) would be valuable to help editors agree whenever such issues arise. This could include recommendations to use other terms, such as "mass graves", which may be less contested and better applicable in cases of disagreement. E.g. virtually nobody disputes that mass graves have been found near Izium; the question is how these people died and how we should describe that. But if we cannot agree on that (yet), then maybe we should avoid that word, and focus the article around the discovery of those mass graves that we do agree on (and the evidence that we agree has been found there). Of course, this workaround doesn't always work; some massacres do not produce mass graves (e.g. the Argentine death flights were arguably 'massacres' but obviously didn't leave behind 'mass graves'), and some mass graves were not the result of a massacre, but were created to bury many victims in the aftermath a natural disaster like an epidemic or an earthquake. But at the moment, many articles are both in the category:massacres and category:mass graves, and it might be helpful to only include them in the latter category whenever it is disputed whether the former category applies to a specific article. This could be a pragmatic way to solve NPOV issues.

So far, I've mostly used examples of article titles or categories featuring the word 'massacre' or not, but there are other issues as well.

  • Fall or liberation in titles. As I wrote at Talk:Izium mass graves: What for one party may be the "Fall of Izium" (to the enemy) may be the "Liberation of Izium" (from the enemy) to the other. (...) unless we're dealing with relevant quotations, words such as 'massacre', 'liberation' or 'fall' should not be in Wikipedia's military history vocabulary, certainly not in titles. I do accept that "Non-neutral but common names" (WP:POVNAME) may be an acceptable exception to this rule, e.g. Fall of Antwerp, Liberation of Paris or Bucha massacre. But these article titles should only be applied once they can be established to be the WP:COMMONNAME, and not before. (This is an important reason why the proposal to rename "Izium mass graves" to "Izium massacre" failed, because RS were overwhelmingly referring to the topic with the term "mass graves", and emphasised that investigations were going on to find out what exactly, including whether a 'massacre' had occurred or not, apart from questions of what criteria need to be fulfilled to be considered a 'massacre').
  • Liberation in the main body. As User:Quantum XYZ just stated in their edit of the article, 'liberated by Ukrainian forces' in the lead contradicts NPOV - changed it to recaptured. I agree with this assessment, but this would have quite far-reaching consequences for thousands of milhist articles on English Wikipedia. Would it never be okay to use the verb 'to liberate' or the noun 'liberation' in the main body of text? What if 'liberation' is also used in the title, or a widely used alternative name, or widely attested descriptions in RS? I tend to gravitate to the latter, meaning that these descriptions should be avoided unless they are widely attested in multiple RS. 'Recapture' (as proposed by Quantum XYZ) or 'de-occupation' (as sometimes used by the media or Ukrainian authorities) seem better alternatives for cases in which belligerent A resumes control of a position they lost to belligerent B.
  • Fall in the main body. On 'fall', I'm even more in doubt. When used as a verb, it doesn't seem to have a judgemental connotation, e.g. 'after weeks of fighting, the city fell (back) into the hands of the Ukrainian forces', a kind of sentence I've seen a lot in Western media in the past several months, probably wouldn't be considered POV, even by pro-Ukrainian observers. But if you would use "Fall of Kherson" to describe the Battle of Kherson (24 February – 2 March 2022), then it does seem to have a negative connotation of a city being "overpowered by the enemy" (i.e. the Russian Armed Forces in this hypothetical example), with cultural implications of being 'humiliated' or 'desecrated' or whatever by the "evil enemy". In short, you wouldn't normally be speaking of the Fall of City X to the belligerent that you support; 'fall' typically means that the belligerent that you identify with had control over that city, but lost it to the enemy, and that this is a bad thing. Compare to how the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 is widely so-named in European language versions of Wikipedia (as the Byzantine Empire is widely regarded as a representative of European/Christian culture), but on Turkish Wikipedia known as the 'Conquest of Istanbul' (tr:İstanbul'un Fethi; it approaches the event from the point of view of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of the current Republic of Turkey). (Incidentally, this implies that 'conquest' is also a POV word, although not necessarily a judgemental one). So the noun 'fall' in a milhist context therefore seems inherently POV, and should probably be avoided unless widely used in RS, while the verb 'to fall' is probably fine in the main body. Would it be useful if this MILHIST style manual made recommendations on these points as well? I think so.

I've got no definitive answers to any of these issues yet, but that's why I'm putting this up here as a suggestion for discussion on how we might improve this guideline on the usage of NPOV terminology when writing about military history. I'm curious what others think, and if we can establish some more specific rules that might make it easier for editors to reach agreement in the future. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:56, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

PS: There were some heated discussions recently at Talk:Liberation of Kherson about whether Liberation is a POV word or not, and whether it was more common (WP:COMMONNAME) than the simultaneously frequently mentioned phrase Russian withdrawal from Kherson (which arguably didn't refer to the same set of events, but a closely related and intertwined set of events happening almost simultaneously). The result of the rename discussion was No Consensus, after which the article creator and I established a tentative working consensus on mentioning Russian withdrawal from Kherson in the lead section and infobox, but less prominently than Liberation of Kherson. I think this whole saga could have been handled much more easily if MILHIST had established clearer guidelines on NPOV terminology as I proposed above. Hours and hours were spent (wasted?) on determining whether or not 1 word is okay in the title. I think this proves the point I've been making. I therefore repeat that we should establish more specific rules to make it easier for editors to reach agreement in the future. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Guides are supposed to be vague, to cater for a lot of anomalies; a clear guide is a rule. As for Kherson, it's in Ukraine which has been a US vassal state since the coup of 2014 at the latest; the Russian withdrawal is anything but a liberation. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:02, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Allegations of “external control” is an example of Russian Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Delegitimization of Ukraine as a nation and state which has been linked to genocide incitement. @Keith-264, please strike the comment, as it is anti-Ukrainian hate speech.  —Michael Z. 08:25, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
It isn't an allegation, it's a description of the truth. Ask Victoria Nuland. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 09:54, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Look folks, Wikipedia is WP:NOTAFORUM, so you can take your opinions about what country X is somewhere else than this talk page. My proposal is about clearer rules for naming battle pages. Simply put: I think the words "fall" and "liberation" should be added to the WP:MILNAME list of Non-neutral terms which should be used with care. It should not depend on the belligerent if Wikipedia says a city has supposedly 'fallen', or been 'liberated', because that violates NPOV. There are plenty of other words for us to use, such as '(re)taken (control of)', '(re)captured', '(re)conquered', 'seized (control of)', etc. which do not force Wikipedia, which is neutral, to take a side in a conflict. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:08, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Liberation is a neutral and objective term – the opposite of occupation. The dictionary defines:
  • liberate. Free from enemy occupation (Oxford Dictionary of English)
  • liberate. Free from control by a foreign or oppressive government. (Dictionary.com)[2]
  • liberate. Free from domination by a foreign power (Merriam-Webster)[3]
And it is asymmetrically applicable. Ukraine can’t occupy Ukraine. Ukrainian territory, settlements, or citizens are objectively liberated from Russian occupation.
And Russia can’t “liberate” parts of Ukraine: this is propaganda usage, falsely implying that Ukrainian land was stolen and belongs to Russia, that Ukraine is an illegitimate nation and state or held captive by Nazis or foreign powers, and that international law and Russian treaty promises don’t matter (see, for example, Putin’s essay and invasion speeches, 1, 2).
This is an objective POV, supportable by reliable sources, and to deny the meaning of liberation in this case with “conquest by one party is ‘liberation’ to the other” is to accept a false balance.
Similarly, it’s problematic to say that Ukraine conquered or reconquered part of Ukraine, and sounds odd to say it captured part of Ukraine that did not “escape” or be “freed” by Russian invasion and occupation. —Michael Z. 08:15, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
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