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References question

Is there a policy on using refbegin and refend in bibliographies? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 10:01, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

not AFAIK. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
It's taken a while but I found Template:Refbegin that helps, apparently it's optional. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 10:31, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
Its only real uses are to govern the number of columns and things like indents. Its negative effect is shrinking the text size by 10% or so; just enough to require me to need my glasses when I don't need them to read the rest of the article. That feature's not doing vision-impaired readers any favors.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
We've had this discussion before and I sympathise but this should be a decision made by Wiki not either of us. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 21:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Copyright and verifiability issues with Jack Churchill

I have identified possible copyright and verifiability issues concerning the article Jack Churchill, which is of interest to this WikiProject. Your input would be welcome. The issues are discussed here. Renerpho (talk) 00:36, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tel al-Sultan airstikes#Requested move 27 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tel al-Sultan airstikes#Requested move 27 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 05:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Map of NATO discussed at Talk:Second Cold War

Link: Talk:Second Cold War#Map of NATO. George Ho (talk) 20:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Operation Hurry question

Does anyone know why the wl in the lead of Operation Hurry are causing dupe wl warnings in the text? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 22:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  • Maybe duplicate Regia links in the Infobox and Lead text is all I can guess. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
I've had a look but the infobox wl aren't showing as dupes. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:52, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Fort Capuzzo is doing the same. Could the dupe wl scanner be defective? Keith-264 (talk) 21:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
Anyone? Keith-264 (talk) 15:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking more closely, all the flagged duplicate links in the Operation Hurry article are linked in the Infobox, Lead text, and in main link templates. I had not used the Highlight duplicate links feature in the left sidebar before (other than maybe tests). The settings or sensitivity for this could have changed recently. Regards -Fnlayson (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Auxiliary warships

Following The AfD discussion about whether or not the French ship Gapeau (B284) article should be deleted or not (closed as no consensus to delete after more than 6 weeks discussion and deletion review), I would like to raise the issue of auxiliary warships for discussion.

The auxiliary warships are mostly, but not limited to, Naval Trawlers / Kriegfischkutters /Vorpostenboote of WWI and WWII. Wikipedia has pretty good coverage of the larger naval vessels of this period, but not so good coverage of the smaller vessels. Attempts to cover them are met with some resistance from editors such as Fram, who nominate them for deletion with little success.

One big advantage of Wikipedia is we are not a paper encyclopedia. We are able to cover many more subjects than any printed encyclopedia, including this subject. Gapeau served as a commissioned vessel with two navies, and is, in my opinion, more than notable enough to sustain an article. The ed17 raised WP:SIGCOV in the Gapeau AfD discussion. Once an article has been created, it can always be added to when further information comes to light. Again, this is another big advantage of Wikipedia, the ability to update and expand articles.

It is accepted that some vessels had more exciting careers than others, but a comprehensive approach to a subject is better than a patchy approach. So, do we hold that auxiliary naval vessels are generally going to be notable enough to sustain articles given book sources such as Colbert and Gröner, fleshed out with Lloyd's register? Mjroots (talk) 09:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  • I don't think that it can be assumed that auxiliaries are notable, largely as they're so diverse. The sources reflect this. For instance, prior to a commercialisation program in the 1990s, the Royal Australian Navy's auxiliaries included several very simple unpowered barges that were used as platforms to paint other ships. These barges appeared in various listing type books (Jane's Fighting Ships, etc), but always in passing so wouldn't be notable. More broadly, Wikipedia as a whole is less tolerant these days of claims that entire types of things are automatically notable due to the problems associated with this in the past (e.g. the nonsense around porn stars and obscure academics being declared notable on criteria other than the availability of reliable sources). Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
  • You're going to have a hard time making broad judgements like this, in large part because of what Nick highlighted above (the era of saying "notable because WP:SOLDIER" is over). But even in cases where a ship is notable, it may not make sense to create an article for it. A good example of this are SMS Rhein and SMS Mosel. Both pass the SIGCOV bar comfortably, but they did so little during their careers (and typically did so in the same place) that it makes more sense to discuss them at Rhein-class monitor instead of at two articles that would be 95% identical (if not more).
  • That being said, in the case of first-German, then-French vessels like Gapeau that are covered by Gröner and Roche, those are probably always going to be notable. Gröner counts as SIGCOV, and though I have not read Roche, I'd assume that his stuff is similar, based on how I've seen people cite it. Parsecboy (talk) 12:17, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Roche is a dictionary similar to Colledge Lyndaship (talk) 12:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
      • Ah, so pretty thin on details then - I guess that invalidates my point above about counting it toward SIGCOV. Parsecboy (talk) 12:55, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
  • THis is why we have GNG, if an auxiliary is notable, it would have received significant coverage in RS. If it has not, it is not. Slatersteven (talk) 12:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
    • If you look at the List of Vorpostenboote in World War II you will see that V 203 Heinrich Buermann isn't redlinked. This is because I've been unable to find out anything much about the ship. If I recall correctly, with V 215 Hela I've not been able to pin down which Hela became the vorpostenboot. There are a few others like that. Mjroots (talk) 13:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
      • Something to be noted about a lot of these minor warships is they were flotilla vessels that didn't operate independently, and often don't get written about individually in any detail, with what little coverage about the activities concentrating on the unit rather than the ships. These sorts of ships tend to be skirting around the edges of notability. There will be hundreds of trawlers etc serving in major navies in wartime that just don't have enough written specifically about the individual ships to sustain an article. The same thing can apply to a lot of smaller active warships like motor minesweepers.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:05, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
  • With a few specific exceptions that don't apply here, we measure notability based on the availability of sources, not intrinsic properties of any subject... So for an auxiliary warships to merit its own article, it must meet WP:SIGCOV by being covered in multiple reliable sources that treat the ship in detail. Sources like Lloyd's or, for most small ships, Conway's don't meet that bar. See WP:N#cite_note-1, "directories and databases [...] are all examples of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources." For Gapeau, I !voted delete because I only saw one source that likely had significant coverage. My suspicion is that many of these small warships should be part of wider-scoped lists per WP:CSC, point #2, and that they could be merged without AfDs. If more sources come to light we can start a new article at that time, which is indeed a benefit of being an online and not paper encyclopedia. Ed [talk] [OMT] 21:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I really suspect a lot of auxillaries and minor warships aren't going to be notable, not just the vorpostenboote. See, for instance, things such as USS W. W. Burns or USS Nathaniel Taylor. Both are 19th-century US naval vessels purchased solely for use as blockships. I haven't done a thorough look for coverage of these vessels' civilian careers, but I don't see any way in which either of those could be considered to be notable simply from their military service. I agree with Ed17 that a list would be a good housing place for many of these auxillaries or minor warships, but I don't know that things like Nathaniel Taylor even need to be mentioned anywhere. Hog Farm Talk 23:57, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
    • @Hog Farm: - with USS Nathaniel Taylor, I'd say that more sources need to be explored, such as American newspapers which are accessible via the Library of Congress. May be possible to expand the ship's history that way. Mjroots (talk) 07:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Our List of requisitioned trawlers of the Royal Navy (WWII) includes several stub-articles of a only a couple of lines for unremarkable vessels, but the most famous RN trawler of the war, HMT Ayrshire (or HMS Ayrshire (FY 225)) of Convoy PQ 17, is not one of them. Alansplodge (talk) 17:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Words of estimative probability#Requested move 25 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Words of estimative probability#Requested move 25 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 00:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Military Missions

there are a lot of pages about military missions (personnel sent to a country to help train another nations military) yet the page about military advisors is threadbare. it would be difficult to accurately list all military missions, so i suggest the following:

i propose a new category called "military advisors" be created, under which military missions pages, and pages on notable people who took part in these, so its properly organised. Bird244 (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean Category:Military advisors, with the subcategory Category:Military advisory groups? Buckshot06 (talk) 07:01, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
yes Bird244 (talk) 21:11, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Bombing of country X = battle involving country X?

Quick question: should articles about the bombing of a location in country X by the airforce of country Y be categorised as a battle involving country X? One could argue that, aside from using air defences against country Y's airforce (if X forces did so), the location bombed in the country X is not an active participant in the combat, but rather passively undergoing it. I'm asking because Category:World War II strategic bombing of the Netherlands is not directly in Category:Battles and operations of World War II involving the Netherlands (which is a second-cousin category); but through its parent Category:Netherlands in World War II, it is nevertheless in Category:Wars involving the Netherlands.

I'm not necessarily in favour or against it; just wondering if there are conventions about this, because I'm considering creating a List of battles of World War II involving the Netherlands, and I'd like to know if strategic bombings of the Netherlands by the Axis or Allies, without any Dutch aircraft involved, should 'count' as "involving the Netherlands". (Perhaps a precondition is that Dutch air defences on the ground were somehow involved in order to "count"?) That is going to be important for my selection criteria. Thanks in advance! NLeeuw (talk) 05:04, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Best not to widen the definition of 'battle' into any old skirmish unless the RS call it one. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Sentient (intelligence analysis system) - expanded this article substantially, what now?

Hello, can I ask please if the members of this project can go to the talk page of this article I've been expanding and review it? It is still listed as a Stub on the Talk page and I'm still not quite sure on the Project-type and back-end work necessary here.

This is the article:

I had expanded it from 2606 bytes long on January 1, 2024 to now 30,669 bytes long as of June 6, 2024. I updated a variety of related/connected pages as well.

I'm not quite sure what to do next and still have a variety of sources to still go through, but I may be running out of usable collateral (TBD, what I think I have left is here).

What's next? Refinement? Wikipedia:Good articles? I would definitely welcome some help on Talk:Sentient_(intelligence_analysis_system). Thanks all. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  1. The first step in our peer review process is to obtain a B-class assessment. This can be accomplished by posting a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests. An editor from the project will provide an assessment based on our B-class criteria. (If it is not already assessed, our MilHistBot will provide an assessment.) In this case, this step is already completed, because I have re-assessed the article as B class.
  2. You can submit the article for a Good Article assessment. See Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions for how to do this. This is an English Wikipedia-wide assessment. A single editor will conduct a review based on the Good Article criteria. When it passes, you can nominate it at Did You Know? See Template:DYK nomination header#Instructions for nominators on how to do this. When the article runs on the front page, it will attract many readers.
  3. The next rung is an A-class assessment. This is conducted by the project. At least three editors from the project will provide an assessment. Nomination instructions can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review
  4. Finally, you can submit the article as a Featured Article candidate. (See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates for instructions on how to nominate.) This is an English Wikipedia-wide assessment. Multiple editors will conduct a review based on the Featured Article criteria.
Any of these steps can be skipped, but I would recommend going through them all to familiarise yourself with the processes. Great work! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll start reading up on all that. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 23:00, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chang Hsueh-liang#Requested move 6 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chang Hsueh-liang#Requested move 6 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 12:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chang Hsueh-liang#Requested move 6 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chang Hsueh-liang#Requested move 6 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 12:26, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Chinese conflicts

Template:Chinese conflicts has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. -- 65.92.244.143 (talk) 05:26, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Loss of Air Force Historical Agency links

It would appear that links to many sources for articles dealing with United States Air Force history will have to (again) be changed or relinked tp archived pages. www.afhra.af.mil, which for some time has been the web site for the Air Force Historical Research Agency now redirects to dafhistory.af.mil, which (at east on my computer) cannot be reached. This means links to unit and establishment factsheets, numbered AAF and USAF studies, and a number of works published by AFHRA are no longer valid. Strikes me as something a bot is needed to solve (at least for pages that were archived). Lineagegeek (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Misplacement

Since Haile Selassie I has passed the Good article status can someone add the article as a GA class for Military history? CtasACT (talk) 00:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

No need. This occurs automagically. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:52, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
The reason why is the article passed the GA criteria a couple months ago, and it still is listed C class to which i have been troubled by. CtasACT (talk) 01:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Sometimes the Wiki project banners have to be updated or corrected manually (GA listed for all). The WP:MilHistory banner had its own rating which needed to be removed or synced with the overall rating (in banner shell). -Fnlayson (talk) 02:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    Understood CtasACT (talk) 02:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue 218, June 2024

Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:42, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye#Requested move 23 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye#Requested move 23 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 11:49, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Notice of discussion

A proposal at Talk:William D. Leahy that the article's date format Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Raid on Bardia biblio question

Raid on Bardia Anyone know who Wilmott 1944 is? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 11:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Check through the history and you can probably find the complete citation.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
If you look at the Operation Sunflower article you'll find the citation for Wilmott. Something called Tobruk 1941 that appears to have been published in 1983 and is possibly a reprint of something that came out in 1944. It's listed as (1993) [1944]. Tobruk 1941 (Penguin ed.). Sydney: Halstead Press Intothatdarkness 13:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
It's Chester Wilmot, Aus. war corres. who transferred to BBC in 1944 and made a broadcast about flying in on D-Day, available as "Transcript of a narrative recorded by Chester Wilmot, as BBC war correspondent with 6 Airborne Div, in a glider bound for France on 6 Jun 1944", although god knows where. But your Torbruk 1944 is available at the Internet Archive, here. ——Serial Number 54129 13:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks all, I checked the history to no avail, I wondered if it was Chester Wilmot because he wrote on the Desert War. Thanks all. Keith-264 (talk) 14:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Curious, though, Keith-264, as it was you that originally added Wilmot in March 2015... without the full ref. then either  ;) ——Serial Number 54129 14:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Well damn my rags! I didn't check my edits as I assumed it wasn't me. I must have adapted the Sonnemblume section from Sonnenblume. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 15:04, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries. It was nicely full circle really!  :) ——Serial Number 54129 15:13, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Bot assessment

Please ensure your assessment bot follows PIQA, because as of this post, it is not following this and posting differing assessments in the banner shells. Ktkvtsh (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I thought we opted out of PIQA? Hog Farm Talk 19:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
That may be the case. My apologies. Ktkvtsh (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
If you feel the bot has incorrectly assessed an article, report it on the MilHistBot talk page. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:42, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

UGM-133 Trident II payload?

The text says it may carry "up to eight Mk-5 RVs". However, the infobox says 1 to 12. Those are good-sized warheads, so I would imagine it's the lower number, but neither has a reference. — kwami (talk) 03:44, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Trident II can carry up to twelve RVs, but the START II treaty limits them to just eight. In practice, they often carry fewer due to other treaty limits. reference Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:04, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Source review needed

If someone could provide a source review for Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Tinian, I would be most grateful. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division

Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm Talk 13:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Improve citation format for SIPRI database results

Most members of this project are probably familiar with SIPRI's Arms Transfers Database, a vital source for information on the international movement of military equipment that is used in thousands of articles on Wikipedia. However, citing the database is more difficult than with most web sources, because it does not provide permanent external links to specific data. Instead, all citations on Wiki link to one of the database's search pages. Anyone who wishes to double-check a claim sourced to SIPRI must typically determine, on their own, what search parameters will obtain useful and relevant data.

I propose that we use the "at" parameter in the cite web template to list SIPRI database search parameters, as in the following dummy citation:

  • "Arms Transfers Database: Transfer data". SIPRI Arms Transfers Database (Searchable database). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 0000-00-00. Recipient QQQ, supplier RRR, weapon category CatPlaceholder, designation NamePlaceholder, order/delivery completion/delivery year from 0000 to 9999. Retrieved 0000-00-00. (Quote goes here.) {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= and |date= (help)

Here is how the source code looks: 

{{cite web
| url          = https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData
| title        = Arms Transfers Database: Transfer data
| author       = <!--Not stated-->
| date         = 0000-00-00
| website      = SIPRI Arms Transfers Database
| publisher    = [[Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]]
| type         = Searchable database
| at           = Recipient QQQ, supplier RRR, weapon category CatPlaceholder, designation NamePlaceholder, order/delivery completion/delivery year from 0000 to 9999
| access-date  = 0000-00-00
| quote        = (Quote goes here.)
}}

I will personally use this format, or future versions of it, whenever I cite SIPRI from now on. Huntthetroll (talk) 21:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Single records can be accessed directly using the final entityId:
  • https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData/transferDetail?entityId=245233 (Hohum @) 22:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks for confirming this. I was not sure whether it was reproducible. Huntthetroll (talk) 22:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
    It is possible that citing this way could require a large number of citations for a single statement. For instance, one sentence in the M48 Patton article currently reads thus: Totally, when the Yom Kippur War broke out, Israel had 540 M48-series (with 105 mm gun) and M60/M60A1 tanks. This single claim appears to rely on adding up the recorded number of vehicles received by Israel in at least three separate database entries, each of which would require its own citation using this method. There is also no way to show to a reader that any such series of citations includes all relevant entries from SIPRI, unless the reader searched the SIPRI database themself. Huntthetroll (talk) 00:08, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
It would probably be possible to create a "Cite SIPIRI" template, to accept multiple linkable entityId's per citation, but it would rely on SIPIRI not changing the access method - and it would still be a bit clunky for more than a few entries too. (Hohum @) 15:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I tried combining our ideas at M47 Patton#Former operators. What do you think? Not sure they really make sense together. Huntthetroll (talk) 19:37, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Dupe wl scanners question

importScript('User:Evad37/duplinks-alt.js'); isn't working properly, isn't there another one? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 17:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed that as well lately - Evad's was the second one, when Ucucha's stopped working correctly years ago. Neither one of them appear to be particularly active recently, unfortunately. Parsecboy (talk) 17:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I asked him to take a look but he hasn't answered, shame, I found it very useful. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
It's very difficult to use now - hopefully they can fix one or the other. Parsecboy (talk) 20:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Broken template in Vector 2010 Nthep (talk) 17:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Assessment of Lists

Lately, I have come across the incorrect use of Start class to grade list articles. I fixed this error previously, but found it again with two articles I published in the past couple of days. As a reminder, list articles should be given the WP's list grading template, rather than the one used for "normal" articles.

This brings me to the bigger issue. The WikiProject Military History's assessment ratings options for list articles are quite extensive and currently call for what are considered "non-standard grades" according to Wikipedia:Content assessment. Quoting from Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists#Assessment: "WikiProject Lists limits class to FL, List, and Stub for articles". In fact, this WP has a bot that automatically changes incorrect class codes for reporting, such as those included in the WP MH assessment system. Yhus, I propose that WikiProject Military History update its assessment system to remove the non-standard grades for list articles and to use just Stub, List, and Feature List (FL) as per the Wikipedia general guidelines. Rublamb (talk) 19:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rublamb: Actually there is no assessment of lists due to lack of classes. I don't know why is that, and it doesn't make sense. Eurohunter (talk) 20:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
@Eurohunter: Do you mean within the WP rating template? If that is the case, you would just need to add one more option: Lists. (The only other grade really used in Wikipedia for list articles is Feature List (FL) which is rare and has an overding code, as with Feature Articles). Take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment, which does detail an assessment system. Rublamb (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
There is no start class for list articles; the project template should not allow it. Can you give me a couple of examples where this has occurred, so I can investigate? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Here are two:
Rublamb (talk) 00:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

How many galleys were at the Battle of Actium?

Please see Talk:Battle of Actium § How many galleys? for an issue that has existed since at least 2019. Ed [talk] [OMT] 05:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:OR in lists of wars between country A and country B?

Dear colleagues, fellow military historians,

Something has been bugging about these various Lists of wars between country A and country B. Some of them are decent and have proper sourcing, while others are full of WP:UNSOURCED WP:OR / WP:SYNTH, especially when it comes to identifying so-called "predecessor states" of countries A and B, centuries before A and B existed, and that from a legal point of view may not be "predecessor states" of A and B at all. Example:

  • List of wars between Russia and Sweden.
  • List of armed conflicts involving Poland against Russia
    • This is a complicated article that probably deserves its own discussion. I've made some efforts to improve it myself, but I'm not sure about its future. In short, this just began as a DP helping readers to navigate between various articles called "Polish-Russian War"; the interwikis show that in other language Wikipedias this is still the case. But it has been expanded to include all supposed predecessors of "Poland" and "Russia". Again, what we call "Russia" here is quite doubtful. The Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, which despite what many post-2014 publications might suggest, is very rarely called "Ruthenia", let alone "Russia", in historiography. (The trend to call Galicia-Volhynia "Kingdom of Ruthenia" seems to have begun no earlier than 2015, if you carefully search for it on Google Scholar and Google Books). Like Novgorod, it was never a predecessor of the modern RusFed, because it was annexed by Poland and Lithuania. All wars in that section have lots of issues (2 of them are currently in AfD). Simultaneously, the way the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is identified as a predecessor state of Poland (exclusively) also raises questions, as its legacy has also been claimed by Lithuania and to a lesser extent Belarus and Ukraine. (Under international law, no successor state could probably be identified; everything after 1795 is arguably a new creation, such as the Duchy of Warsaw). And that is before we even start on identifying Kievan Rus' as a predecessor state of Russia as opposed to Ukraine (ideologically speaking the current Russo-Ukrainian War is in no small part about claiming the legacy of that medieval state). A little more justifiable is considering the Soviet Union a predecessor of the RusFed, as it is generally recognised under international law to be so, with the RusFed inheriting all treaties signed by the USSR, and memberships in international organisations such as the United Nations. Therefore, the Polish-Soviet War may reasonably be regarded as a war between "Poland" and "Russia".
  • List of conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan is perhaps a good example of how this type of article might work after all. The opposing belligerents of the 1918-1920 war could reasonably be identified as predecessors of the modern states, and thus no WP:OR is being committed.
  • Similarly, Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts does not go back further than 1947, and seems a helpful and comprehensive overview.

So what we're getting is a mixed picture. There aren't many articles of the type List of wars between Fooland and Barland yet (probably fewer than 10 at the moment). In some cases it seems really questionable how a list is set up, while in others it seems fine and even very helpful. Therefore, I think we should develop some kind of convention for this type of military history list, the do's and don'ts, both for improvement of the current articles, as well as standards that potential future articles should adhere to. As outlined above, I think we should look at this from a legal perspective: can the former country C be identified as the predecessor state of the current country A under international law? If not, then we should probably exclude C from a list of wars between country A and B. E.g. Galicia-Volhynia (which is in historiography is sometimes actually considered a predecessor state of modern Ukraine rather than Russia) should probably be excluded from the List of armed conflicts involving Poland against Russia. Thoughts? NLeeuw (talk) 05:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, I have a similar concern. We shouldn't neglect articles such as "X's campaign against Y," "A campaigns in B," or "X's military campaigns and expeditions." I regret having created or improved such articles in the past. For example, in the article Campaigns of Nader Shah, the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire, and even the Russian Empire are listed as belligerents. To a newcomer, or someone unfamiliar with the historical context, it might appear that these empires allied against Nader Shah, which never happened.
Similarly, in articles like Muslim conquest of Persia, Ahom-Mughal conflicts, Afghan–Sikh wars, and Gupta–Hunnic Wars, many figures are grouped into a single belligerent/commander list, and presented with a single result, overlooking intermediate outcomes that differed from the presented result. Interestingly, most of the people listed in the infoboxes never even faced each other.
These are just a few examples, but several campaign-type articles have been similarly distorted. I myself created the article Ghaznavid campaigns in India, inspired by other similar articles, and now regret if it misled viewers. We can find several other military campaign-type articles where multiple campaigns are combined into a single infobox, creating confusion. A solution is indeed required to prevent readers from being misled by the infobox, which currently distorting the actual context. It is not surprising that many military conflict-type articles have only a few lines of written context but a large, misleading infobox. Imperial[AFCND] 07:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@ImperialAficionado Thanks for your response! Indeed, newcomers may be encouraged to write such articles if they do not know how either Wikipedia or modern critical historiography works. Some of my first articles written on Dutch Wikipedia were about battles and campaigns, and only in hindsight I realised some of them were original research / WP:SYNTH, because I frankly didn't know what those rules were until someone told me. ;)
I agreed to have some of the worst articles deleted, nominating some of my own articles for deletion. Others I managed to salvage by better sourcing, rewriting or merging.
It's very well possible that some of that what you and I did in our early editing days is also going on with these wars between A and B, or campaigns of C against D. Military history enthusiasts who write lots of stuff before understanding how Wikipedia works. (In case of the "wars" between "Poland" and Galicia-Volhynia, that editor wrote dozens of poorly sourced articles with a heavy bias, and he was blocked after only 3 months on Wikipedia, but some of his battle articles are still there).
In general, I have been trying to split lists of wars involving modern countries and former countries, to prevent people claiming the modern country was also involved in alllll the wars of the country which no longer exists. This is why I created Category:Lists of wars by former country, and I have been slowly populating it ever since. NLeeuw (talk) 15:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@Nederlandse Leeuw As an editor of South Asian military history, I've encountered many editors, who don't wait to hear us out, takes their articles to mainspace failing many guidelines, leading to their eventual blocking and subsequent meatpuppet or sockpuppet activity. Sadly it became common in India-Pakistan-Afghanistan TA. This behavior of editors, and personal attacks has caused me significant stress, leading to a Wikibreak and a halt in creating such articles. It would be better if a dedicated team could guide new military history editors and review their articles accordingly. Another issue is that new page reviewers from other WikiProjects are accepting AFCs too quickly without fact-checking. I'm pretty sure the majority of war-type articles are synthesized products. Imperial[AFCND] 16:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@ImperialAficionado I'm glad to hear that you have been trying to set the right example for others to follow! But I'm sad to hear that you have encounted much resistance from people who think they know everything there is to know, and that only their POV is "correct".
Incidentally, now that we're talking, would you be interested in looking at some of my edits on South Asian military history? I have been trying to document all wars of succession in history, without engaging in WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. That is not easy, especially outside of Europe, because although wars of succession are a universal phenomenon, the literature aboubt the term "war of succession" and theories about why they happened, how they went, and how various societies tried to settle or prevent such conflicts, is very euro-centric. Western scholars (and Wikipedians like myself) writing about wars of succession in the Indian subcontinent, for example, might (unconsciously or not) be influenced by a certain colonial or postcolonial bias. E.g. they might think it's "just like in Europe", or "worse than in Europe", without really understanding how conflicts played out in South Asia, and what they meant.
At List of wars of succession#Asia, you can see my attempts to document all I could find based on reliable sources and wherever possible linking to existing articles or sections.
At Talk:List of wars of succession#Conventions for the list of wars of succession, I have been describing all the relevant policies, guidelines and recommendations to ensure that we do not make things up, but write military history in accordance with how English Wikipedia is supposed to work. This is both a reminder to myself and to anyone else who would like to contribute. Good day. NLeeuw (talk) 16:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I really appreciate your attempts to expand the scope of MILHIST and thank you for your work on South Asian history. Wars of succession are indeed complicated in South Asian history throughout the ages, and we often face problems where sources contradict each other in their conclusions. Unfortunately, I can't spend much time on WP right now, as I am on a break within my Wikibreak. I hope to come back and contribute to such articles soon. Best regards. Imperial[AFCND] 17:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Enjoy your break, and perhaps we shall meet again another time! NLeeuw (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Another thought related to this is that lately, I've begun to think we should prioritise listing battles by war rather than battles by country involved. If we put the country at the centre, we always risk getting a one-sided perspective (especially with the victory/defeat opposition, if not dichotomy), and taking the battles out of the contexts of the wars they were part of. Lists of wars involving (former) countries are probably worthwhile as overview articles, but lists of battles involving (former) countries should perhaps be avoided. NLeeuw (talk) 06:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
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