Project news

• The Intelligence task force has been created.
• The contest department has completed its ninth month of competition. The top scorer this month is Blnguyen, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter, with 8 points, and Redmarkviolinist, with 6 points. Blnguyen also remains the overall leader, with 162 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• Help with converting deprecated infoboxes is needed; any assistance is welcome!
• {{WPMILHIST}} now supports an explicit tag (class=DAB) for marking disambiguation pages.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Albuera
2. Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081)
3. Battle of the Gebora
4. Constantine II of Scotland
5. Francis Harvey
6. Vasa (ship)
7. Wulfhere of Mercia

New A-Class articles:

1. 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing
2. Evacuation of East Prussia

Current proposals and discussions

• A discussion about minimizing terminological ambiguity has begun.

Awards and honors

• Blnguyen has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his efforts in improving the quality of articles related to Vietnamese military history, including the creation of numerous A-Class articles.
• Woodym555 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding work on topics related to the Victoria Cross, notably including the creation of featured articles, featured lists, and a featured topic.
• For their outstanding efforts as part of Tag & Assess 2007, Bedford, TomStar81, and Parsival74 have been awarded the gold, silver, and bronze Wikis, respectively.

Tag & Assess 2007

Tag & Assess 2007 is now officially over, with slightly under 68,000 articles processed. The top twenty scores are as follows:

Although the drive is officially closed, existing participants can continue tagging until January 31 if they wish, with the extra tags counting towards their tally for barnstar purposes.

We'd like to see what lessons can be learned from this drive, so we've set up a feedback workshop. Comments and feedback from participants and non-particpants alike are very welcome and appreciated.

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Project news

• The project coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14!
• The contest department has completed its tenth month of competition, which saw an unprecedented 44 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 95 points, followed by Cla68, with 42 points, and Ed! and Woody, with 21 points each. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 182 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
• A new auxiliary infobox, {{operational plan}}, is now available.
• A new page for military history essays has been created; project members are encouraged to post their own advice and opinions on matters within the project's purview.
• New guidelines concerning precision and ship pronouns have been added to the style guide.
• Featured picture candidates and picture peer reviews are now accessible through the project's review department.
• An effort to convert deprecated infoboxes has begun; any assistance is welcome!

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident
2. Battle of Musa Qala
3. George Jones (RAAF officer)
4. Italian War of 1542–1546
5. Jim Bowie
6. Józef Piłsudski
7. Matanikau Offensive
8. Offa of Mercia
9. Suleiman the Magnificent
10. USS Illinois (BB-65)

New featured lists:

1. List of Knight's Cross recipients
2. Order of battle at the Glorious First of June

New A-Class articles:

1. 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt
2. Cold War
3. Hans-Joachim Marseille
4. Krulak Mendenhall mission

Current proposals and discussions

• Discussion about top-level operational categories continues.
• A discussion about non-English operational codenames has begun.
• A category restructuring workshop is now open; brainstorming regarding the arrangement of the top-level military history categories is currently ongoing.

Awards and honors

• Bwmoll3 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his superior contributions to a variety of articles about the United States Air Force, including a great number of those dealing with wings and installations.
• Bedford has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of the outstanding contribution he has made to the project's organization by going above and beyond the call of duty in tagging, assessing, and classifying a massive number of articles during the 2007 assessment drive.

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Project news

• The fifth project coordinator election has now concluded. Roger Davies has been elected to serve as the project's Lead Coordinator, and Blnguyen, Eurocopter tigre, Kyriakos, LordAmeth, Nick Dowling, TomStar81, Wandalstouring, and Woody will occupy the eight Assistant Coordinator positions. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!
• In the simultaneous referendum on project organization, you voted almost unanimously for a primus inter pares structure. As a tangible reflection of this, Assistant Coordinators are now known as Coordinators.
• The contest department has completed its eleventh month of competition, which saw 10 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 28 points, followed by Smsarmad, with 13 points, with Blnguyen, Ed! and jwillbur also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• The National militaries task force has been created.
• A new automatically-generated clean-up list is available to track articles that have various clean-up tags applied to them.
• A new logistics department has been created. The aim is to provide a pool of useful article creation skills that anyone can draw on. These include copy-editing, photograph retouching, and reference material sourcing. If you can contribute, please do so.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident
2. Carlson's patrol
3. Coenwulf of Mercia
4. Glorious First of June
5. Koli Point action
6. Operation Camargue

New featured lists:

1. List of Victoria Cross recipients by nationality

New A-Class articles:

1. 51st Army (Soviet Union)
2. Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999)
3. Le Paradis massacre
4. Military of East Timor
5. USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

Breaking news

• A new B-Class Assessment Drive ("BCAD") will go operational no later than 11 March. Of great interest to experienced wiki-gnomes, it is small in scope, about 4,500 articles, and will be supported by the usual awards, including a golden wiki. To keep up to date with developments, and to get off to a flying start when it opens, add WP:MHA-BCAD now to your watchlist.

Awards and honors

• Kirill Lokshin has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding organizational work, his painstaking maintenance work, and his unstinting advice, throughout his two years of project leadership.
• MBK004 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding effort to improve our compliment of naval ships by updating infoboxes, replacing deprecated infoboxes, and locating sources for ships in the employment of their respective countries' navies.

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Project news

• The Crusades task force has been created.
• The main project talk page is now automatically archived; MiszaBot II will archive any sections that have had no comments for 21 days.
• The contest department has completed its twelth month of competition, which saw 13 entries. The top scorer this month is Woody, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter with 13 points, with Ed!, jwillbur, Redmarkviolinist and Borg Sphere also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• A Sources section has been added to the Logistics department, for help tracing and locating JSTOR articles and other source material.
• A Linguistics section has been added to the Logistics department, for help with non-English language sources and translation of snippets. It supports 19 languages so far.
• An Administrators section has been added to the Logistics department, for help with admin related tasks. Administrators willing to help out are cordially asked to list their names in the section.
• Reminder: Editors are always needed to review various military history articles at all levels.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Æthelred of Mercia
2. Cannon
3. HMAS Melbourne (R21)
4. Huldrych Zwingli
5. Timor Leste Defence Force
6. USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

New featured lists:

1. List of countries without armed forces
2. List of foreign recipients of the Knight's Cross
3. List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Battle of Iwo Jima
4. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy

New featured topics:

1. Atlantic campaign of May 1794

New A-Class articles:

1. Armia Krajowa
2. Heuschrecke 10
3. USS Siboney (ID-2999)
4. William Stacy

Awards and honors

• Kirill Lokshin has been appointed coordinator emeritus to reflect his on-going involvement in the project. The appointment ends concurrently with the other coordinators' terms in September 2008.
• The following editors have been awarded the Content Review Medal for their work on reviews at various levels of military history articles: Carom, Cam, Blnguyen, Howard C. Berkowitz, Kevin Myers, Maralia, MrPrada, SoLando, and Wandalstouring. Similar awards were made last December to: Buckshot06, Cla68, Eurocopter tigre, Hawkeye7, Ian Rose, Jackyd101, JKBrooks85, Kyriakos, LordAmeth, Nick Dowling, Roger Davies, The Land, TomStar81 and Woody, most of whom are still active reviewers.

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Project news

• Tag & Assess 2008 launched on 24 April and will run until 4 July. We have around 60,000 articles to check, so all assistance is very welcome. As usual, there are barnstars galore and service awards for contributing editors.
• The project scope has been amended to include specific reference to historically accurate video games. Songs and music with long military associations are also now included.
• The Contest department has completed its thirteenth month of competition, which saw 27 entries. The top scorer this month is Ed! with 37 points, followed by Cam with 22 points. Woody, Howard C. Berkowitz, Redmarkviolinist, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
• The coordinators have "adopted" task forces to act as prime point of contact. A list of which coordinators have adopted which task forces is here.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt
2. 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing
3. Lazare Ponticelli
4. Maximian
5. Peterloo Massacre
6. The Third of May 1808
7. USS Orizaba (ID-1536)
8. USS Siboney (ID-2999)

New featured lists:

1. List of Irish Victoria Cross recipients
2. Order of battle at the Battle of Tory Island

New featured portals:

1. Portal:American Civil War

New A-Class articles:

1. 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States)
2. Battle of Bonchurch
3. Battle of Tassafaronga
4. Early thermal weapons
5. HMS Cardiff (D108)
6. USS Comfort (AH-3)
7. USS Orizaba (ID-1536)

Current proposals and discussions

• An interesting proposal to set up teams to deal with specific tasks, like taking the Top Ten most frequently read military history articles to featured articles status is here.
• The coordinators are exploring ways of developing and improving our fifty or so task forces. More information is here.
• All editors are invited to contribute to a discussion about the naming of military operations in an endeavor to reach consensus.

Awards and honors

• Congratulations and kudos to the four top-performing editors in BCAD: CAM (1st); Legotech (2nd); Harland1 (3rd) and Smsarmad (4th). They helped assess 4303 B-class Milhist articles. Well done!
• To belatedly commemorate the first anniversary of the Contest department, the overall annual winner, Blnguyen, has been awarded the Chevrons and the March monthly winner, Woody, and runner-up, Dreamafter, each receive the Writer's Barnstar.

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Project news

• Editors needed for Tag & Assess 2008. To coincide with the summer holidays, it will be gearing up from 15 June. As usual, barnstars galore!
• Partner peer reviews: for a thirty-day trial period, we'll be running joint peer reviews with Wikiproject Video Games. The idea is simple: we help with their reviews; they help with ours. This way both wikiprojects benefit from new reviewers and new ideas!
• We're notable: A new book, Simon Fowler's 2007 Guide to Military History on the Internet (UK:Pen & Sword, ISBN 9781844156061) rates Wikipedia as "the best general resource" for military research (p. 7). Of the military pages, he says: "The results are largely accurate and generally free of bias" (he also suggests people join the wikiproject). When rating WP as the No. 1 military site (p. 201) he says "Wikipedia is often criticised for its inaccuracy and bias, but in my experience the military history articles are spot on."
• A-Class reviews: the usual four-day review period may now be extended by up to three days (ie seven days in total) in the following circumstances:

1. the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
2. the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.

The full text is here.

• The special projects department has opened. It will focus on specific ad-hoc high-priority tasks and implement them with informal, short-term groups of editors.
• The Contest department has completed its fourteenth month of competition, which saw 16 entries. The top scorer this month is Cam with 21 points, followed by Redmarkviolinist with 11 points. Woody, Dreamafter, Kyriakos, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Tassafaronga
2. Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood
3. HMS Cardiff (D108)
4. Krulak Mendenhall mission
5. Le Quang Tung
6. Operation Passage to Freedom
7. Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi

New featured lists:

1. List of Texan survivors of the Battle of the Alamo
2. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy
3. List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Indian Army

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of the Kalka River
2. Battle of Verrières Ridge
3. Brian Horrocks
4. Byzantine navy
5. Erich Hartmann
6. Montana class battleship

Current proposals and discussions

• A discussion has been opened into the structuring of top level operational categories, starting with Category:World War II. All interested editors are invited to help establish a consensus.

Awards and honors

• Congratulations go to Hlj, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his many consistently fine and valuable contributions to military history articles within the American Civil War task force.

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Project news

• With the holiday season upon us, we're very short of reviewers at A-Class Reviews and are likely to remain so for the next month or so. If just five new reviewers each reviewed one article a week, the problem would be solved! To keep track of Milhist articles for peer and A-Class reviews, simply paste the code – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} – onto your talk page.
• Similarly, copy-editors are currently in short supply. If you can help out at the Copy-editing section of the Logistics Dept, it would be much appreciated. If you can help with A-Class Reviews and Featured Article Candidates so much the better! To keep up to date with Milhist articles needing copy input, just paste – {{WPMILHIST Copy-editing alerts}} onto your talk page.
• The debate on whether Milhist should adopt the new C-Class has been closed, with a strong and clear consensus against adopting. The archived discussion is here.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Lissa (1811)
2. Battle of Verrières Ridge
3. Benjamin Franklin Tilley
4. Brian Horrocks
5. Lince (tank)
6. Montana class battleship
7. Saint-Sylvestre coup d’état
8. Verdeja (tank)
9. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

New featured lists:

1. List of Crimean War Victoria Cross recipients‎
2. List of German World War II jet aces (promoted in May)

New A-Class articles:

1. Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse
2. Battle of Strasbourg
3. Operation Brevity
4. Operation Tractable
5. Operation Varsity
6. Roman-Persian Wars
7. SS Kroonland

Current proposals and discussions

• The Milhist review structure is itself being reviewed. The idea is to see how it can be improved, or whether it needs changing or updating.
• The month-long trial of partner peer reviews with Video games is being discussed. All feedback welcome!

Awards and honors

• Congratulations to Buckshot06, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his consistently excellent edits and his continued commitment and tireless efforts towards improving the quality of articles pertaining to military history.
• Congratulations to Piotrus, who has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Polish military history, including the creation of numerous Featured Articles, A-Class articles, and Good Articles on the subject.
• Reviewers: Many thanks go to Kirill, TomStar81, Eurocopter tigre, Nick Dowling, Ryan4314, Woody, Wandalstouring, Jon Catalán, Kyriakos, Maralia and Oberiko for their work on A-Class Reviews and Peer Reviews, during the quarter March-May 2008. They have all been awarded the Content Review Medals.
• The Contest department has completed its fifteenth month of competition, which saw 15 entries. The top scorer this month is JonCatalan with 32 points, followed by Cam with 20 points. Ed!, David Underdown, CyclonicWhirlwind, and Blnguyen also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 193 points in total. The Chevrons go to JonCatalan and Cam gets the Writer's Barnstar. The May 2008 winners, Cam and Redmarkviolinist have been belatedly awarded the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar for coming first and second respectively. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.
• Tag & Assess '08 has now closed, with approximately 10,000 articles successfully tagged. Many thanks to all those who participated. The top three scorers were Jim Sweeney (Gold Wiki), Dashiellx (Silver Wiki) and Ejosse1 (Bronze Wiki).

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Project news

• The criteria for Military history A-Class reviews have been overhauled. The new standard is deliberately set higher than before, and is much closer to featured article quality. The new criteria are:

• A1. The article is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations as appropriate.
• A2. The article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail.
• A3. The article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents.
• A4. The article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant.
• A5. The article contains supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where appropriate.

• The timescale for A-Class articles has also been changed to give more editors an opportunity to participate.
• The six-monthly Coordinators' election has been moved back a month to avoid clashes with the holiday period. The sign-up period will run from 1–15 September and the elections themselves from 16–30 September.
• The military land vehicles task force has been created.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Battle of Concepción
2. Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse
3. Battle of Tory Island
4. Early life and military career of John McCain
5. Grass Fight
6. Leopard 2E
7. Operation Varsity
8. Roman–Persian Wars
9. Uriel Sebree
10. USS Princess Matoika (ID-2290)

New featured portals:

1. Portal:World War II

New A-Class articles:

1. 11th Airborne Division (United States)
2. 2007–2008 Ethiopian crackdown in Ogaden
3. 2008 invasion of Anjouan
4. Auxiliaries (Roman military)
5. Citadel of Saigon
6. HMS Ark Royal (91)

Current proposals and discussions

• Input wanted from people who didn't participate in Tag & Assess '08. Please comment at the Tag & Assess workshop so we can improve future drives.

Awards and honors

• The Contest department has completed its sixteenth month of competition, which saw 22 entries. The top scorer this month is new entrant Bellhalla with 41 points, followed by Blnguyen with 33 points. Cam, Ed!, David Underdown, and Ferbess also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 226 points in total. The Chevrons go to Bellhalla and Blnguyen gets the Writer's Barnstar. You are encouraged to submit any articles you are working on as entries.

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Project news

• The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is underway, to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on 14 September! Voting starts at 00:01 (UTC) on 15 September and runs until 23:59 (UTC) on 30 September.
• A new barnstar specifically encouraging and recognizing excellence in Milhist article creation and development has been introduced. Any editor who has made a significant contribution to three or more Milhist A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008 under the new A-Class criteria is eligible. Nominations for the medal should be made here; should list the three A-Class articles for which the medal is sought; and must be subsequently supported by three or more project coordinators, who will be responsible for making the award. Editors may nominate themselves or any other qualifying editor.

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Domitian
2. HMS Ark Royal (91)
3. John McCain
4. Operation Ke
5. Panzer I
6. Warwick Castle

New featured lists:

1. List of Korean War Medal of Honor recipients
2. List of USAF Test Pilot School alumni

New A-Class articles:

1. Harry Murray
2. Horses in warfare
3. Kaunas Fortress
4. Kiev Expedition (1018)
5. Napoleon I of France
6. Operation Ke
7. Panzer IV
8. SS Dakotan
9. SS Pennsylvanian
10. TAM (tank)
11. United States Naval Gunfire Support Debate‎
12. USS Mercy (AH-4)

Current proposals and discussions

• A new discussion about whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is underway. All comments are welcome.
• The 2008 Tag & Assess Workshop is still open, seeking input on ways to improve the efficiency, user-friendliness and organization of future Milhist drives. All comment is welcome, especially from people who didn't participate in the drive!

Awards and honors