Talk:Battle of Ligny

Article Size and Style
I don't mean to intrude on, from what I can see, is a labor of love from several editors, but I believe that the understandable impulse to inform the reader has been allowed a bit too free of a rein. Speaking as a relatively neutral observer who has not read this article in over a year, I have to express my shock as to what it has become. What was previously a fairly concise (if admittedly thin) article on the battle of Ligny has now somehow metastasized into an enormous, seemingly entirely copy-pasted lifting of the works of Siborne, with nary a paraphrase to help those who were not born in the 19th century along. The article's index of the battle's phases, by itself, spans more than an entire screen. I want to emphasize that I have no dog in this fight other than being a Napoleonic Wars enthusiast, but this article seems like it desperately needs not only pruning, but actual original content. Simply lifting an entire chapter from a book, slapping quotations around it and attributing it, and then calling it a day is not a conducive format for those who want to read a summary of the battle, which is the format for most, if not all, other Wikipedia battle and campaign articles.

I would humbly suggest to the resident editors that the article be remodeled so that, while keeping the main action covered and well-sourced, it informs the reader in a timely and understandable manner of what occurred during the battle. Brianify (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's dreadful. Awful. A massive, misguided waste. The complete lack of editorial judgement has produced an article that's enormous but largely uninformative and unfit as a reference work. Furthermore it's almost entirely copied from a single source written in the late 1800s! Which results in rubbish like "the battle, on this part of the field, now presented an awfully grand and animating spectacle, and the hopes of both parties were raised to the highest state of excitement intermingled with the quick but irregular discharge of small arms throughout the whole extent of the village, came forth alternately the cheering "En avant!" and exulting "Vive l'Empereur!" as also the emphatic "Vorwärts!" and the wild "Hourrah!"..." and so forth ad infinitum. Whoever did this was hard-working but wrong, which is a terrible combination of attributes.-79.49.59.207 (talk) 23:08, 8 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It is not as large as the sister article the Battle of Waterloo and there are many larger articles take for example Deepwater Horizon oil spill, however if you like we can discuss how to make this a summary style article. As for the style of the text, Wikipedia articles are a work in progress, any editor can copy edit it, providing the changes are supported by the source or another reliable sources is added to support the change. -- PBS (talk) 08:58, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the criticism on the language used in this article. It is bad enough that the reader is discouraged from using the article as a source of information. That the article is too long, I don't necessarily agree with. But please, if someone out there is willing to put in the work, rewrite the paragraphs at least. Asgrrr (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Myself and PB took the article from the German site and translated it to the article before a certain gentleman decided that we were all misinformed and biased against German's in general. He then decided that the only reliable source was Siborne. In pert. I did not argue about the change at the time because I'd been involved in too many hot topics. As it is at the moment, I agree that the article is almost unreadable because of the archaic English style and the over-reliance on one historian. Quoting large parts of Siborne's work is also problematic. If you go back far enough, you can find the article before it was "improved." That does not mean that it is perfect either because it isn't but it is better referenced, the language more concise. It might be a better starting point to rewrite the article.Tirronan (talk) 04:13, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Bold edits and reverses
@user:Display name 99 see WP:BOLD BRD Its make an edit and if it is reverted discuss on the talk page. Not revert the revert (iw start an edit war). Please justify each of you changes and seek consensus for the change here on the talk page before making it again. -- PBS (talk) 22:05, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * , so the AN3 thread was closed. You can click on my post to see what I wrote. I maintain my position that the burden is on the person doing the reverts to explain why the material doesn't belong. Display name 99 (talk) 02:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I have struck BOLD above and replaced it with BRD as it is is a better explanation. I responded to your comments at 3RR (3AN) there as it is not directly pertinent to the discussion about the content of this article. -- PBS (talk) 07:38, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

With the first of your consecutive edits you removed two images from the battle box with the comment "(It's not common practice to include images of commanders in the infobox)". It is common practice on German Wikipedia and this article was for a long time a copy of the German Wikipeia article "de:Schlacht bei Ligny" where it is a "Exzellente Artikel" (Featured Article). While it may not be common practice on English Wikipedia, I think that when there are only two commanders it is an elegant thing to do. One of the principles of Wikipedia is that while there ought to be consistency within an article, there is no justification for consistency between articles. So what is your policy/guideline justification for making this edit? -- PBS (talk) 07:38, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * , first of all let me respond to the two points you made on the AN3 page. The first edit that you listed was made after an editor reverted one of my edits, calling it "original research" and telling me to justify it on the talk page. I did so, and he did not respond, so I reverted his revert. Makes more sense now, doesn't it? As for the second one, I am of the opinion that whenever one undoes or dramatically alters another's work, a clear explanation is needed. This includes reverts and also image changes. I reverted that edit because an editor changed the lead image without explaining why. That is all the explanation I need.
 * Now, onto the infobox images. I really don't care what people do on German Wikipedia. People who come to this page are more likely to have read other articles on English Wikipedia than they are anything on German Wikipedia. Like I said, I've read and edited many articles about battles, and never once have I seen images of commanders in the infobox. It seems to me generally best to have consistency between articles in format if they are covering the same type of topic. It makes browsing easier and simpler. It would be especially cumbersome to try to apply this format to articles where more than two commanders are listed. I don't particularly like the way it looks in this article either, but that's more of a personal matter.


 * Now what about my other edits? Display name 99 (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * As this battle only had two generals more than two is not an issue, and you suggested change is one of style alone (as you have not produced policy or guidance to back up the proposed change.
 * I think you have this process the wrong way round. It is you who is proposing changes not I, so it would be better if you were to propose what it is that you would most like to change, but in the interests of keeping this process moving along I will now discuss your second edit:
 * Changing  to   There is specific guidance against making this type of edit see WP:NOTBROKEN with explanations there of why it is a bad idea. -- PBS (talk) 18:10, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I explained the rest at AN3. Here's what I said:
 * "I made 3 more edits in which I removed periods from captions. Generally they aren't included unless they follow complete sentences. I noted this in the first of the three edits that I made. I also removed an image of the Battle of Waterloo from the "Aftermath" section. It's normal to include some information about what happened after a battle, but a picture of a battle that isn't the same as the one covered in the article is overdoing it, in my opinion. In my edit summary, I noted that the picture was not "directly relevant" to the article. I made a couple more edits which, regrettably, did not have edit summaries. Usually notes in the article which are meant to expand upon something are separated from footnotes. In this case they weren't, so I split them myself into separate sections. [The two things are of an entirely different nature. The "Notes" expand on the main text or offer background. The footnotes are simply sources. It make sense to have them separate.] I also made an edit to the lead in which I attempted to explain how the battle constituted a tactical French victory. All that was explained is how it was a strategic defeat. There was also a "However" thrown into the lead which should not have been there because both points that were made were in support of it being a strategic defeat for the French. There was no contradiction, and the presence of the word was quite confusing for me at first. In my edit summary, I said: "Previously the lead did not explain how the battle consistuted [sic] a tactical French victory."" Display name 99 (talk) 18:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it better we discuss each separately otherwise things get confusing. So far we have discussed to issues and the first seems to be a difference in style (so there is no consensus for that change) while with the second change the guidance in WP:NOTBROKEN is against the edit. So do you accept that there is no consensus for these two changes?
 * In the next edit you state "More fighting in Ligny: No periods in captions unless they follow complete sentences." I presume that you mean a full stop when you write period. What is the guidance that you are using to support this change? I ask because the examples in Help:Files, do not support you. There are two good reasons for finishing the text in such statements with a full stop. (1) it helps to make it easy to see where a link to an artists name ends and the enclosing square brackets end: ie with a full stop  is easier to read than   and so is less likely to cause an error. (2) ending the statement with a full stop allows for a reference to be placed after it. This looks better than abutting the reference up against an alpha numeric character. -- PBS (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I accept that there is no consensus for the infobox edit and that policy is against the other edits mentioned thus far. As for periods in captions, go to WP: Manual of Style/Captions, then "Formatting and punctuation." Display name 99 (talk) 16:47, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I accept that WP: Manual of Style/Captions as currently written is in your favour so I will not oppose those changes. In fact I think the guidance needs changing to include the possibility of elliptical sentences (or more precisely in grammar: elliptical main clauses). What I mean by this is that because the text in the caption explains the image we write "Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel.", rather than stating the obvious "This is a painting of Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." The "This is a painting of" is not usually stated, but is implied in captions.

However I do not accept this edit that the removes of the full stop after the author name of a quote is covered by the same thing guideline. This is largely to do with style. It looks far better to place the citations after a full stop than next to the last character in a surname.

I have no objections to you change to the lead, what you are removing is a POV inserted by another user, and as it is in my opinion overeggs the pudding.

I do object to your removal of the Waterloo picture, the major aftermath was the Battle of Waterloo one of the most decisive battles in history, so this image is on topic. Yes it is eye candy (as are all these types of pictures), but it is not as if there are many images in this article given its size—There are 18 images in the Battle of Ligny (145K), and 41 in the Battle of Waterloo article (157K) — so I think it should stay. More eye candy needs to be added!

Your edit to the section headings on Notes and References is against the guidance in MOS:APPENDIX (in WP:LAYOUT), and the current version is the same as that used in examples of the section short notes section in WP:CITE — Short citations in footnotes are notes, just as are none citations footnotes.

-- PBS (talk) 17:19, 23 June 2017 (UTC)


 * OK. I've made the changes that you approved. I see no reason to pursue the others further. In the future, I will attempt to be more concise in my edit summaries, and to use them more often. I would also appreciate, if ever in the future you revert one of my edits, you provide as clear an explanation as the edit summary bar will allow, not merely stating the obvious: that you "oppose" the edits. In that case, if I still wish to pursue it, I will go to the talk page, rather than revert again. Thank you. Display name 99 (talk) 19:04, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

This style of including pictures of the commanders isn't used in any English Wikipedia battle templates and there's no real reason to use it here. Please stop forcing practices of foreign wikis onto here for no practical reason. Reverted as you're against two people on this. - Neptuunium (talk) 11:32, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Edit of 4 February 2020‎
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 154

The thing to do is to improve the text that is there not revert to a version that had its own problems. See the previous sections on this page, not least of which is the brevity of the battle description, the lack of citations and due to its brevity the lack of balance on the Prussian retreat.

So I am reverting the revertPBS (talk) 17:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You have, of course, been consequently reverted. This is a place to discuss the changes to the article. It is not the Peninsular, and certainly no place to issue Wellesleyesque diktats.  ——  SN  54129  17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I do not understand please could you explain further. -- PBS (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The article was reverted to a smaller mess instead of a huge mess. At least a small mess can be worked on more easily. (Hohum @ ) 21:26, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Maintenance templates in article space
-- PBS (talk) 17:43, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (January 2020)
 * 2) This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. The readable prose size is 113 kilobytes. (January 2020)
 * 3) This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (January 2020)
 * 4) This article reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. (January 2020)
 * 5) This article may have too many section headers dividing up its content. (January 2020)
 * 6) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (January 2020)

I do not think that maintinance templates should be places in aticle space. Particularly if no follow up conversations  take place on the talk page PBS (talk) 17:46, 16 February 2020 (UTC)


 * 1) This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (January 2020)
 * no arguments from me on this providing a copy edit does not change the meaning or remove details. --PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. The readable prose size is 113 kilobytes. (January 2020)
 * It is a out the same size as the Battle of Waterloo article. This seems to me a qustion of systemic bias. -- PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (January 2020)
 * Please explain if this is any different from point (1) and  if so how. -- PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. (January 2020)
 * please e plain in more detail. -- PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article may have too many section headers dividing up its content. (January 2020)
 * Which ones would you suggest removing and how would that improve navigation? -- PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (January 2020).
 * It relies on many sources, however it does rely on one source for much of the details. Which other English sources do you suggest of equally detailed description of the battle? –– PBS (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

For all that we may count the veterans,
This phrase seems to have no meaning. Perhaps the person who wrote it meant "Despite the number of veterans," or something of the sort. Any ideas? METRANGOLO1 (talk) 18:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)