Talk:Legion of Frontiersmen

Untitled
Until recently, the Legion's many covert missions on the borders of the British Empire were shrouded in myth and legend - historians are only now beginning to discover the facts [citation needed]. !!!!!

_____________________________________________________

Griz999 10:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but it needs to be presented encyclopedically. I just glanced at some of the thread on arrse.com, and you know, some of that discussion might've been more useful here than unsigned comments by unregistered users calling names and adding nonsense to the article. Notice yours is the first one on the talk page that doesn't look like it was written by some 11 year-old delinquent. I assume most of the edits I've been reverting are arrse.com people. On that site it looks like there's a legitimate desire to set things straight, whereas here, most edits look like vandalism.


 * I reverted your recent paragraph, Grizz999, because it didn't conform to the basic policies: neutral point of view and attribution. Some other relevent guidelines: WP:Weasel, WP:Reliable sources, WP:COI, and WP:NOT. I'm not the original writer of this stub, and I have no interest in glorifying them, but it needs to be informative and encyclopedic. It's been a low priority for me, but if there's some interest in getting it up to speed, I'll try and put some time in re-writing the historical stuff. Bobanny 13:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Revisions Necessary
IMO, there needs to be some differentiation between activities which are actually attributable to the Legion - i.e., the members who volunteered for service with the Belgians in the First World War and the formation of the 25th battalion of the Royal Fusiliers - from activities which may have been carried out by individuals who might, at one time, have been members, such as the alleged espionage activities before WW1.

The false claim that the Legion has an 'active search and rescue squadron' in the City of London should be removed: it has nothing of the sort.

It is also worth pointing out that the Legion has, historically, been highly schismatic and this is reflected in the various independent and semi-independent factions which are referenced on this Wiki page. Many of these factions appear to consist of very few people indeed, although typically they give themselves high quasi-military rank.

Finally, it seems to me entirely appropriate to provide a link to the discussion on arrse.com which provides an alternative version of the modern Legion to that presented by the Legion factions' own websites.

Griz999 11:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of that. Their notability is mainly historical, and even then, more for social/cultural reasons than military. I’m thinking it should look something like this:
 * The origins of the group and its founder.
 * The context: the reasons why they became trendy among the upper crust, their inability to get recognition, etc.
 * Their role in WWI, meaning the battalions they raised, the Belgian connection, serving as specials in London, the huge losses that devastated the organization. This doesn’t mean describing battles or dwelling on heroics that belong in other articles, such as the 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers article. The espionage stuff deserves mention as a historical curiosity, but not with the emphasis it has now.
 * The post-war schisms that paralyzed the LoF. You’re right, this needs to be made clear, but I don’t think anyone besides LoF members would be too interested in a play by play of all the splits and internal politics. Good for a Monty Python sketch, not an encyclopedia.
 * The LoF today – incoherent as a whole, sectarian, past glories, lost without an empire, etc. IMO, what needs to be said about their activities today is that they haven’t found a niche in the post-British Empire world, and not much else. The ‘search and rescue’ theme seems to be common, but I haven’t seen any evidence that anything’s come of that. Even if there is some LoF member somewhere who’s saved someone or found something, that doesn’t mean LoF as an organization is notable in that field.


 * I disagree with adding the arrse.com site because there’s a pretty clear Wikipedia policy against using website forums as sources of information and good reasons for it. Also, this isn’t a battleground. That’s fine for arrse.com or a blog or whatever, but not an encyclopedia. Arrse.com is a private discussion between military folk intended for their own kind, and isn’t designed for informing the general public about anything. If the thing with the LoF misrepresenting themselves has generated 150 pages on that thread, surely something’s been published somewhere that’s appropriate for a source, i.e., not an anonymous rumour mill that has unverifiable information. ANZMI could be used, but they don’t say a lot about the organization, just a couple bad apples.


 * That said, there’s no compelling reason to have any of the LoF external links either as far as I can see. The rule of thumb for external links is to be selective and to only add the most useful. Usually with an organization the official website is included, but in this case there isn’t an official website that can convincingly speak for the entire LoF. Most of them aren’t very informative anyway. If you want to remove those links, I won’t object.


 * I’m not interested in spending much more time defending or debating what’s already in the article. As far as I’m concerned, what’s there is a placeholder until a total re-write can happen (I’m busy with other stuff, so it won't be done over night); but I’ll continue to revert vandalism and edits that make it worse by IP editors unwilling to discuss things on the talk page.


 * As a heads up, there’s another article, Australian Medal of Merit, that’s probably going to get merged here soon. It’s actually only two sentences; but apparently there has been some confusion that it’s a real medal awarded by the government.Bobanny 03:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the LOF external links should be removed, as none of them can claim to be the official LOF website. Also, I think that the category of espionage should be removed as well. Curtana 12:55, 2 March 2007 (GMT)
 * It would appear that user Davidwu10 has added the link to the IOC site again. Should this not be removed again?
 * Heraldic 11:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC) 12:31 04Oct07 GMT+1

Merge from Australian Medal of Merit
Please merge relevant content, if any, from [ Australian Medal of Merit] per Articles for deletion/Australian Medal of Merit. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-05 10:51Z 
 * Done. Maustrauser 21:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought
Anybody notice the name on the poster? Hon.Sec of the Maritime Branch - Erskin Childers! He of 'Riddle of the Sands' fame who ended up in the IRA fighting the British Empire and was eventually executed for fighting against the Irish Free State. Mickmct (talk) 13:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Legion of Frontiersmen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090416194010/http://www.anzmi.net:80/weatherall/weatherall.html to http://www.anzmi.net/weatherall/weatherall.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:44, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Legion of Frontiersmen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20020605212528/http://frontiersmen.org.au/medals.htm to http://www.frontiersmen.org.au/medals.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Legion of Frontiersmen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140127074404/http://frontiersmen.org.au/downloads/ribbon_chart.pdf to http://www.frontiersmen.org.au/downloads/ribbon_chart.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 06:11, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Clarity
There needs to be clarity with Regards to the Patron, the Countess of Mountbatten is only patron of the Countess of Mountbatten's Own Legion of Frontiersmen (CMO) , and should not be associated or linked in any way , shape or form with with any other groups calling themselves the Legion of Frontiersmen. other groups not aligned to the CMO as it is known, and are separate and not the same, however legitimate or well wishing they may be. 77.107.84.153 (talk) 11:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I've removed the entry entirely, as she was only a patron of a specific branch as opposed to the wider legion (also I believe the wrong person was linked before, as most of the sources I looked at say the patron was Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and not her mother). Leventio (talk) 04:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)