Talk:Philippine–American War/Archive 5

Serious cite problems in this article
This article clearly has serious cite problems, and has had for a number of years. The cite numbered "1." in the current article version is apparently claimed to support five separate assertions in the article on page 293 of one of the two volumes of the cited work -- it's not clear whether it is referring to page 293 of voloume I or volume II of that work. Part of that problem seems to have appeared in thisDecember 25, 2016 edit, but there are a number of other problems with other cites as well -- just look for in the article.

At present, I haven't looked much more closely than that. I will be taking a look and trying to fix some of the problems, but it looks like that will stretch out over some time. I would appreciate help with that. It would probably be useful to have some discussion here before major work is done on this.

For reference, this is a fix I've just done to only one of the numerous cite problems in this article.

Comments? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC) (rev i)


 * I have pulled out all the unused longrefs. Usually I put them in Further reading pending curation, but there were a lot, so I have placed them in the collapse box below. I have fixed one missing longref issue that was a result of my incomplete edits over the past few days. There is one missing longref issue remaining, that of Miller 1984. There are currently other shortcites on this article pointing to Miller 1982, however that appears to be the same book, and the longref is linked to the 1984 version, so it may be best for all the 1982 cites to be changed to 1984.




 * CMD (talk) 16:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I used to have a copy of one edition of that book, but I no longer have it and I see that the book is not available in my local library. I see that the 1982 edition is partially previewable here. I've reverified the assertions cited to p.20 and pp.20-21 there. p.24 is not previewable there but, rolling the dice, my guess is that would be verifiable as well. I'd say that it's probably OK to change the 1984 cites to 1982. -(added) I see that this came in here, copied from History of the Philippines (1898–1946) and that it appeared in that article here, added by me. I probably added that with one or the other edition of the book in front of me and introduced the confusion between editions at some point by not looking at publication dates. Anyhow, from what I've seen here, the two editions appear to match well. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC) (rev 1)
 * Could you double check what version you verified to, as the link you provided is the one Gbooks claims is the 1984 version. The 1982 version is supposedly this one. That said, while the copyright pages are formatted differently, the supposed 1984 one doesn't say 1984. CMD (talk) 01:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll put that on the back burner for now -- I have other things to do ahead of it. I may buy another copy of that book and reverify in whatever edition that turns out to be. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

The problems which were causing all those error messages have been fixed, which effectively closes this discussion. More work on the cites is needed, but that doesn't need further discussion here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I looked at the two {Linn 2000} cites, which are to different books. I used to have this one, titled The Philippine War, 1899–1900, and no doubt made the edits related to that one but I see that it is in the Further reading section, not References where it ought to be. Those two cites might or might not be to the same book under different titles, but they probably ought to include  |ref=a  for one and b for the other. I haven't dug further than that on this one. {added-1) I see that the one I didn't recognize was added here as a Further reading item. Now, however, it is cited to support an article assertion. The cited pages are previewable and support the assertions in the para where cited except for the final sentence (I recall that sentence being supported elsewhere, but it's not supported there). The (Linn 2000) cites probably ought to be changed to cite that book here (perhaps except for that sentence), and the other Linn cites made to cite the other book. I'll make that a to-do unless there's objection (no time right now). (add-2) I made this edit to fix these. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC) (rev 2)
 * Tucker 2009, Worcester 1914, and the new Dolan 1991 duplicate fixed in their immediate duplications (all strict duplicates). This leaves a mixture of more specific chapter links and overall book links, but nevertheless the short refs now work. Are there any other short ref issues outside of Miller? CMD (talk) 13:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Ending date
This edit caught my eye, and drew my attention to the assertion jere of the 1902 ending date for the war. That brought to mind this note which I recently added to a related article, and the supporting sources it cites. Looking further took me to Timeline of the Philippine–American War § Start and ending dates, which I see that I contributed to back in 2014 with this edit (and perhaps others as well).

The upshot of all that is (1) that there apparently is no universally accepted ending date for this conflict, (2) that separate WP articles handle that in different ways, and (3) that this article handles it by asserting that one particular date is the date-certain ending date. I suggest that this be changed here by adding a note here clarifying the situation similar to the note which I linked above in the First Philippine Republic article That article examples a candidate ending date, and the note clarifies the uncertainness of that candidate date, mentions other candidates, and cites sources supporting the candidates mentioned. However, the date-certain asserted by this article differs from the candidate date exampled in that other article, and that needs to be resolved by consensus.

Perhaps some other approach to dealing with this would be better. Please discuss below. Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:20, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Added info: The 1902 ending date for the war given in this article is supported by a cite of page 292 of this source, apparently relying on the following quote of a description of the conflict by John R. M. Taylor which begins on page 290 of that work: "On July 2 the Secretary of War telegraphed that the insurrection against the sovereign authority of the United States in the Philippines having come to an end, and provincial civil governments having been established throughout the entire territory of the archipelago not inhabited by Moro tribes, the office of military governor in the archipelago was terminated. On July 4, 1902, the President of the United States issued a proclamation of amnesty proclaiming, with certain reservations, a full and complete pardon and amnesty to all persons in the Philippine Archipelago who had participated in the insurrection"

The July 2 date is apparently the date on which Secretary of War Elihu Root sent that telegram. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:30, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Fresh look at this -- no action for now

I've held off making edits following on the above while spending time on other mostly unrelated things. However, something very much related came up yesterday in the form of this edit, which I made in another article to correct this incorrect and unsupported assertion -- I've been making the same sort of error above which the anon who made that edit made there -- the time span between the two events is more than a few months; I knew the difference if I stopped to think about it, but I hadn't stopped to think about it.

So, even though the war was not ended by a treaty establishing a firm ending date, the July 2, 1902 ending date asserted in this article seems like a reasonable date to me. I still quibble with the clarification in para 2 of the lead taking Elihu Root's July 2 telegram as a declaration by the U.S. government that the war ended on that date and I may tweak the wording there or add a clarifying footnote, but the July 2m 1902 date now seems to me like a reasonable date to take in this article as the ending date of the war. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:24, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Confusing Background section
There are two aspects of the background section that are really confusing to a reader. The first is that the section doesn't make clear that the Spanish-American War was ongoing throughout the period from the Revolution onwards. The second, which compounds this issue is the sentence, "The Philippine Declaration of Independence was not recognized by either the United States or Spain, and the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December 10, 1898, in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost." This is actually a flash-forward, but it gives the impression that the war is over at this point and the following sections become very confusing. Furius (talk) 21:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Undid removal of cite-supported content
This edit with an edit summary reading caught my eye. Here, I have reverted the portion related to the edit summary because it is not clear to me that the cited supporting source (an article from The San Francisco Call) is WP:UNRELIABLE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:59, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Its nothing more than an vague accusation in a headline from some article next to ones like "Aguinaldo is a clown, his men ruffians". Is there a real source from a historian detailing this alleged "German support"? or should information about Aguinaldo clownishness be added as well? --Havsjö (talk) 08:12, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I took another look, and now see that both of those articles on the cited newspaper page appear to be letters to the editor from a person named Sol N. Sheridan and not news pieces. I previously thought that the one cited in support was a news piece, looked at the WP article about the newspaper and was not clear from that about what your edit summary called some newspaper being an unreliable source without sufficient weight for mention. As I now see that the cited source appears to be a letter to the editor, I agree that it is unreliable and will undo my reversion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

"Santa Ana"
Does "Santa Ana" in the article refer to the neighborhood of Manila, or to something else? No link. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 03:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

War crimes
This is a WP:BRD discussion.

I've reverted this bold edit after a look at the WP articles on War crime and Law of war and a look at cited sources numbered 30 through 34 in the article. The cited source cirrently numbered 35 is not viewable online. My objections to this insertion are (1) I saw no support for the use of this term, (2) war crime is a technical term which needs definition if used here, (3) The questions come to my mind of (a) whether atrocities committed, if they were crimes, were committed knowingly and intentionally as a matter of policy by the warring party or (b) were committed by individuals and, if so, (c) whether such acts were prosecuted as crimes under law. Some sources support (3c) re some acts committed by U.S. soldiers, and my understanding is that such cases were not cases of atrocity committed as a matter of policy by that warring party. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:26, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I already reverted the edit in question but I hadn't seen this discussion you started. I will add that Caffeinate Mac apparently already made a similar edit using an IP account 11 October. Their edit summary of 'Restored per sources' makes it quite obvious that both accounts are the same person. Karsdorp85 (talk) 11:50, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Too many commanders and leaders
The infobox is quite ridiculous at the moment, there are about 20 US leaders and about 30 on the philippine side. Surely not all of these people are top-importance commanders. I already removed Douglas MacArthur, who was a 20yo NCO. Does anyone know a good way to get the number down to a reasonable level? Thanks MutantZebrea999 (talk) 16:09, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Not sure why he was even listed. He wasn't even in the military yet, he was at West Point and graduated a year after this war ended. (But he wasn't an "NCO" either, he became a commisioned officer.) - w o lf  00:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Douglas MacArthur was somewhat involved in this conflict, in fact it was the first engagement in which he saw action. According to his own page he supervised operations by the Army Engineer Corps in the Visayas in 1903 and led (or at least was involved in) a counterinsurgency operation in Iloilo where he killed two guerrillas. And although he graduated a year after the main part of the war ended, the post-1902 conflicts are still listed in the infobox. Because of the fact that it was the first military conflict of MacArthur's career as well as the fact that he was the son of THE most important commander during this war I think he should remain. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:499D:CFCE:1F93:B05 (talk) 03:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make him one of the "Commanders and Leaders" of the war... just a very green, very junior officer involved in a single post-war incident. - w o lf  03:49, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Easy start is to remove anyone not mentioned in the article. CMD (talk) 03:44, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we should start making wholesale removals of every name that doesn't have a reliable source that confirms them as a "Commander and Leader" of the war. - w o lf  03:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I thought I had commented on this previously -- maybe that wa This also concerns the Spanish–American War the talk page of another article. Note the following snippet from the infobox military conflict docs

I would bet that this concern also applies re other articles about the Philippines. I'll mention this at Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

(resetting indent) I'd like to chime in on the discussion. On the part of the Filipino commanders, I'd vote to retain those that are most likely to be frequently mentioned in elementary and secondary textbooks. These would be the following leaders from the (principal) Philippine government (as well as my arguments in favor of retention):


 * Emilio Aguinaldo - first president of the republic and concurrently commander in chief
 * Apolinario Mabini - prime minister
 * Antonio Luna † - one of the important generals of the revolution
 * Artemio Ricarte - another main general, also the only general never to have taken an oath of allegiance to the US
 * Gregorio del Pilar † - noted for his last stand at Tirad
 * Miguel Malvar - Aguinaldo's successor as commander in chief

and all four listed at the bottom of the infobox:


 * Macario Sakay - another general of the revolution who established a breakaway Republic of the Tagalog following Aguinaldo's defeat and capture
 * Datu Ali - last Moro chieftain to resist the Americans
 * Jamalul Kiram II - negotiated a treaty with the Americans but later started another resistance
 * Datu Amil - leader of the Battle of Bud Bagsak, one of the major battles of the Revolution in Mindanao

These are just my suggestions. I'm open to the opinions of other Filipino Wikipedians on this. --- Tito Pao (talk) 12:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Off the top of my head, it seems to me that this article should pretty much limit itself to its own topic -- the Phil-Am war during the period of that war, plus some info on pre-war background and post-war aftermath. Persons really notable in re that topic should be mentioned in the article, and such a mention should be a prerequisite for infobox mention as a leader. The Official end of the war section puts the ending date at either April 16 or July 4, 1902; the infobox mentions only the July 4 date. The Tagalog Republic article doesn't give a precise date for the one declared by Sakay, but says that it existed from sometime in 1902 until July 14, 1906. Was Sakay notable during the Phil-Am war as covered in this article. Should this article cover him as much as it currently does? I would have similar questions about the others, but don't have the time to research them just now. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:37, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The article is confusing and biased pro USA
A table of contents is completely missing.

The Philippine–American War is a brutal colonial war where the USA suppresses an independence movement in one of their colonies taken from Spain, that should set the tenor of the article.

During the war the USA military committed atrocities. The article makes light of them. Were for example did the mentioning of the concentration camps disappear to?

It is mentioned as "Tactics became focused on the control of key areas with internment and segregation of the civilian population in "zones of protection" from the guerrilla population." The death toll of women and children in this camps is casualty mentioned as "Due to disruption of war and unsanitary conditions, many of the interned civilians died from dysentery." A white wash if there ever was a whitewash. The USA army herded this woman and children into concentration camps. The USA army was responsible for the unsanitary conditions and the USA army watched a quarter of the population of those concentration camps die, especially the high number of children. As nobody was prosecuted for this atrocity, one has to assume it was sanctioned by the USA government.

There are many strange concepts in this article, for example mentioning of massacres of USA troops. Since when is defeating a group of soldiers in a war a massacre? Is there perhaps evidence they tried to surrender or something similar?

War crimes. It is a neat distinction between war crimes perpetrated by individuals or ordered by the army. But is that a fair distinction? If war crimes by the individuals or some troops are not prosecuted they are sanctioned. I do not see that war crimes by USA troops were prosecuted by the USA. Jochum (talk) 08:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you're seeing or not seeing, but the table of contents is there. Perhaps check to see if you have it collapsed? As for the rest of your post, I didn't read all of it (tl;dr), but I can still suggest this: If you would like to see the article changed and/or improved, you can try to WP:FIXIT yourself, but if you're unable or unwilling, you can request edits here in the talk page, and hope that another editor will make the changes for you. You can use an Edit request template, just ensure that you list your requested changes in a "please change 'X' to 'Y'" format, and also make certain that you include sourcing for every change. Good luck - w o lf  10:36, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * (oops, forgot to ping . - w o lf 10:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC))
 * OK, I found the table of contents.Jochum (talk) 14:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Irreconcilables
I think more information is needed about this group on the page. It is mentioned sparsely in the current version. GoutComplex (talk) 02:04, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you are right. There's a WP article named Irreconcilables, but it is about a different bunch of people. The meaning of that term in this context ought to be explained at some wikilinkable point (perhaps in this article) and that ought to be offered as alternative there and wikilinked from other articles where it is relevant. The term in this context refers, I think, to revolutionary leaders who refused to accept government by the U.S. after July 4, 1902. Mabini was one of those, and a snippet of the article about him reads: " he was exiled to Guam, along with scores of revolutionists Americans referred to as insurrectos (rebels) and who refused to swear fealty to the United States." There's also some mention of this in the Artemio Ricarte article, and perhaps in other WP articles. I found some citeable info in The Outlook (New York City) in on pages 313-314 of that online source (the term Irreconcilables is used abut halfway down the left-hand column of page 314). I don't have time right now to try to pull all of that together nicely for presentation in WP. If nobody else does that, I may get back to it later. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * All right. I do not know enough about this loaded topic to work on this page substantially anyway. GoutComplex (talk) 14:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll just note relevant sources I come across here:
 * (the term is used abut halfway down the left-hand column of page 314)
 * (includes snipped images of contemporary newspaper articles)
 * (citing other sources)
 * (with an extensive list of cites)
 * Another note: I haven't found good citeable sources for all of this yet but, apparently. in early 1901 Arthur Macarthur was U.S. Military Government of the Philippines and, though W.H. Taft was in the country as head of the Taft Commission, he wass not empowered to establish a civil government until March 3 (see here) Also apparently, Taft and MacArthur disagreed in their view of the importance of the irreconcilables as a threat to the establishing of a lasting government in the Philippines (See the cite above for some info on taft's views and this source for some inndication of MacArthur's views. Note tin that source that MacArthur deported Mabini, along with the other irreconcilables, to Guam on January 16 -- before Taft had authority to act as Civil Governor.
 * More sources:
 * (interesting narrative, much of it relevant here. Contains a number of fair-good quality images relating to deportation of Irreconcilables to Guam -- particularly Mabini)
 * Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * (interesting narrative, much of it relevant here. Contains a number of fair-good quality images relating to deportation of Irreconcilables to Guam -- particularly Mabini)
 * Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * (interesting narrative, much of it relevant here. Contains a number of fair-good quality images relating to deportation of Irreconcilables to Guam -- particularly Mabini)
 * Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I have created the article Irreconcilables (Philippines). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I have never had anything happen this quick in my life. GoutComplex (talk) 13:14, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Schurman vs. McKinley as U.S. commander
I have just reverted this edit. The edit flouts WP:BRD. Also, Schurman was not a military commander. He headed the Schurman Commission which, according to that article. was tasked by McKinley "to study the situation in the Philippines and make recommendations on how the U.S. should proceed after the sovereignty of the Philippines was ceded to the U.S. by Spain on December 10, 1898 following the Treaty of Paris of 1898. " Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:51, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure if McKinley should be counted here as a U.S. commander. Other pages of colonial wars from this period don't often list the heads of state at the time. Besides McKinley wasn't the only president during this war, in fact the war lasted four presidencies, so should we list all of those presidents? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4040:9E16:3200:C0F1:70A0:FCF4:F79E (talk) 00:08, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Casualties?
I think the Filipino casualties section of the infobox should be changed. The estimate of one million civilian casualties isn't supported by most sources and those high estimates are said to have resulted from misreading of sources. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:C0F1:70A0:FCF4:F79E (talk) 00:14, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

McKinley vs. Taft as civilian commander
As of the time I have been writing this there have been multiple attempts to list William McKinley as a U.S. commander in this war. I feel that this is not the appropriate commander since the scale/stakes of this war are not high enough to have the president as top commander. The Philippines were an unrecognized state and seen as a rebellion by the U.S. at the time. The page for the Indian Mutiny, for example, does not list Queen Victoria as a top British commander. I feel as if Taft is the more appropriate civilian commander for this conflict as he was governor-general of the Philippines. Also as I have stated earlier, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson were also presidents during this war, so if McKinley should be put in the commanders section then so should the other three. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:A90B:4B5:2B91:7008 (talk) 19:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi. Thanks for discussing this here on the talk page instead of making unsupported changes to the article to that effect. I see several problems with the above:
 * First and foremost, there is "I think". I'm not the best person to explain this, but editorial opinion has little weight in WP -- see the WP:Neutral Point of View policy. Also see the WP:Verifiability policy. For more info, ask about those at the WP:Teahouse. Basic policy is that article assertions need to be supportable, and usually should be supported by citing one or more reliable sources. Generally, common knowledge assertions such as "the sky is blue" don't need a supporting cite; that might apply in this case, it being common knowledge that the US  president is commander in chief of US armed forces. There might be exceptional cases counter to common knowledge (sometimes, the sky is red), and such exceptions generally do need a supporting cite. It often happens that sources differ -- see WP:DUE (part of the NPOV policy) about that.
 * The command structure on both sides of this war changed over its course. The infobox lists Otis as number two on the US side. It could name commanders not listed (e.g., Dewey and Merritt), but Otis is probably listed in the infobox because he was commander during most of the war's duration and/or because he was the hands-on commander during the most of the major fighting. The same arguments serve for listing McKinley instead of Roosevelt.
 * Neither Taft nor Wilson were US president during this war. The war ended in 1902, Taft became president in 1909 and Wilson in 1913
 * I'll note here that I sent you a link to this missive from McKlnley to Elihu Root. his Secretary of War, appointing Taft to head the Second Philippine Commission and instructing that the commission be empowered to devote their attention to the establishment of civil government and, initially subject to approval, to civil legislative matters. As an anonymous editor, you may not have seen this link. I suggest that you create a WP account. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I do understand that the president is always commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but if we look at the List of wars involving the United States, you will find that most of the wars that aren't A-list wars like the Civil War or WW2 do not list the president as top US commander. Similar US colonial wars such as the Sioux Wars, Apache Wars and Mexican Border War do not include the president in the commanders section even though he was commander-in-chief of the forces. Therefore, in a B-or-C-list war like this one, the stakes aren't high enough to list the president as commander.
 * Also, the infobox states that the war lasted until 1913 and the commanders section still lists commanders who were involved after 1902 (e.g. Sakay, Datu Ali, Wood, Bliss, Pershing). So this article is about the entire Philippine conflict and not just the war against the nationalists, as you have stated. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:1836:5D90:E52B:B4AE (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. I see that I screwed up the indenting in my final paragraph above and that you based your indent on that. I've corrected that. I'm outdenting this in order to avoid cumulative indentng problems in back&forth discussion. This discussion ought to involve more participants than you and I; I hope that other editors will join in using similar indenting.


 * Where are your A-List, B-list categories for wars defined? Is that categorization recognized in WP? Is it otherwise supported by reliable sources?


 * I had not noticed that dating to 1913 in the infobox. I see that the mention of this latter period apparently stems from this addition on November 17, 2009 of mention of the Moro Rebellion. The editor who added that is currently blocked, but I have not looked into the reasons for that. Though the Moro Rebellion and the P-A War overlapped in time, there seems to be little connection between them. Mention of that in the infobox appears to have little direct relation to the subject of this article, the lead paragraph of which says that the war was fought between the First Philippine Republic (FPR) and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902, and the leaders of the Moro Rebellion appear to have no connection with the FPR. From a quick look at mthat article, the rebellion apparently began with unprovoked ambushes of US troops which prompted Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, then the military governor of the Philippines, to issue a declaration on April 13, 1902, demanding that the killers of American troops be handed over. I won't get into more detail here but I will note that the office of Military Governor had been  was terminated on July 2, 1902, with Taft and Chaffee apparently being both named as Governor-General of the Philippines on July 4. That sounds messy; I have not looked into the details, but my understanding is that the US considered the P-A war to be over at that point.

(added) I see that MOS:INFOBOXUSE


 * All of that probably needs a hard look, with revisions to this article and the other articles I've mentioned in mind. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The primary phase of the Philippine-American War lasted until 1902 but a number of historians, particularly Daniel Immerwahr in his book How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States define the war as including the Moro phase. This is also acknowledged by this article in the Post-1902 conflicts section.
 * Also I forgot to mention this earlier but Merritt's tenure as military commander in the Philippines ended before hostilities began, and Dewey had a very small and inconsequential role in the war to be a notable commander. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:A09B:F05:E1A0:2C89 (talk) 23:53, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No argument re Dewey and Merritt; I should not have mentioned them. Re the rest. I think this is mainly involves two consideration, NPOV and article scoping.


 * The POV consideration is whether or not the conflict described in the Moro Rebellion article was a part of the war that is the subject of this article -- some sources say yes, some say no, some are unclear, some don't mention that. Per DUE, articles should air all significant viewpoints that have been published by cited reliable sources; per other parts of NPOV, POVs held by WP editors should not be allowed to impact articles.


 * Re article scoping, WP:LEAD says that the first sentence of an article should introduce the article topic by telling the nonspecialist reader what the subject is. The first sentence of this article currently reads: "The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency,  was fought between the First Philippine Republic and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902." Taking that as written, the Moro Rebellion would be, at most, a sidelight mainly notable because of a conflict that occurred in the final months of the war period as defined in the article's lead sentence.


 * I propose (1) that the infobox be brought into conformance to the lead sentence definition of the article subject, (2) that the point that some sources disagree with the lead sentence's definition of the P-A war be mentioned in the article lead, exampling some cited significant RSs and (3) that the article be reviewed and edited to expand that point in summary style in the Post-1902 conflicts article section (note: that section currently cites a couple of examples of sources opining that the P-A war included some of these conflicts -- these cites would likely be relevant to the article scoping clarifications in the lead section). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Aside from Immerwahr's consensus, Samuel Kong Tan, a Filipino historian, also seems to suggest that the war included the Moro phase. This viewpoint is shared by historian Reynaldo Ileto as well, who appears to concur that the war went on past 1902. So I'm guessing that part in the introductory paragraph on the war ending in 1902 should be removed?
 * And back to the topic on who should be considered the "civilian" commander. I do not think that the president should be listed as a commander in the infobox because despite being commander-in-chief of the forces, the pages of most other colonial wars do not list the head of state as a commander. At this point I am still not certain if any civilian commander or administrator should be included. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:25AD:4F45:8152:BA65 (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The Moro Rebellion conflicts began after the dissolution of the First Philippine Republic and very shortly before the dates given in the Official end of the war article section. The basis of the two conflicts don't have much in common and both that other article and this one are pretty long. I can't see them being merged into a single article covering both conflicts as one. I see that as an article scoping issue requiring appropriate mentions OF RSs with viewpoints both ways. Re McKinley, I don't have a firm view, but I'm unclear on how one distinguishes a "A-List" article from a "B-List" one. I'm very unclear about who Otis reported to and took direction from. I'm not clear on the chain of command structure a century and a quarter ago, but he would probably report to either the Secretary of War (Elihu Root) or the President. What few mentions of him I've seen have given me the impression that Root wasn't very involved in nuts & bolts issues (see here). The McKinley was apparently concerned enough with the mechanics of getting the war out of the way and getting on with dealing with the fact of the cession to limit Otis to military issue and Taft to administrative and legislative issues in preparation for moving on from military concerns (or that's how I read things). I can't see listing Otis as military commander and leaving it at that; who do you see as his commander? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:01, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Otis, along with MacArthur, were pretty much in charge of the Philippines prior to the instatement of Taft. The war was not McKinley's primary focus during his presidency (unlike Lincoln or FDR) and he largely left it up to the military commanders. In fact Otis and MacArthur refused to compromise with the Philippine nationalists and were bent on completely extinguishing the insurrection, early in the war the Filipinos tried to surrender but Otis refused. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:7102:BF91:D29B:6377 (talk) 00:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Re the question of who was inn charge of conforming actions of the military mission to national policy, I've pretty much gotten that impression as well, but I've seen nothing to support or refute it. Also, "tried to surrender" is a major overstatment there -- see here (that source is cited in the p-a war article. Other sources supporting this are cited elsewhere). Later but still early in the fighting, Jacob Schurman (directly representing McKinley) thought that he had reached a deal with Aguinaldo (through a representative) to end the fighting and work out governmental details later along agreed guidelines, but Antonio Luna (and Mabini, I think) pressured/forced (my characterization) Aguinaldo to renege on that (see the Schurman Commission article and pp. 8-9 here). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I see you have mentioned Jacob Schurman engaging in diplomacy with the Philippine Republic, this has been argued before but should Schurman actually be listed as top U.S. civilian commander? Like you said Schurman was a direct representative of McKinley but it seems he was more involved in the nuts and bolts of the war than McKinley was, don't know if there's any evidence of direct negotiations between McKinley and the Philippine government. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:D410:E107:94DC:DFF5 (talk) 01:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I haven't dug around in this area for some time. Following on your question about whether Schurman ought perhaps be listed as civilian commander, I looked around a bit in my spare time and turned up this, which says that McKinley issued instructions on June 18, 1899 to the commission partially paraphrased there as, "Without interfering in any way with the existing military government of General Otis, the civilian members of the commission were to [...]". Later on, it says, "Toward the end of the month Manuel Arguelles, a Filipino colonel, came to Manila as an emissary from Aguinaldo. He asked the commission for a truce so that his superiors might consider the proclamation [(a proclamation written in the name of the commission by Schurman, cited there but not quoted)]; but only General Otis could grant an armistice and the civilian members refused to urge this move upon him since that might have been interpreted as interference." So, I would say no to that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * (added) {1) I see that infobox usagethe docs for infobox military conflict say that the commander paramatrers are optional and,, "For battles, this should include military commanders (and other officers as necessary). For wars, only prominent or notable leaders should be listed, with an upper limit of about seven per combatant column recommended." I haven't looked at many articles re conflicts in the Philippines in this era with this in mind, but I have the impression that, in general, they don't follow this. That may be something which should be brought up at WT:Tambayan Philippines, but that guidance does seem at odds with the idea of A/B/C-List wars described above. (2) I've added a discuss template to the article re this. In doing that, I see that the list of military commanders has been expanded to include all top-level commanders in the timeline of this war. I happen to have looked at the OEF-P article recently and I see that, though I would categorize that as a battle article rather than war, I see that iot includes a dated entries for national commanders; I think that the entries ought to be timeline-dated if multiple commanders over a timeline are listed. (3) I've had some more thoughts re McKinley in particular and re national leaders as top military commander in general, but (a) I'm not quite ready to air them and (b) this discussion is already too long. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I am still of the opinion that McKinley should not be included since despite being commander in chief this wasn't seen as a major war by the US at the time and more like a local insurrection and was not between two sovereign nations as the Philippine Republic was an unrecognized state. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:E5DF:2B72:F9FD:DBDD (talk) 16:25, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand that's your opinion, based on your A-List/B-List categorization of U.S. wars. I haven't seen that in WP policies or guidelines or in the usage instructions for infobox military conflict. Re War vs. Insurrection in descriptive terminology, the RP government and the US government differed on that until, a few decades ago, the US State Department started calling the portion before July 4, 1902 a War. I saw plenty of support for the fact of that change being made at the time, but I haven't quickly been able to locate a citeable supporting source; I'm sure that there must be something out there. Regardless, I agree with you that after July 4, 1902 such incidents should properly be called insurrections. As such, they would be off-topic for this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

(added) The WP guideline section WP:INFOBOXUSE says, "Each infobox type should have documentation giving instruction on how each part/field may be used." infobox military conflict does have such documentation. That same MOS section says, "Like navigation templates, infoboxes should avoid flag icons. For more information about flag icons, see MOS:FLAG." Clearly, this article flouts that. Despite having proposed action above, I don't currently plan on any action regarding this myself. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:59, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Text of the Aguinaldo August 3, 1900 decree
In this edit, I added a bit and linked this image of Aguinaldo's August 3, 1900 decree. The text in the image is handwritten in the English language. I would like to include a transcription of the text either on the image page or in this article (preferably the former), but I haven't been able to read it all. I could ask for help with this in several places but, of those, I'm guessing that this is probably the one most likely to produce results. Most of the text is pretty readable, but there are a few places where neither myself nor my wife could make it out. We had saved a rough partial transcription, but that seems to have been lost. Help here would be appreciated. 17:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Filipino governmental situation following Aguinaldo's capture
Both the de-facto and de-jure situations re the continuance of the Philippine Republic government following Aguinaldo's capture need clarification here and in other articles. I have added some content at a point where such info needs mention in this edit about that, but this content probably contradicts other related material here and in other articles. This needs further editorial work with WP:DUE, WP:V in mind, probably starting with the insertion of Contradictory inline and Contradicts other templates at appropriate points in this and other articles. I wish I had the time and the available sources to dig further into this now, but I don't. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Note that my attempted citation of, which I found cited regarding this in anothr article, was rejected by an edit filter. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC) I see in an assertion saying, "Based on the succession decrees that Aguinaldo himself issued, General Malvar would take the presidency of the republic", supported there by quotes apparently taken from.
 * added info

From the U.S. perspective on the ending date of the war, I see

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)