Talk:Wolfgang Späte/Archive 1

Succession box
Junior commands. @ k.e.coffman Yet again you show another example of your subject ignorance: how do you consider being a group leader, and even a Wing commander of one of the unique fighter units of WW2, to be a "junior level command". Your fervent anti-nazi bias and non-'npov' in your editing vandalism is ruining the good work of a number of writers on subjects you show very little knowledge and appreciation of. Very disappointing that Wikipedia allows this sort of activity. Philby NZ (talk) 21:55, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your concern. Here's the succession box from the article:

Compare with

Those in the ranks of Oberst (Colonel) -- generally regimental commanders -- do not have succession boxes:

Alfred Müller (general)

It does not make sense to me to have a succession box where you cannot navigate either to the units or to the other commanders. That's also the common practice that I've observed on the pages. It has nothing to do with my alleged anti-Nazi views.

For the officer on this page, the only notable unit is Jagdgeschwader 400, but there was no successor and no predecessor either, so that's why I removed it with other non-notable units. For fighter pilots, those who commanded units that appear on this template: Template:Jagdgeschwader of the Luftwaffe should probably have succession boxes; those who commanded sub-units, should not (IMO).

I hope this clarifies why I removed the infobox. If there are further concerns, then it could be discussed at the MilHist talk page. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

@k.e.coffman Again you use unrelateable information: Alfred Müller was a General in the army, not in the air force, and the order of scale is vastly different. Given the different subdivisions of rank of generals, they would command divisions (~10000 soldiers) right up to corps, armies and army groups. Whereas, an air force general would be commanding a whole theatre (Jagddivision) akin to an army Field Marshal. The Geschwader/wing was the primary strategic unit of the Luftwaffe (there were only 2 covering the western front in '41-44) and the primary tactical unit was the Gruppe/group - like a division is on the ground. Personally, I see these tables have a use, giving a concise summary and representation of information in the block text - to paraphrase: a table is worth a thousand words.I don't know why it isn't used for other nations - I don't claim sufficient expertise in the Allied pilots' biographical histories (John_Braham_(RAF_officer), Brendan Finucane. But then whats the point? Since you'll just carry on doing what you want and deleting any work done by other writers that does not match your very limited view of what constitutes relevant biography. Philby NZ (talk) 02:51, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I view the wing as similar to a field army's division -- that's a unit capable of independent operations. Otherwise, we'd have articles on I.LG1 and not just LG1 and higher. Similarly, Wikipedia does not have individual articles on regiments. I personally did not find them useful as I'm more familiar with using them for navigation, not just as static information. I will ask @ MilHist -- if the input is that it's useful, I won't object to keeping these boxes. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:22, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The link is here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history, although there's not been any input so far. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

@k.e.coffmann Sigh - and there you go again making mistaken assumptions on the subject. There are many, many pages about Infantry and Cavalry regiments (search for the category of 'Infantry Regiments by country', or 'Regiments of the British Army', for example, as well as 'Lists of flying squadrons' (that include British, American, French, Pakistani air units) whereas the Luftwaffe only has entries for their full Geschwader (that were made up of 9, or 12 late-war, squadrons). Indeed, the Wiki-page about the Organization of the Luftwaffe, under Gruppe, describes it as 'the basic autonomous unit in the Luftwaffe, in both administration and strategic use, much the same as in the American air forces of that time'. The individual gruppen were very often deployed on separate airfields, or even completely separate theatres (read the unit history of JG 27 for an extreme example). But I agree with you that separate Wiki-pages for the gruppen is not warranted (even though they were 3 times the size of the Allied squadrons that DO get their own pages). What I do take issue with is your assertion that they were insignificant. Your knowledge specialty appears to be naval history - there are a number of articles written on capital ships, and in WW2 they were predominantly deployed in task forces (when they had an abundance of riches, like the RN or USN) as leaders of, or alongside other capital vessels, and were often swapped around depending on circumstance, as were the Luftwaffe gruppen.

I also agree that the succession boxes can be improved with more Wiki-links to the units cited, but the personalities given are always Wiki-linked, where a page exists. So, I believe the succession box concept as used here DOES add value - as it serves to add context and connection (by way of quick navigation) between the biographies of personnel and units involved in a given conflict, theatre or time of the war. This can aid the Wiki-reader with further articles to give them a better (and easier) way to get a fuller understanding of the history that is being written about. I have certainly found them exceedingly useful when looking at Wiki-pages related to Sports events/series/biographies to follow a given event or career further across Wikipedia

So, please don't delete sections because you can't see how they add value to your knowledge of history. People learn by many different ways, and for myself (for example), I get comprehension and understanding through seeing patterns and connections, meaning following the trail of Wiki-breadcrumbs and putting things in context how they relate to each other from other worthy writers has greatly improved my knowledge-base here. Philby NZ (talk) 00:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Notability is determined not by how large or important the unit was, but by whether reliable coverage on it is available. But on the balance of things, these infoboxes do not seem like a big deal and I won't be removing them any more. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:42, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your consideration on this, and I appreciate your leniency. If/when I get back to doing the pilot bios, I will endeavour to be a lot more attentive to include more complete wiki-links to add better context and relevance to articles. FWIW, I think Erbo 16 is one of those very few, small, specialist test-units of significance only because it was so intimately linked to one specific, high-profile aircraft in its time, but its unit history can be just as well explained under the Me 163 article and leave the article on JG 400 cover the aircraft's operational history Philby NZ (talk) 12:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Recent edit
I'm preserving the content by providing the diff: Neo-Nazi publication not used for citations; uncited since 2016; non RS citation (fan page). K.e.coffman (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2017 (UTC)