Template talk:Ancient Rome military sidebar

Before making any changes - read this
Since this template is now used across more than a dozen articles, please prporse suggestions for improvements to this template on this talk page before making any changes. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 21:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

RomanMilitary template and Classis Britannica
Hi. I am going to revert the edit of this template to remove the link to the Classis Britannica - it is too insignificant a topic to be linked to at this level. The aim of the template is to provide links only to very common or broad articles, which then contain links in term to more specific articles. It is not practical to list every fleet and every legion individually, but note that for legions there is a "list of legions" page. For the classes, there is "Roman Navy" linked to from the template and we could add a link to a "list of fleets" page or similar from the template if you wished, and if you thought it deserved a separate page from Roman Navy. The template is now used on quite a few Roman military pages and I want to stop it growing out of control with hundreds of unmanageable links. Hope this revert is OK! Please respond on my talk page or the template talk page with any further comments of questions. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 16:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure, that's fair. Thought I could put a link to it since there is only one separate Classis page so far, but your point is more valid, and the 'list of fleets page' would, at the moment, be just a precis of Roman Navy. User&#124;Neddyseagoon 19:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I appreciate there is only one classis page so far, but i think it only serves to artificially inflate the perception of the importance of the CB to link to it at this level, users might not realise there are simply no articles existing for the other classes. Thanks for the understanding :-) - PocklingtonDan 19:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * What happened to the template?! It used to be a fairly good mechanism for tying the related articles about the Roman Military together. Now, I can't even reach some of them following the chain of articles! Cleanliness might me next to godliness, but functionality rates higher. - Vedexent (talk) - 14:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, one has to notice that the titles are links. May I point out that black-on-purple and navy-on-purple are not overly visually distinct? That the headers are also links might be missed - at least I missed it :) - Vedexent (talk) - 14:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem, I'll make it visually clearer that the headers are links. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 16:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it any clearer now? I restructured it initially so that it linked to a greater range of articles (albeit some of these had to be access through "list of" articles). I think the style attributes make it clearer now that the headers are links too but if not let me know. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 16:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is clearer now that the titles are links. - Vedexent (talk) - 16:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, great PocklingtonDan 16:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

BCE/CE and BC/AD
A particular user seems to believe I am attempting to cause an offense of some sort by changing the calendar standardization from BC/AD to BCE/CE, as so illustrated in a harassing message sent to me, as well as his "nice try" message under his reversion of the template. I can understand the backlash this sort of change could have and I'll kindly back down from making this sort oh-so radical change, but what is the issue with changing the calendar standardization? Common Era is readily and widely accepted by scholars, and hardly any new works are released that do not know use this unbiased system of calendar notation. I stand by my change, but will not get into a nonsense editing war over the matter. I only ask that consistency and uniformality be used in all aspects. I also ask that "AD" notation be used correctly, namely before the date (as in AD 2006) and not after, which is, incidentally, how BC and the BCE/CE notations are used... Any support for a change to the Common Era standardization notation would be appreciated, but I have no qualms with using the Christian calendar.--SOCL 02:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * My view on this particular issue is that its not worth a revert war and to just allow whatever precedent has been set in the article to continue in new edits on that article. In fact, I actually prefer (BC/AD) to (BCE/CE) not because I prefer "year of our lord" to "commen era year" (I don't, I'm a vehement atheist) but because (BC/AD) is more widely understood and the alternative smacks of over-eager political correctness gone mad. For the record I have had disagreements with that particular user myself recently over some of his more overenthusiastic edits, but I still agree that his edits/reverts were correct in this instance. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 08:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks like a particular user did not do his own homeworks. In Manual of Style (dates and numbers) is clearly stated that changing between allowed styles (apart for keeping consistency within the same article) is not allowed; in the same document is stated that AD/CE are both allowed. And note that this rule has been confirmed by an Arbitration case. As regards using AD, I am not sure, but I read somewhere that the use of Ad before or after the year depends on the kind of English you are writing it (I mean, British English or American English), so even in this case, changing from one style to the other is (should be) not allowed.
 * Also, just for clarity, I have some disagreements with the other user, but appreciate his current position.--Panarjedde 13:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * AD is in all forms of English placed before the date, not after. No need to have a problem&mdash;the error was on my part.  I wasn't going to start a war over it and don't have a particular issue with the revert-edit, but rather the tone and manner in which the matter was handled, especially in overdramatically calling the issue a "serious offense".  In any event, it makes little difference as I have no problem with following Wikipedia bylaws.  Pardon my ignorance. ;) --SOCL 23:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Any particular reason the image was changed for a lower quality one?
[This change] seems to swap the image for a lower quality, blurry one.