User:Skinny87/sandbox3

Hi there [USER NAME]. My name is [MILHIST MEMBER] and I thought some more information about why your article has been nominated for deletion might be helpful. Wikipedia has a number of guidelines that set out how notable something—a military unit, a person, software, a car etc—has to be to have an article. The key is always the existence of multiple reliable sources that cover the subject in significant detail (as opposed to just mentioning it in passing). The reason this is so important is that everything we write has to be verifiable; our editorial policies forbid us from simply writing from personal knowledge. Examples of suitable sources are focused articles in national broadsheet newspapers, books (or chapters of books) written by recognised experts in the field, articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, reputable websites, or any other credible sources that haven't been self-published on sites like lulu.com, in blogs, or by a vanity press.

What this adds up to is that your article was nominated for deletion because there don't appear to be sufficient reliable sources that mention its subject in more than a passing manner. Please don't regard this as a criticism of you or the subject of the article; it's sometimes the case that such sources do exist and the article can be improved rather than deleted. For military history-related people, the Military History Wikiproject's own notability guidelines give a good general indication of the sort of people we'd normally expect to be well-enough covered by reliable sources to establish their notability. These include those who have earned their country's highest award for valour; who have held a particularly high rank or commanded a significantly large body of troops, such as a capital ship or a division; who have played an important role in a significant military event; or who were/are the undisputed inventor of a form of military technology which significantly changed the nature of or conduct of war. You can read the guideline at the above link for more details.

I hope that you have not been too discouraged by this deletion nomination and that you will continue to contribute to Wikipedia. Most of us have had articles deleted at some point—it helps to regard it as part of the Wikipedia learning process! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talkpage. [USER SIGNATURE]