User talk:FROGSMILE

Garrison cap/forage cap
Can you please cite your edits to the Garrison cap article. You seem to have a lot of information but I'm puzzled about, for instance, your changing of (and breaking the links to the article of) the term forage cap. That's the only term I'd heard used for it, including from my father who did national service in the army. If this and the rest of what you've added is correct it makes a useful addition but, without citation I'm wondering if it's original research or just plain wrong. See Citing sources to show you how. Doddy Wuid (talk) 11:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

'''My source is threefold. First 38 years in the British Army to date. Second "Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army 1900". Third is Dress Regulations of The Rifles (just one example) available online. I do not know how to 'cite' these and find the process of doing anything here very complicated. Perhaps you could help? A forage cap has a peak and is the coloured hat worn with (No2/Service Dress) by most (but not all) English regiments of the infantry, the cavalry (less RTR) and the Corps. '''


 * More than willing to help. Your years of service are very useful for the knowledge you have but that's only a start as you must cite sources to show verifiability. Check out Verifiability to explain why this is so (essentially "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"). We have to be able to confirm that material which is added has a reliable basis.


 * If you have publications which support your edits that's great. As suggested, see how you get on with Citing sources. The essential part that you need though is here, showing templates that you can copy for citations. For the book, use the cite book template (or the Citation template if you really want to go to town with details); for online sources, use cite web. Look at the examples that are given to show you how to fill in the details and add as many as you can, just leaving any blank if you don't have the details.


 * For your reference to appear in the footnotes you must precede the citation with (see here if you want full details).


 * So the full citation will be of the form:


 * with details filled in by you after the "=" sign.


 * That will probably do you for a start, though if the browser you use is Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, SeaMonkey, Camino, Safari, Opera mini or Safari for iOS (but not Internet Explorer) there is a tool called Twinkle which (amongst other things) makes citing really easy. Ask if you want to know how to set it up. One last thing: try to get in the habit of signing your contributions like this " ~ ". Give me a shout if you need any further clarification or help. Doddy Wuid (talk) 01:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

'''I'm sorry but that is way too complex for me and merely puts me off. I have useful knowledge as a historian but I am not a computer geek. I do, however, understand the importance of citing provenance. I have tried to quote some of these for you, the most important of which is "Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army 1900", as this edition (1900) was the first and last to be profusely illustrated. It was so expensive to produce that the war office never illustrated them to the same degree ever again. You seem to have an interest in the article on this head dress so if you could give me your email address I will send you the source information as well as some excellent photographs to illustrate the details given. The existing article was very poor from a British, Canadian and Commonwealth point of view and yet this style of head dress has been worn continuously from 1848 until today and is most certainly not, nor has ever been, a 'forage cap'. '''


 * Don't worry, we can take it in easy steps, here, and I'll go much more slowly this time. I'm no computer geek either and all the knowledge I have mentioned above has been picked up as I go along, over some time. Dropping it all on you at once might seem a bit daunting though.


 * In regards to me citing it with an edit of mine, I wouldn't be comfortable with doing that without actually having seen the article but I can take you there step by step.


 * Ok, step one - let's start off with the book that you have. I'd like you to tell me some details about it and don't worry if you don't have them all. Can you tell me:


 * the last name of the author (or editor) - No defined author, these are 'regulations' issued from time to time by the then war office.
 * the first name of the author - Ditto above.
 * the name of any co-authors - No co-author but a facsimile was published by the National Army Museum in 1969 and introduced by a famous military historian: W Y Carman.
 * the exact title of the book (Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army from what you have said above) - Yes: Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army 1900. There were also e.g. 1904 and 1911 editions but 1900 was best for illustrations.
 * the publisher - The War Office.
 * the date of publication (1900 presumably) - Yes, 1900.
 * the page(s) in the book pertinent to the citation - Sadly I do not have the book to hand as I am serving and cannot carry all my books with me.
 * the isbn number of the book? - of the 1969 facsimile- ISBN-10: 0853680442 ISBN-13: 978-0853680444


 * Over to you! Doddy Wuid (talk) 00:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

'''N.B. Hopefully the detail above is a help. If you put "Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army" into google you will get many details to corroborate what I have said. Several of the Regulations are now downloadable via pdf, or purchasable on CD. I also have so many good illustrations and it would be good to send them to you for posting into the article. You could help me choose them.'''

'''Here are two extracts from RLC Dress Regulations that are now online (as are those for the Rifles, Mercian Regt, Royal Regt of Scotland and others):

'Cap, Field, Service (Side Hat)

'''54.      The side hat is an optional item for RLC officers in Nos 2 (Non Ceremonial), 4 (Non Ceremonial), 7, 10, 11, 13 and 14 Dress. Female officers do not wear the side cap in Nos 10 and 11 Dress. The side hat is not to be worn by soldiers.

'''Cap, Forage, Peaked

55.     ''' The cap, forage, peaked is worn by officers in Nos 1, 2 (Ceremonial), 3, 4 (Ceremonial), 6 (Ceremonial), 10 and 11 Dress. Females do not wear the cap, forage, peaked in Nos 10 and 11 Dress. Except for The RLC Band, Corps of Drums and those filling certain ceremonial appointments, RLC soldiers up to and including the rank of SSgt do not wear the cap, forage, peaked. The width of the cap’s chinstrap is to be 9.5mm for soldiers.  ''
 * Yes, that is helpful. With the details you've given me we can fill in some of the citation template thus:




 * If this filled-in template was to be placed in an appropriate place in the article to support the text, a blue superscript of a number in brackets would appear in the text (for an example see the first citation, numbered (1), at the end of the sentence in the Synonyms and slang terms section). If this was to be clicked on it would take you to a footnote under "References", or in the case of the garrison cap aerticle, "Notes". By the way, the fields that aren't filled in would simply not display. If, for instance, you were to find the page numbers at a later time these could just be added to the template and they would display.


 * Now I need you to tell me a suitable place to put the template in support of text you have added - just one place for now. For instance, in the very first sentence of the article you changed the term "forage cap" and replaced it with "field service cap, or side hat": does Dress Regulations etc. directly support this as the term or terms used in the UK and/or Commonwealth? If it doesn't, see if you can find another of your edits which is directly supported by the book and let me know.


 * That's part 1 of your current task list. We'll deal with photos at some later stage, step by step (this, incidentally would be by loading them into Wikimedia Commons which is a vast database of media files). Part 2 on the task list is that it is good practice to sign your posts on talk pages, be it your own, somebody elses or that of an article. Simply type four tildes ( ~ ) and they will be replaced with your username and time stamp. This is how I'm displaying my own name and the time stamp after this sentence, thus: Doddy Wuid (talk) 00:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * While I think of it, something to add to the to do later list is the British section of the forage cap article, unless you think it is accurate.


 * By the way, I've created redirects so that someone searching the term Side hat or Field service cap will be redirected to Garrison cap. Doddy Wuid (talk) 00:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * '''I think the first mention of Field Service Cap as mentioned by you would be a good place to put the reference.
 * Side Hat' or 'Side Cap' are of more modern usage and relate to the fact that in WW2 it was common to balance the cap precariously on the 'side' of the head. I have no source that I can think of for that, but know it to be true and there are numerous B&W photos around to bear out the practice.  Citation of the words usage in modern times could perhaps be the RLC Dress Regs I have mentioned that are now online.
 * I have not yet looked at the Forage Cap article but will now do so. The forage cap predates the field service cap by some considerable time.  As a hat it is always round in shape due to its knitted origins and either peaked or unpeaked.  It was later made up by tailors from the previous season's issue uniform, utilising parts that were not unduly 'worn out' (at the time new uniforms were issued every few years).  It was first regulated for wear in 1811 but that was merely to regularise a de facto practice that had been going on within regiments for some time, due to the impractical style of shakos when out of action and carrying out day to day activity.'''
 * I have illustrations ready to send when you want them.'''

(FROGSMILE (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Ok, now copy the filled-in template, exactly as it is displayed above in my last post above (from ). Then click on "edit" at the top of the Garrison cap article, paste the template after the words "field service cap,", preview it if you like to check it looks correct (with the superscript showing, which you can click on to see the footnote below). If it looks correct save it and if for some reason it screws up anyway, you can always undo it. I'll wait until you've done that before giving further instructions.


 * We'll deal with the illustrations in due course but one thing you could tell me now is, are they your own photographs or drawings, taken by you or if not, what is the source? We have to make sure any potential copyright issues are addressed and no breaches are made. Doddy Wuid (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

'''I have just edited the Forage Cap article, as I did not know you were online. '''The pictures have been taken from numerous sources on the web, but only where no mention of copyright was made.  They are often from amateur historian or collectors reference sites where members freely post their own photographs.''' I am not sure I understand what you mean about copying the filled in template. Do you mean the one on this page, i.e. just paste in what I have already told you between the parentheses?''' (FROGSMILE (talk) 16:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Good work, you copied the template correctly and the superscript and footnote are displaying correctly. One thing that needs addressed though is that we need to move the template slightly as you have broken the link to field service cap. At the moment, this link is simply a redirect back to the garrison cap article but it ought to be formatted correctly and, who knows, at some point in the future there may be a separate article on the field service cap.


 * I don't know if you know about linking but you will have noticed that some of the text of the article is in blue. If you click on blue text it links to another article. To make a link you use two square brackets on either side of the text you are using for the link, like these . To take an example of the first link in the article we have "United States" which, if you look at it in the edit view, is made up of the characters United States.


 * As you've placed our template within the square brackets, the formatting is now incorrect, so the link has been broken and the square brackets are showing as characters in the text of the article. The citation template should go after the closing brackets of the link. You've also put in some inverted commas within the square brackets which will also confuse the formatting. I'll go and correct the formatting and, if you know how to, look at the differences I have made and the differences it makes to the display. Let me know when you've had a look and if you can see the difference it has made.


 * Since we've been talking about links now, one of the next things we could do later is to introduce some links to your edits in the forage cap article. Doddy Wuid (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you post some illustrations of the Austrian and Torin caps if I send them to you by email? (FROGSMILE (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC))


 * Hi there, just wanted to let you know I'd seen your request. I will help out but am busy at the moment so will try to get back to you shortly. Doddy Wuid (talk) 20:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I appreciate it. I have added some more info and have some great pics. I will look here every few days to check when you are more free.


 * ...haven't forgotten. May have a chance to get back to you in full later in the week. In the meantime have a look at this diagram to decide if we are okay to upload the images in copyright terms. Also, let me know where the work is from, per the choices in the list here. Doddy Wuid (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for my delay in getting back to you. I am unaware of any copyright for the photos I will send you. They have been freely passed between individuals who have an interest in the history of military dress and are sometimes from their own collections of photographs, or even the items themselves. I have not kept a record of who sent what but I do not believe that there would be any complaints about any pictures that I send for illustrating the article. If you let me know an email address to which I can send the pictures I am happy for you to choose which one's to post. (FROGSMILE (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC))
 * Likewise sorry for the delay. I've been away for a while. I think that if the copyright status is unclear, unfortunately that may mean that the images can't be used but I may be wrong. I don't think I have sufficient experience or knowledge here as I've only much familiarity with images where the copyright status is clear. I think it's time we got some help. You could place here on your talk page and ask for advice or, if you like, I could ask on mine and direct them here. Doddy Wuid (talk) 10:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for my delay in getting back to you, I have been otherwise engaged and distracted. I would prefer it if you could seek guidance at your end if you would not mind. I would be careful to send you illustrations that have been freely passed by fellow enthusiasts over several years and that do not bear any copyright concerns. I am sorry that I cannot track the individuals down but the swapping has been going on for some years. They are not from museums or any other registered collections. Please let me know your email address or I can give you mine so that I can send the pictures for posting to the article. It would be ridiculous if we cannot properly illustrate this article for the benefit of all. (FROGSMILE (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2011 (UTC))
 * Looks like we're both rather busy at the moment. No matter though. I requested help on my talk page and was directed to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, so hopefully we'll be able to sort this out.


 * As and when we get to the stage of using the photographs, we won't do it through e-mail. I won't elaborate until we're at that stage but, once I take you through step by step, it will be at least as easy for you to upload them straight to Wikimedia Commons (promise) and much easier for me. Once they're there, I could take over and place them in the article for you. Doddy Wuid (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi FROG and Doddy. I was directed here from the link that Doddy posted earlier (copyright questions). I'm not an expert in this topic, but I can assure you that the images cannot be used unless you took them yourself or have proof that someone else gave you permission to use them. I know it sounds ridiculous, but Wikipedia, and my extension Commons and indeed all Wikimedia projects, are highly visible, public websites, and we all must be very careful to upload images that we have either taken ourselves, are in the public domain, or that we have explicit permission to use. When someone takes a photograph, the photographer is automatically given copyright of the image. The photographer can release the photo into the public domain or license it under a Creative Commons license (which put varying restrictions on use). However, unless you are the photographer, you can't upload them unless you can prove you have permission from the copyright holder. It's all quite confusing, but necessary in order to help keep Wikipedia free by avoiding useless lawsuits and the like.-RHM22 (talk) 02:22, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clarifying that RHM22.


 * FROGSMILE, do any of the photos fall into the category of having "(taken) them yourself or (having) proof that someone else gave you permission to use them"? Doddy Wuid (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry but no, none of the photos were taken by myself and I do not keep a record of every person who exchanges an interesting photo with me, we do so freely and for each others interest. The only thing I can think of to do is to ask one person I have seen post regularly on a relevant website if he can get permission to use an illustration there. I am deeply saddened by this bureaucracy although I understand what you have said about lawsuits. Nevertheless it is inhibiting the passage of knowledge to a great degree and that is wrong. It has also destroyed any interest I have in improving such articles as these and I shall not bother in future. Life's too short.(FROGSMILE (talk) 09:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC))


 * I understand but with a project as large and high profile as this, even if a tiny amount of non-free images were uploaded in good faith, the owner discovered them then sued Wikipedia, it would constantly be up to its neck in wrangling. If anything copyright law's to blame more than Wikipedia. Good luck with your conatct. Just thinking, would you be able to put out a wider request to friends with your interests for new photos or photos that are definitively their work which they are willing to grant to you?


 * By the way, I asked my father again and he reiterated that he always referred to this as a forage cap but that was either in reference to soldiers when he was a boy during the war, then soldiers in other regiments when he did his national service (he wore a beret). What's more, somebody has added this term back in to the introduction of the article (uncited). If it's a widely held misconception, that would be worth noting if there is a reliable reference to this as a common misnomer. I've had a wee look but couldn't find one. On the off chance, have you seen one? Incidentally one book I had a flick through (no luck in regard to the above though) was "Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress - European Empires and Exotic Uniforms" by Thomas S. Abler. If you don't already know it, I think it would be right up your street. Doddy Wuid (talk) 22:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I can perhaps seek permission on a few military history sites that I belong to and see what response I get.

Field Service Caps/Field Caps/Side Hats/Chip Bags are occasionally mis-titled as Forage Caps, most specifically in the RAF, but they have never been given that nomenclature in the Army where Forage Caps have always been round in shape. Because the mis-naming is not that common I am not sure if it is worth mentioning unless that title has now been given official endorsement in the RAF regulations which is not impossible.

This is the site that I am considering asking permission to use illustrations: http://www.paoyeomanry.co.uk/LY3.htm

Notice the types of Forage Caps (including pill box) and the Torin and Field Service Cap, which for mounted duty (only) was issued with a chin strap. (FROGSMILE (talk) 12:56, 16 May 2011 (UTC))

good luck
Good luck with obtaining copyright permission from that site. It's a very rich and interesting resource, useful for clarifying the different styles of headgear, although there does seem to be a some variety within each distinct style. The example sported by Lt. The Hon. P C Evans-Freke in the South Africa 1900-02 section, described as "his folding Forage cap" does seem to be straying closer to side hat territory. Doddy Wuid (talk) 20:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes and that is a distinct error as I have said. The official Army name for the side hat has always been either Field Cap or Field Service Cap. Of course that does not stop people mistakenly calling them forage caps even on that site. The information is only as good as the knowledge of the person typing it. We are all fallible, but posting correct information here should, in theory, educate.

From Current Army Dress Regulations (ADR):

FIELD SERVICE CAP (also called "SIDE CAP/HATS"): alongside stiff forage caps, by the 1880s the Army had a soft “Forage Cap for Active Service and Peace Manoeuvres". For normal Line Infantry this was their Glengarry; for most others it was the simple boat-shaped Torin cap which a few regiments still retain. The non-Scottish Glengarry and most Torin caps were before Long replaced by an Austrian pattern cap that could unfold more elaborately into a form of Balaclava, fastening with two buttons. This remains the main style of the Field Service Cap/ Side Hat of today (ADR Part 1 para 01.190 & ADR Part 9 para 09.0110-09.0112).  (FROGSMILE (talk) 18:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC))

Reference Errors on 16 March
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