User talk:Georgejdorner/Archive: List of WWI aces

World War I aces
Well, you've got a lot of good questions. But before I get to those I'll give you some information to alleviate your concerns about being an inexperienced editor. There's a lot of good information on how to edit, particularly at Help:Contents. Our various aviation related projects also have links you can use. WikiProject Aviation is the best starting point, the navigation box on the right links to many pages such as our (in progress) style guide. The talk page of the Aerospace biography task force is a great place to ask questions, but the talk page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation is much more actively watched.

Now, as for everyone on List of World War I flying aces, I believe that according to Notability (people) everyone on the list is notable, based on the fact that "The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them." (DFC, DSC etc.) I personally am in the process of creating an article for everyone on List of World War I aces from Canada. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the kb article size for now. If the article gets too large, it is usually broken into smaller articles, such as List of World War I flying aces (A), List of World War I flying aces (B), etc. or, as will probably happen eventually, List of World War I aces from Australia, List of World War I aces from Canada, etc. At that point List of World War I aces will cease being a list and become a list of link to the country lists. List of airports is now this type of page.

When you get into creating biography articles there is a template for you to use, Template:WPAVIATION creator. For aces just enter the name in the "Create military aviator biography article" box and hit the "Create new military bio" button. The page will be preloaded with the standard templates and information all bio article should have, you just have to enter the info you have.

Anyways, don't worry, nothing here is permanent and no mistake can't be fixed. Happy editing! - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 19:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. If someone ever does suggest dividing the page up, there is one thing that I would do. It's pretty technical but on this page I took a bunch of sub-lists and had them combine on one page. The beauty of this is people can view things in two ways, as sub lists or as a whole. -Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the page was a bit messy. I added some divider lines to make it clearer, the box is the line below the "Create military aviator biography article" header. This should be clearer now. If you wish to do some test creations, you can create them in your userpage. For example you could enter User:Georgejdorner/testbio in the box. When you save it it will be at User:Georgejdorner/testbio, a subpage to your userpage. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 18:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Nationalities of WWI aces
Thank for your comment on my talk page George, I dont have a problem with the Irish/Welsh/Scots being identified it was just the presumption that the English were by default British and not identified in the same way. I understand you comment about the Irish would prefer not to be identified as British and rightly so but during the first world war all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom so should be treated the same as other home nations (Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England). Under the same logic we should not really say ''Top Scottish ace. flew for the UK'' as it is in my opinion a bit of a daft statement as they were all UK citizens, we dont say French flew for the France. Dont think we need to use flags other than the national flag (Union Flag) but when I get time I will add English to the table! and perhaps suggest we remove flew for the UK from home nation guys. MilborneOne (talk) 19:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No I will not edit while you are sorting out George - happy with your approach that you outlined. MilborneOne (talk) 12:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Flying Aces List
Thanks for including me amongst the recipients of your messages about changing the list a bit. I'm OK with all that you say, in terms of splitting the list up. It will (already has?) become quite unwieldy, so splitting by nationality is fine by me. The only thing is: it was split similar to that in a previous incarnation as a list. Somebody somewhere combined it and, IMO, created the types of problems that you have now identified. That's not to say that the list before being combined was perfect - I don't think it was. I have taken the liberty of copying messages which I left on the talk page of the previous WWI flying ace list. I had a helpful response from Panth at the time, so left things 'on hold' for a while. Not long after that, the whole thing got changed.

As you're doing such fantastic work on the list, its obviously in very good hands, and I'm happy with however you'd wish to proceed. I'm happy to help in whatever way you'd like. Meanwhile - here's the text of the messages referred to above. Scoop100 (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

''"As part of a larger project on WW1 Aces, I am gradually populating the UK list with additional names. In terms of notability, not every ace will justify a future article of their own (discussed at WP Military History Talk Pages), so these additions will not always have a Wiki-Link. I propose also to break the Wiki-Links for existing names where it appears that the individual concerned MAY not merit a full article in their own right. The link can always easily be re-established and the effect on the table hopefully will be to tidy it up a bit. Happy to listen to any comments anybody wants to make on this. Scoop100 13:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

''Further to comment as above, some of the Aces listed for other nations are also presently wikilinked but similarly may not eventually merit a full article, in terms of their notability. Again I'd propose to break the wikilinks as necessary and work towards tidying the whole list up. Still happy to listen to any comments from anybody. Scoop100 10:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)''

''Regarding the merger of these two lists, I’m wondering if in doing that, we could actually at the same time introduce some changes. Not all Aces, in truth, would justify a full WP article either from the point of view of notability or the availability of sufficient information.

I’d like to propose a re-categorisation as follows:

World War 1 Flying Aces – Principal Combatant or Otherwise Notable

World War 1 Flying Aces – Not Listed as Principal Combatant or Otherwise Notable

Under both categories, I’d propose then to list Aces by Nationality.

In the first category, every named Ace would have a wiki-link to their own article.

In the second category, there could be the facility to record a few details of the Ace, if these are available. But principally the purpose would be just to retain a list by nationality with the bare bones of name, Unit no., and number of victories. If ever the decision is made that there is sufficient information, and notability is established clearly enough, to transfer across to the first list, then that wouldn’t be a problem."

Any comments?Scoop100 (talk) 14:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)'' Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_World_War_I_flying_aces_by_nationality"

Thanks for your message. I'd advise as follows:
 * Hi George

1.The cut-off point at 20 victories is good – at present. I think you're right about availability of documentary evidence being a problem for Aces below that number. Having said that, it seems to me that there is more and more documentation surfacing in this field. The UK publication 'Cross & Cockade', which specialises in WWI aviation, is continuously publishing new material as sources come to light. In that sense, the lack of available documentation for the 'lesser' Aces as of now doesn't mean that that will always be the case. Who knows, in years to come there could be resources coming available which may throw further light on any or all of these guys. But, its still sensible at this juncture to have the cut-off at 20, I think.

2.I agree with Trevor MacInnis, that in a sense all of the WWI Aces are notable. When one looks at all the (IMO) trivial other bios on WP, any recognised WWI Flying Ace, it seems to me, potentially justifies a WP article. OK, there may not be enough material at present, but I wouldn't like to see WP lose the opportunity, one day in the future, to have an article if and when the supporting documentation becomes available. That's just my particular hobby-horse; I realise that what you're suggesting doesn't mean any loss of what's already there. We just have to be practical at the moment and I think that's what your suggestions certainly are.

3.I'm afraid I wouldn't really have the skills or know-how to do the splitting of the lists. You could leave a message on the Talk page of the WikiProject Military history/Military aviation task force; or maybe talk to one of the Administrators again who could put you in touch with an expert in that sort of thing.

4. Just on the role of the Adminstrators/Co-ordinaors, some time ago I asked a related question on the Talk Pages of the Miltary Aviation Project (I'm afraid I haven't been able to find it again, to show you); at that stage, the Project Co-ordinator thought that not all Aces would be notable and his opinion therefore was that it wasn't worth pursuing expansion of the list. Different people, different opinions – the best people really to make the judgements are those who are close to the action on the particular subject. None better than your good self, on this one. I'm therefore not proposing to leave messages for the other people you sent to – but it'll be good to see what they come up with.

5.As regards the contributions I left at the Talk page for the 'old' list, I'm again not too sure how you get back to there. I can only suggest following the link at the bottom of the last message I sent to you – hopefully you'll get back to where the 'Redirect' comes from; then click the tab for the 'History' of the 'redirected' page & that should show the contributions I, and others, made.

Hope this helps, in some way. Scoop100 (talk) 23:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

WW1 Aces
Thanks, no problem after all your hard work in sorting them out in the first place. Still some errors to find I will have another look when I have some time and see what I can do. Rgds MilborneOne (talk) 12:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

World War I Aces
Thanks for your note from 7 November 2008 (UTC) about the list size problems etc. I was in Ireland for 6 months so I had not much time to deal with it. Cheers --Panth (talk) 17:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the World War I list of flying aces
The other half of this dialogue is at User talk:Jerzy.--Jerzy•t 04:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC) Geo., i have fresh experience of such editor fatigue, so you have my full sympathy for whatever delay is called for! Thanks for your assurance that my bold-feeling edit is welcome. --Jerzy•t 21:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm pleased that my input to the page has turned out be valuable to those (or him, i.e. you) who are/is doing the work that requires a longer-term commitment. (IIRC, i was working on the Dab page for some combination of first and last name, and one of the entries turned out to be for one of your aces, i think a 5-kill one. The enormous section seemed to be pretty awkward, so i ended up saying "Hey, i bet i could improve that at least for the time being." I'm glad it turned out to energize you, and it sounds like i was mistaken in expecting that i would be interfering with the function of the format element class="wikitable sortable" by making it multiple tables instead of a single one, but i don't know what to do about the editability issue otherwise. If you'll forgive me for going off-topic, you might be amused as i was that shortly after learning the full name of the Red Baron, i had occasion to create Red Prince (disambiguation) when i discovered there are (a lot) more than two of them. --Jerzy•t 04:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Geo, i can see that my remarks about the sort were cryptic. I assumed you would know why "sortable" was specified, but i am not sure myself. Everything i've said abt "sortable" and my misgivings abt possible breaking something were based on my guess that "sortable" refers to a capability that someone said (IIRC in the context of the table at Foreign relations of Palestine, which also has that thingee that i called a "format element" above) was available on WP pages, or should be made available here. I don't recall whether i had any real basis for the mental image that i formed, which is along the lines of the tables that are popular in lists of EMails received or of files in a directory and are provided as a sort function in some spreadsheets, where the order can be changed by clicking on heading, causing the rows of the table to be resorted using the data in that column as the sort key. In the aces case, it seemed reasonable that some users might prefer to view the table not in order by number of victories, but in order by country, affiliation, or surname. So i was concerned that that capability might be there, and others using it, without my knowing how to use it, and it seemed logical to me that the breakup i did would restrict any such capability's scope to a single section. But this is pretty much speculation on my part. --Jerzy•t 06:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And "sort[ing] the master list into sub-lists reflecting other national lists, or sub-lists by flying services" sounds like the option i was pointing out, of putting pre-sorted static versions of the same list, reordered by hand or off-line, under corresponding titles. --Jerzy•t 06:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You said
 * So then, as I understand you, splitting the master list into sub-lists is actually a manual process, and cannot be accomplished by a bot, or by some other handy trick of computer magic?

But while you are right that i did the splitting simply by cutting and pasting, (and by multiple edits, to reduce the size of my section edits). I speculate that you could copy and paste an existing Wiki table from the existing page (without even opening an edit window) into a spreadsheet, and reorganize it there. Some editors are skilled at customizing bots to do repetitive tasks, and it's plausible to me that one of those might be creating MediaWiki table structures from a spreadsheet file. Clicking on the Edit tab doesn't make you an editor, but typing or erasing something in the edit pane, and then clicking "Save page" does: you're an editor. If you clik on "My preferences" and check some boxes on the Gadgets tab, you'll soon pretty much be as sophisticated in using extra tools as i am. I've read about table markup, and can't retain what i've read; i relied for the Aces task on a few vague memories, but more on comparing the markup in the edit pane to the preview, and reasoning "OK, that has to be what makes this happen", and always previewing before saving. I think the most sophisticated thing i do is write templates, but my best-looking ones are User:Jerzy/tbnh and User:Jerzy/tb, whose hard parts i just plaigarized from someone else's tool for the same thing.

S A M P L E

Sample

Hello,. There is a response from me, below the message you left in the " Sample" section of my talk page. You can [ remove this User:Jerzy/tbnh-generated notice] at any time by removing the markup that begins and ends " < !-- START Jerzy/tbnh -->" and " < !-- Jerzy/tbnh END -->". --Jerzy•t 07:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC) Or look how sweet this is: in an off-line file, i keep this mark-up:

and usually just slap it around something as i just did.

If you remember that the e, e, f represent R, G, B, it's easy to change the colors; changing one or more of the numbers after "margin" to, say, 6em lets you put space around the box.

Tickled Pink

If you don't think of yourself as a hot-shot editor, just remember that you can (physically and ethically) copy anything neat that you see on WP, tinker with it to tune it up, and check it with the preview button until you like what you have. The key is not any prior skill, but just to keep track of the things that impress you, and not be scared to tinker a little to find out how they tick. Oh, and go to the "Wiki markup" choice on the Insert tool below the edit Save page button, and find out what clicking on each one does, if you have something highlighted in the edit pane and if you don't. (If you can't figure out the function of the result, do research, or ask a question, or stay away from it. Well, actually i still don't know what the span thingee is for, but i use it just to save typing when i create a target for links without creating a new section.)

I just the other day learned something new (surely documented, sorta, somewhere, but i probably won't take the trouble to study it) at User talk:Dank55 when i clicked to start a new section; i'll probably start using that bit of magic soon. Take a peek yourself. --Jerzy•t 07:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Take a look re tables at User talk:Cacycle/wikEd. I find the tool as a whole valuable, tho you can read my complaints abt it elsewhere on the page by searching for "hate" and clicking on the ToC entry that includes "... hate my wonderful WikEd". --Jerzy•t 08:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Once again, the WWI flying aces
Hello,. There is a response from me, below the message you left in the "Once again, the WWI flying aces" section of my talk page. You can [ remove this notice], generated w/ User:Jerzy/tbcore, at any time by removing the markup that begins and ends " < !-- START Jerzy/tb... -->" and " < !-- Jerzy/tb... END -->". --Jerzy•t 04:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC) Hello,. There is a response from me, below the message you left in the "Once again, the WWI flying aces" section of my talk page. You can [ remove this notice], generated w/ User:Jerzy/tbcore, at any time by removing the markup that begins and ends " < !-- START Jerzy/tb... -->" and " < !-- Jerzy/tb... END -->". --Jerzy•t 06:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Hello,. There is a response from me, below the message you left in the "Once again, the WWI flying aces" section of my talk page. You can [ remove this notice], generated w/ User:Jerzy/tbcore, at any time by removing the markup that begins and ends " < !-- START Jerzy/tb... -->" and " < !-- Jerzy/tb... END -->". --Jerzy•t 18:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

sortable tables
Sortable tables load more slowly, if anything... 70.29.213.241 (talk) 03:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I hope i am soliciting info that GJD needs, rather than intruding on your dialogue: Slower by a large or small factor? If there are 5 sorts of the same data, are all 5 downloaded, to provide 5 copies of each line? --Jerzy•t 06:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

List of World War I flying aces
Sure I will see what I can do. I am not that well informed on WW I so a simple conversion of ae–ä, ue–ü, oe–ö or ss–ß will not work as you can see with Oskar Freiherr von Boenigk or Max Naether. Question: A number of Italian aces are listed as recipients of the "Medal for Military Valor", for which Wiki doesn't have an article. However, we do have articles for Bronze Medal of Military Valor, Silver Medal of Military Valor and Gold Medal of Military Valor. If possible we should link with the appropriate version. What do you think? MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I renamed a few that I spotted. However, the performance of the page (load time) is so annoying that I quit. It takes 15 to 20 seconds on average to submit a change. That's no fun. MisterBee1966 (talk) 04:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Please keep reminding me and I will help out as much as I can. I like your idea of splitting the article up into multiple articles. This has been done before like List of Knight's Cross recipients and List of Victoria Cross recipients, just to name two. MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

List splitting
I think it's a good idea to have both separate sub-lists and the full main list. George, you've made a good start splitting off the 5 victories list, but I'd like to make a few changes before we go and split up the whole list. I think we should follow the example of Airline codes-All. If you look at that page it is a very long list of airlines, but if you try to edit it you will see it is actually just a bunch of sublists on separate pages put together. My proposal is to have the main page List of World War I flying aces, and then many subpages :List of World War I flying aces credited with 5 victories (A-F) List of World War I flying aces credited with 5 victories (G-Q), List of World War I flying aces credited with 5 victories (R-Z), etc. (I chose those names based on other list series, and so that they will be able to stand as lists on their own.) Each list will then need some extra coding, which I can do. And we'd have to create Template:List of World War I flying aces/Page top and Template:List of World War I flying aces/Page bottom ( easily already done). What do you think? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 21:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, I understand. I' able to do the edits right now. If you check back in soon (I'll lett you know here when I'm done) you'll see what I mean. If you don't like it then just let me know and I can revert all my edits. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've done my edits. If you check out the sublists they now look like full lists with an intro and footer (see also, etc). All the lists are recreated on List of World War I flying aces, and when all subpages are created there will then be 1 master list with all names, and many sublists which stand up on their own. The master list will still be a big one to load, so my final idea is to have List of World War I flying aces be just the intro and footer, and have the full list of name be at List of World War I flying aces-All, which will have a warning "If All is selected, expect the page to load very slowly, or even crash." Thoughts? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

A few things.

1) Go ahead and continue to split off lists. I agree that the sublists don't need the narrative of the main list, but they do need to stand up as useful pages on their own, or another user may someday nominate them to be deleted, or merged back into the more useful main list page.

2) I agree the list table is not the best, but it was just a quick hash-up of a Table of Contents, replacing the links at the bottom of the page. I'd prefer to come up with a more simple format. I don't think just links at the bottom of the page is the way to go, maybe a simple TOC at the bottom and top. I'll come up with something clean and simple soon. Check out Template:CompactTOC8, this is what I think we need.

3) I don't think you should stop the list splitting part way and leave the 27+ aces on the current main page. 27 seems to be an arbitrary number and will lead to more arguments later ("Why only 27+ here", "why not all", "why not just top 10", etc, etc.) I think the rundown should be this: List of World War I flying aces is the current intro about WWI aces and a footer, no names at all, with a table of contents to the separate lists {Airline codes does this and it seems to work well). Then List of World War I flying aces-All is the original list of all aces, with the multiple pages merged together into 1 giant list. I understand this may make this page seem overly long, but if someone navigates themselves to the "all" list they should get the all list, no subdivisions within the list, by count, name or anything. Then there are the various sublists, divided up as they currently are.

I think were pretty much on the same page here, so if we just keep moving forward any issues can be addressed as they come up. Go ahead an split the list, tomorrow I'll create a better Table of contents template, trim down the sublist intro and footer templates, and maybe do some splitting of my own. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 06:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: your 3) above:

I agree with you about the clunky arbitrary breakage on the lists. This is the result of previous help I received. I might add, top ten lists are such a cliche.

My ideal list of the top scorers would run from 20 through 80 victories. This would include the top scoring ace(s) of all air services; the lowest of the lot would be Alexander Kozakoff, the leading Russian ace, with 20 victories. However, this would probably cause loading problems, so let me supply you with data to help you figure out new tables:

40 - 80 victories: 28 aces, and 31 - 40 victories: 43 aces, OR

30 - 80 victories: 71 aces.

25 - 29 victories: 47 aces.

20 - 25 victories: 69 aces.

15 - 19 victories: 126 aces.

10 - 14 victories: 332 aces. (This breaks out as: 14 victories = 31 aces; 13 victories = 52 aces; 12 victories = 87 victories; 11 victories = 79 aces; 10 victories = 82 aces.) So maybe this should be: 12-14 victories, with 171 aces, and 10 - 11 victories, with 161 aces.

9 victories: 125 aces.

8 victories: 181 aces.

For the sublists already created:

7 victories = 228 aces.

6 victories (A - K) = 138 aces, and 6 victories (L - Z) = 138 aces, for a total of 276 aces with 6 victories.

5 victories (A - F) = 119 aces, 5 victories (G - Q) = 177 aces, and 5 victories (R - Z) = 113 aces, for a total of 409 aces with 5 victories.

When calculating loading, keep in mind that the higher scoring aces eat up more kilobytes because they have so many awards to be listed. Conversely, the lower scoring aces use fewer kb. Also, I think we should leave room to add a graphic or two to each sublist, and to the main list.

I am going to create sublists for 8 and 9 victory aces, pending your take on how we should break the higher scoring aces. I will also try to work on bottom and top templates of the sublists I have created, or am creating, if only to add sources for the info in the tables.

It is such a treat to work with someone of a similar mind.

Georgejdorner (talk) 20:17, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Trevor, compadre,

I just found your two new additions to the sublists. They puzzle me.

I don't quite know why a table of only British decorations and awards adds to the sublists. If you add all the decorations of all the countries granting awards to WWI aces, the decorations list will rival the aces' sublist in size. http://www.theaerodrome.com/medals/ lists 13 countries that granted medals to WWI aces. It seems enough to me that the reader can link articles describing the decorations, although reducing the names of decorations to abbreviations will conserve kbs.

Likewise, I don't understand the abbreviations list summarizing abbreviations that don't appear on the sublist. Unless you anticipate adding another column to the sublists?

At any rate, if you are going to run the bot to reduce award names to decorations, please do so and I will resize and establish the sublists.

Georgejdorner (talk) 20:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right, as it stands the Notes section I added doesn't make much sense, but I hope it soon will. I'd do anticipate editing all the lists to use abbreviations and shortened award names. I took the section from List of RAF aircrew in the Battle of Britain, and I'd like to start using the symbols (¶, ‡, †), abbrevs (KIA) and awards (DFC* for	Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar). For now I've hidden the notes section, but we can continue to add the missing awards, and when it's complete I'll convert the lists to use it.


 * As for the continuing sublists, I think so far we're doing good by having a separate list for each victory count. I think we can continue this way up to at least 20. For the upper counts, I don't think we should concern ourselves too much on how big/long/kb the list will be. I think 21-30 and 31-80 works well. If some lists of the lower lists are very short then so be it, they can be merged into an adjoining list later if someone complains. If the upper lists are too long, maybe we can divide again later. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:47, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Trevor,

Let me, then, carry on devolving the present List of World War I flying aces. I intend to keep the sublists to as "round" of numbers as possible, such as 10 - 14, 15 - 19, 20....maybe use 12 (a dozen) to demark in worst case. I do want to split off more user-friendly and less arbitrary sublistings than the existing ones.

Georgejdorner (talk) 04:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I say go ahead and create World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories. After they're all done, I'd like to do some cleanup and tweaking. I'd like to finish the Notes section, get all the various awards listed and shorten the links to awards. As for creating other lists, I think there are many lists that can be done; List of World War I aces by country (and its various sublists List of World War I aces from Canada, etc), List of top World War I aces from each country, List of top World War I aces from each air service, can all be created. Graphics can be added to these lists, and even the List of World War I flying aces lists can use some images. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 17:34, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Aces list up for Featured List
I put World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories. Hopefully it will pass, but I did it mostly to get outside feedback on how we've done. If you want you can check out comments at Featured list candidates/List of World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories/archive1. Thanks for all your work on these lists. - Trevor MacInnis contribs 05:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I have never mentioned this, but most of our lead material is still unreferenced. I have been tacking on citations whenever I run across an appropriate source, but we inherited some of that copy uncited. Some of the rest I know from my general reading in years past, pre-Wikipedia, but lack any recall of where I read it.

We are going to get clobbered.

Georgejdorner (talk) 06:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Trevor,

The Air Efficiency Award was founded in 1942. It has to be deleted from the decorations table.

Also, mention of Nazi organizations in the description of the German Wound Badge is also obviously in error.

Finally, I can't believe there are still so many aces on the table who lack even a stub, much less an article.

Georgejdorner (talk) 03:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I had to rewrite the intro at Template:List of World War I flying aces/Page top, and I tried to source as much as possible, but if there is anything glaring you can source then please do. I fixed the two awards errors you mentioned. Again, incredible work creating all those aces pages. - Trevor MacInnis contribs 04:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Trevor,

That is a very adept rewrite. Congratulations.

Perhaps we should consider improving the Flying aces article, though.

Georgejdorner (talk) 19:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

A question came up in the FlC for List of World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories that I thought you might be able to answer. Why are some air services in italics (Aéronautique Militaire, Luftwaffe, others not (Royal Flying Corps)? - Trevor MacInnis contribs 06:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not have a definitive answer for you, as I do not recall extending this list. (My hazy memory says I started adding line entries further down.) I believe the service branch listings were thus inherited from the original merged lists that began this whole shebang, although I did clarify the RAF, RFC, and RNAS listings.

However, I note that only the foreign language service branches are italicized, while the ones given in English aren't. Some sort of usage rule, perhaps?

Georgejdorner (talk) 07:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

World War I aces credited with more than 27 victories.
Hi George. I'm planning to propose World War I aces credited with more than 27 victories. (which you created) for deletion, since it's not linked to from anywhere and all the information in the article is also included in List of World War I aces credited with more than 20 victories. Any objections? DH85868993 (talk) 04:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I've proposed it for deletion. Thanks for your speedy response. No worries about violating "The Kindergarten Rule" :-) DH85868993 (talk) 07:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of World War I aces from Greece


The article List of World War I aces from Greece has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Moraitinis was the only Greek air ace in WWI. The list is redundant.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Constantine  ✍  11:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)