User talk:Hcberkowitz/Archive 2

Reply
Hey Howard, to reply to your comment at Erxnmedia's talk page, it is actually technical impossible to only protect a section of an article. Basically, I agree with you, there needs to be more discussion on these topics rather than edit warring. Perhaps you could start some sort of mediation eventually if it gets really bad. Khoikhoi 04:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Iran-Iraq War infobox
The United States did support Iraq, no doubt. But the thing is that they have been added as "combatants". They were not fighting Iran together with Iraq or anything like that. They were protecting oil tankers from Kuwait, a neutrall country. The Iranians didn't care and still attacked Kuwaiti oil tankers, which lead to some engagements with the USN but that's a complete different issue. The Honorable Kermanshahi (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The United States provided a lot of support to Iraq and the Iraqis could have probably not held stand in the war without that support, but to list them as a combatant is just completely wrong. I wouldn't say the Americans protecting Kuwaiti oil tankers had nothing to do with the war, as it clearl did. But it wasn't part of the war. The fact Iranians put all eyes on the US and not Iraq is because the United States is seen as the current enemy, but I see the problem here with those editors and so I won't bother trying to change the campaignbox. Though these kind of editors are there from all countries (Arabs, Israelis, Americans, ect.). The Honorable Kermanshahi (talk) 16:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We came to the agreement that it is mentioned that USA took part in the Tanker war. In that war USA did actively took part. Let's stick to it as it is now.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 09:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Iran-Iraq war
Hello Howard,

I have rewritten the section largely constructed by you, please check it: Iran-Iraq_War. If you feel the older version was better please feel free to alter or undo my edits. Imad marie (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * On second thoughts, do u believe it's worthy to create a sub-section for each foreign country? isn't better to merge them in a single section? please share your thoughts. Imad marie (talk) 21:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem, well I'm curious to know, who supported Iran during the war? and how was Iran able to fight the war for 8 years? Imad marie (talk) 06:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Tireless Contributor Barnstar

 * I saw the different Iran-Iraq War related articles you created. The articles are very interesting and informative.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 00:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:
Hello Howard, Thank you for the constructive contributions in the Iran-Iraq related articles, I hope that you will never stop those contributions. About the suggested table for support you put in my talk page, I think this is a very good idea, do you have articles in your test user-space about the foreign support to Iran? can I have a look?

About the concentration on the US role in the war, as I've expressed my opinion before, this is what happens when your the world leader, the concentration is always on the leader, this is a fact of life. If you have material for other countries that supported Iraq/Iran, then it surely need to be naturally included in the article. Cheers. Imad marie (talk) 06:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * First, to see what I have planned or are in draft -- and suggestions, or even taking over, various countries are welcome -- look at User:Hcberkowitz. You'll see purple links to articles that exist; if they aren't preceded by "User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-", they are in the main Wikipedia space. If they are purple and do have the User: prefix, they are working drafts in my userspace.  If they are red, I've seen some evidence of support to Iran, Iraq, or both, but I haven't written anything there yet.


 * This definitely has been a learning experience for me, as I've discovered links between countries that I had never suspected. In starting each new country, I often find references to others. For example, I was surprised to see Switzerland at all. That country gives me mental images of mountain climbing, banks, and chocolate. Actually, I was aware of Hagelin AG, which is more in my field; they make cryptographic equipment. It turned out, however, that they variously make cannon and ammunition (from a company I thought was Swedish), and were shipping them to Singapore for eventual transfer to Iraq.


 * On my main userpage, I will put the basic outline I will use for each country article, and I will strt setting up the table with it.


 * In many cases, I have been very surprised to find how involved some countries had been, such as Italy, and, after export controls, Italy via Singapore for land mines. The biggest issue with Italy, however, had been the state-owned BNL bank, whose US subsidiary appears to have provided at least USD $5 billion for Iraqi purchases. As I've mentioned, it's important to know who made those land mines that those brave Iranians ran knowingly into, to clear the minefields.


 * France and the Soviet Union provided the majority of weapons and ammunition actually used by Iraq. I suspect that some countries will be more intermediate points to hide shipments to Iraq; see the current British article where a Member of Parliament said that if one looked at the export licenses to Singapore, they would have the largest military on the planet. Still, Singapore did assemble Italian-designed land mines using Swiss explosives. I suspect, however, that they were simply an intermediary for WMD-related shipments.


 * In no way do I think the US was not involved. From a financial standpoint, it was probably more in banking and loan guarantees than weapons. Very few actual weapons, that could immediately be used in battle, were shipped. There was, however, a lot of manufacturing technology and critical materials that were used in the Iraqi missile and WMD programs.


 * I may have mentioned that I started my career in biochemistry, and have some experience with chemical and biological weapons, as well as a fairly deep knowledge of military and intelligence matters. There are some things that I'll have to find sourced somewhere, but that I know, from personal knowledge, that they may not have been as critical as some think (e.g., the BW cultures, as opposed to the BW manufacturing equipment).


 * Cheers, Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Howard, I'm going to leave the Iran-Iraq war article now, as I will concentrate on Arab-Israeli conflict articles as I think they are in a biased state now, keep up the good work, Imad marie (talk) 05:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Please mind my edit here. I think it would be good if you explain how the USSR and US supported Iran during the war. Thanks. Imad marie (talk) 08:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation in Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war
Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war is unquestionably copyright infringement, and no assertion of permission has been made. To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, please affix the template to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that '''this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here''' CSDWarnBot (talk) 18:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Howard. I wasn't even aware of the copyright issue. My concern was that the tone of the article didn't seem to me to be encyclopaedic. I did notice that there were other articles in a similar vein, but this was the one I spotted first and I raised the deletion discussion to see how other people felt about it. To me, the very title is emotive. Looking at the article as it stood, I felt that it read like a piece of journalism (see WP:NOT). It's not so much the writing that I have an issue with, as the very nature of the article. But I can see it's been enormously improved, so maybe I was wrong in thinking it couldn't be made NPOV. (Where in Wales were you?) Deb (talk) 19:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I can see now what you are trying to do. Still a little anxious, but it's worth a try.  Although I spotted some of the other articles, eg. "British support...", I didn't, at the time, recognise that you were creating an article for both sides, ie. support for Iran and Iraq.  I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to try to put them both into a single article, eg. "Soviet stance on the Iran/Iraq war" or "Soviet involvement in..."  Maybe that's asking for trouble as well, but it could avoid misunderstanding.  I freely admit that it's not my specialist subject, but the article did, at first sight, read a bit like, "Those horrible Soviets did their usual devious things, etc."  What never ceases to amaze me is how controversial topics can be even when they're about things that happened hundreds of years ago, let alone in our lifetimes."  ("Waterfront" suggests Cardiff or Swansea - probably Cardiff if you weren't actually staying in Wales.) Deb (talk) 20:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I can fully see that it's very complex. My question to you, I suppose, would be "Is this an appropriate task for Wikipedia?" Deb (talk) 21:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My guess is that people will soon start shouting, the minute you say something they disagree with, regardless of whether you have the facts at your fingertips. The danger is that, where the situation is so complex, the facts are not clear-cut, and that means controversy.  I don't envy you the task of keeping it simple.  I have enough trouble keeping Richard III of England NPOV. Deb (talk) 11:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Just keep up the good work, and don't let me put you off. Deb (talk) 16:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

"work in progress"
Hcberkowitz, why did you remove the citation tags without bothering to provide citations for the issues in question? If the article is "Work in progress", and you don't want others to edit it, then you should have kept it on your user page until it's finished. --CreazySuit (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * underconstruction`tag is good for a few hours, and does not immune an article from scrutiny indefinitely. --CreazySuit (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Techniques of casualty counts that might be of interest
Thanks you for the links.

I lived in Iran in during the war and in those days I was curious enough to seek the real numbers. Iranian media did not talk much about number of casualties, understandably. On the other hand, listening to Baghdad Radio to get the opposite view (it was possible to do so with no much secrecy or fear - almost everyone did it), I would hear ridiculously astronomical numbers, like 90,000 just for one day. So the only way was to estimate. The impact of seeing funerals and street names being changed almost everyday was too profound. So for people to think the number was not a million it was unbelievable. People do not realize much is that 200,000 is also a huge number. That is a great portion of Iranian arm forces and equivalent of population of cities. So talk of million is more or less the result of the profound emotional impact, I think. Persian Magi (talk) 04:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the figures I put in the page are from here and not from my own estimates. The site belongs to Emadeddin Baghi so I gather it is a credible source Persian Magi (talk) 04:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Detail article table
Hi Howard,

I've added Iran-Iraq War to point to detail articles.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of WP:Civil
You and Erxnmedia should really stop labeling opposing editors as "POV faction", "Iranians", "Iranian POV-pushers" etc. This is not polite, a volition WP:AGF and WP:Civil, and really getting annoying. You don't see people calling you and Erxnmedia "the neo-con POV faction", "Americans", "American apologists" etc....and some may say that you're as much of "POV pusher" as the next person, with a " Cui bono" of your own. So please stop speaking in such derogatory tone about opposing editors, and consider this a friendly warning. --CreazySuit (talk) 18:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with speaking about POV, everyone has a point of view (POV), and you have as much of a POV as the next person. If you think otherwise, you're simply in denial. However, labeling a group of editors as a "POV faction", grouping them together and designating them by their presumed nationality or background, is inappropriate, and I have seen people get blocked for it. --CreazySuit (talk) 18:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you're misunderstandings me, criticizing a particular POV or a particular editors is fine, but lumping together a bunch of editors and labeling them by their nationality, is not fine. The rules are crystal clear in this regard. NPA: "Comment on content, not on the contributor...[Do not] use someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views". --CreazySuit (talk) 18:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

History lessons for neo-cons
We now know that the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah wasn't all that bad but it was a big motivation for Saddam Hussein running up to the Iran-Iraq War. Erxnmedia (talk) 21:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What is your point? I don't get your sarcasm. Are you denying the fact that Saddam called the Iran-Iraq war "the Second al-Qādisiyyah" or "Saddam's al-Qādisiyyah" and referred to himself until his death as "The General of al-Qādisiyyah"? Please take note of the English text on the following Iraqi stamp --CreazySuit (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Iraqi_stamp.jpg


 * Hi CreazySuit,


 * In the right context the information you are adding is valuable. I would add it to the Iran-Iraq War page.  In particular, I would:


 * Add the above stamp image and the commentary that you put in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah regarding Saddam's motivations into Iran-Iraq War where Saddam's motivations and the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah are already discussed.
 * Move the reference to Saddam out of the lead paragraph for Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and maybe add a section to the end of Battle of al-Qādisiyyah like Battle of al-Qādisiyyah.
 * Since you altered the body count for Battle of al-Qādisiyyah supplied by User:Scythian1 in this edit, please leave a friendly message in his talk page letting him know that you have updated his body count.


 * Thanks,
 * Erxnmedia (talk) 13:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record
There's no problem for having this particular discussion based on the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah on my talk page, although if there will be several participants, it might make sense to move it to the Talk:Iran-Iraq War page. I have no particular opinions on this specific graphic or battle; I don't claim intimate knowledge of the subject.

In a broader sense, it is worth considering WP:UNDUE. It's been pointed out that Iran may well have 7,000 years of history to draw from. Really, I think having a classic Persian image, and a note about Persian civilization, is useful for people that have no background in the length of the culture on one side.

It could be asked, however, how much value there is in putting in a picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, when the time span of the events with which Rumsfeld was concerned is perhaps a thousandth of the history of Persia, and even a small fraction of the time of existence of the United States. There is a POV question of showing Rumsfeld to draw attention to U.S. involvement, but not also having pictures of officials from Iraq's main arms suppliers, the Soviet Union and France. If no such pictures are available, perhaps none should be used, or those available could be in the country-specific articles. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

US intelligence involvement with German and Japanese war criminals after WWII
sorry about that! most of the tags are a bit self-explanatory; the lead section is two long and it reads like an essay. the confusing element is the language used; sentences like " This debate becomes even more complex when "presentism" is a facet of retrospective reviews of decisions: were the decisions reasonably moral by the standards prevailing at the time they were made, rather than by the standards of the present. " may be confusing to the average reader; wikipedia is free knowledge for the world, not just for intellectuals and academics!

sorry to cause any confusion Ironholds (talk) 01:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I'll freely admit i dont understand most of the language myself, so i'll bow down on this issue on the grounds that you're more of an expert on the topic than myself, and leave any discussions to be done by someone more suited to this than I. Ironholds (talk) 01:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

USSR and Iran-Iraq War
I've never doubted your good faith as such. I certainly don't believe you are deliberately manipulating the evidence. It's simply that I think your interpretation of the evidence is mistaken and there are no grounds to have an article on Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, because there's no solid evidence such support existed beyond some friendly overtures the USSR tried to make towards Iran early in the war, which the Iranians rebuffed. A single mention of the word "Iran" in a paper by Fukuyama from 1989 (with no reference to the war) doesn't really mean much. --Folantin (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I hope you don't mind this inline comment about something that I realized may be confusing.'Thinking about it, perhaps the sticking point is the term "support". I interpret support as being anything from a major arms supplier/military advisor to "friendly support".  That a country offered friendly support, or perhaps a bit more, differentiates it from countries that had no direct involvement, and perhaps the category of states actively concerned with protecting themselves from both sides, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. My impression is that you consider a country is supporting only when the support is significant to war-making ability. If I understand you correctly, perhaps we need another word, but we are in less disagreement than I thought. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 12:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The ambiguity of the term "support" means we should put the article under the blandest, most neutral title possible (e.g. The Soviet Union and the Iran-Iraq War) and then discuss whether there was any support within it. I'd say there are claims the Soviets offered Iran some form of support in the first phase of the war but the Iranians rejected it outright. The USSR wanted to be friends with Iran but Khomeini wasn't having it. --Folantin (talk) 12:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have offered a reliable source and am investigating others. If you've read my comments you'll see I mention The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression ed. Farhang Rajaee (University of Florida Press, 1993). This states that the Soviet Union maintained a policy of "strict neutrality" during the opening phase of the war (1980-82) during which they made friendly overtures to Iran while trying to remain friends with Iraq. There is a single allegation (denied by the Soviets) by an Iranian politician that the USSR had offered Iran an arms package during this period - which Iran had rejected. --Folantin (talk) 16:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A suggestion: wouldn't it be better to replace this article with The Soviet Union and the Iran-Iraq War? --Folantin (talk) 17:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not sure that tailoring articles to suit a POV war is ever a good idea. I really see no reason to split Soviet policy on the Iran-Iraq War into three separate articles: Soviet support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war (dubious, anyway) and Soviet neutrality during the Iran-Iraq war. I've been reading up on the subject today (using material published by university presses available online at Google books - which I'm sure you should have access to) and I really think the shifts in Soviet policy during the Iran-Iraq War are best dealt with in a single article. --Folantin (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

"We are dealing, however, with a POV that the United States was the only significant third-country player in the war, and somehow, the US was fighting alongside the Iraqis. That Iraq principally used Soviet and French weaponry seems irrelevant to this POV. In no way am I saying the US wasn't involved, but the only way I think we can get balance is having articles on as many countries that we can find participated in some way". The idea that the US was the only significant third-country player in the war is obviously nonsense and should be easy to refute. I have a quotation from a reliable source in my proposed article that does as much: "The decision to give Iraq the military edge was universal. Not only the Soviet Union, but the entire Western alliance, largely financed by conservative Arab states, engaged in the most comprehensive and massive arms transfer in history to a Third World state engaged in conflict. France alone, in less than two years, supplied Iraq with arms valued at about $5.6 billion. China, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, Egypt, Colombia, Spain, the United States, and many other countries provided Iraq with an enormous amount of high-tech conventional and chemical weapons. The 'Western package' for Iraq, however, paled in comparison with the Soviet's. Between 1986 and 1988, the Soviets delivered to Iraq arms valued at roughly $8.8 to $9.2 billion, comprising more than 2,000 tanks (including 800 T-72s), 300 fighter aircraft, almost 300 surface-to-air missiles (mostly Scud Bs) and thousands of pieces of heavy artillery and armored personnel vehicles." (Mesbahi pp.88-89) --Folantin (talk) 19:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure I understand all your arguments, probably because I've not been involved in the lengthy debates on the Iran-Iraq War page. However, that also gives me a certain objectivity. "To put it a different way, is there a reason to treat the Soviet Union differently than other states? The U.S. and U.K., for example supplied some things to both sides". OK, but I don't see the logic. The US and the UK supplied both sides, therefore the USSR must have too? That doesn't follow. The best thing is to describe the USSR's policy towards Iran and Iraq objectively rather than make assumptions like that then go looking for evidence to back it. Incidentally, I may be wrong but I don't see the names of any Arab states among your proposed "support" articles, which is odd considering that many of them were major backers of Iraq (Libya and Syria being notable exceptions, I think). --Folantin (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The three reliable sources I've read so far all support the outline of events I've given in the article in my sandbox. The Soviets were caught out by the Iran-Iraq War. They desperately wanted to exploit Iran's new anti-US stance after the 1979 revolution but they didn't want to lose one of their strongest allies, Iraq. This meant for the first two years of the war they followed a policy of "strict neutrality", trying to be friends with both sides. But Iran rejected any Soviet overtures outright (and even cracked down in a big way on the Soviet-backed Iranian Communists, Tudeh, in 1983-4). Basically, the Soviets didn't "get" the Islamic Revolution. When Iran started winning the war in 1982 the Soviets turned more and more towards Iraq and this process accelerated rapidly after it looked like the Saddam regime might collapse in 1986. The Soviets also massively feared the spread of Islamism within Afghanistan and the USSR itself. I don't see much evidence of Soviet strategic genius (they failed to stop US influence in the Middle East). Only in 1989 (after the war) was there a major rapprochement between the USSR and Iran (but by then the Soviet Union only had a couple more years to live). --Folantin (talk) 20:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes? Gah! I work quite a bit on classical composers and, after a huge struggle, we managed to have the boxes removed there, because we had people sticking the flag of the modern Republic of Austria on Flemish composers of the 15th century, among other absurdities. There is no Wikipedia rule saying we must have infoboxes but neutrality and verifiability are absolutely core policies. Unfortunately, nobody seems to get this.


 * "As you've probably gathered, there is something of a clique that absolutely want the United States blamed for engineering the whole war for anti-Iranian reasons". That's another major problem of Wikipedia: we have editors who see everything from the perspective of the present and distort articles accordingly (the most ridiculous one is the huge debate whether Alexander the Great would be entitled to a passport from the modern Republic of Macedonia). Just because there is a threat of war between the US and Iran right now, this has to be projected onto the past. I prefer to start with the facts rather than a POV. It’s obvious from this list that the USA was responsible for less than 2% of Saddam’s armoury during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. That doesn’t show a great deal of interest. On the other hand the USSR/Eastern Bloc supplied over 60% of Iraq’s arms. Weight should be applied accordingly (per WP:UNDUE). We should start from the facts then try to find out why instead of manipulating past events for the sake of current soapboxing. The politics of the 1980s were very different from today but if we’re going to write articles about geopolitics in the ‘80s then we have to set it in the context of the time. --Folantin (talk) 09:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * First, at least something positive has come from this -- I'm thoroughly enjoying my discussions with you, and glad I met you, in a virtual way, when we otherwise might not have crossed paths.


 * I'm often dubious about new and awkward-sounding academic jargon, but, a few years ago, found a term that ties in with important parts of what you mention: presentism, which I first encountered in a history journal about Thomas Jefferson. The author argued that while Jefferson's relations with slaves were horrible by (then) 20th century standards, but were quite liberal by the standards of his time, sufficiently so he was an example to peers.


 * You make a valid point about Soviet support to Saddam, which I hope I've covered reasonably well in the Soviet support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. It's informative to compare this, to the lesser financial value to the reasons Saddam moved more and more to French high-tech equipment. Before I started looking into this -- it's not an area of specialization for me, as opposed to other areas where I have written at Wikipedia -- I was completely unaware of the significance of Italy's role, both as  a commercial provider to land (and possibly sea) mines to both sides, moving manufacturing to Singapore when the export control authorities cracked down. Even more important, however, is the interaction of Italy's largest and state-owned bank, BNL, with Iraq, especially through its U.S. branch operations. It appears that this provided at least USD $5 billion to the Iraqi procurement system.


 * You have my total agreement and support that Wikipedia should deal with facts. Perhaps at another time, we can discuss some of my experience, over a frightening number of years, of the scalability of electronic collaboration, and the parallels to the evolution of representative democracy, as well as the pros and cons of anonymity.


 * Please feel free to call on me if you want a look at something where I have not been involved in the battles, and, as you did, give a more objective look. It may well be an idea to escalate the idea of infoboxes, perhaps not everywhere. MILHIST, I believe, has a consensus that the infobox for wars should not be used if it becomes a point of contention.


 * The more I consider it, the more I like your thinking -- the question is how to implement it. One of the challenges, and here it has been possible to get temporary blocks, is when a POV pusher quickly attacks and reverts anything that contains inconvenient facts.


 * Again, thank you. 12:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "Presentism" is certainly alive and well on Wikipedia. I don't often deal with articles on current affairs because I expect them to be POV war zones, but there really is no getting away from editors trying to fight contemporary quarrels in historical pages. The plague of Iranian history articles is the current ethnic conflict between Iran's "Persians" and Azeris. Every time there's a mention of someone being either Iranian or Turkic there's a huge battle.


 * I knew about the French, but I had no idea about the extent of Italian involvement though. Frankly, I'm amazed anyone has tried to deny the massive Soviet support for Iraq during the later phases of the war. I know a few (and sadly there are very few) admins who do try to enforce Wikipedia's policies on NPOV, so if there are any problems with editors soapboxing at the expense of the facts maybe we should get them to have a look at this. --Folantin (talk) 13:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "The agenda there is putting the U.S. in the infobox because it provided so much 'support' to Saddam". That sounds like a violation of WP:UNDUE. As you know, I'd scrap the useless infobox. I've deliberately avoided reading all the arguments on the talk page so I can keep my perspective fresh and (I hope) objective. I think I'll have a look at the sources I used for the Soviet article to see what they say about the US and the war. (Actually I probably won't have the time for all that in the immediate future, but we'll see). --Folantin (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you tried this: Neutral point of view/Noticeboard? I've never used it myself but it might be worth a shot. --Folantin (talk) 14:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "How would that work best, and avoid duplicate effort, with what you've done?" My contributions focus on Soviet foreign policy. You seem to have a lot of info about the specifics of the military hardware the USSR provided (which I've barely mentioned). I think that's how we could best fuse the articles. --Folantin (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Just out of interest and to be completely honest with you, here are the only references I've found to the USSR extending support to Iran during the war. This was in the early (1980-82) phase of the war and has to be set in the context of the time. Also, obviously, the Iranians rejected the offer (is rejected support still support?). There are a lot of presumptions and allegations too:

“In October, 1981, the Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Ali Rajaee, dropped an unpleasant bombshell when he announced that the Soviets, through their ambassador in Tehran, Vladimir Vinogiadov, had offered Iran a substantial arms package that he had rejected. Moscow angrily denounced the suggestion as a ‘gross lie’ and strongly reiterated its neutrality”. (Mesbahi p.76)

“In the early stages of the war, while assuring Iran they would not interfere in its domestic affairs, the Soviets offered to sell arms to that country. The Iranians rebuffed the offer. It is interesting to note, however, that some reports indicate the USSR gave Iran satellite information and warnings of impending Iraqi attacks. At the same time, Syria and Libya, presumably with the approval of Moscow, provided Iran with a variety of weapons.” (Sajjadpour p.32) --Folantin (talk) 17:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll have a look into it when I get the chance. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 09:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, I'll get back to you on this when I've had time to digest it properly. --Folantin (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I still don't see how this fits in with the picture in my article. The USSR and Iran continued some non-military commerce between each other, but that's about it. Saddam starting the war really annoyed the Soviets because they didn't want to have to choose sides. I think the clandestine offer of support to Iran in the first phase of the war (when the Iranians were on the defensive) was an attempt to maintain the "balance" in the region. Once the Iranians started winning in 1982 and threatened to set up the "Islamic Republic of Iraq", then the Soviets definitely tilted in favour of the Iraqis to prevent the collapse of Saddam's regime. I can't see how this can possibly have been a Cold War "proxy war" between the USSR and the USA, because who was on the pro-Iranian side? That's absolutely incompatible with the huge military support the Soviets (especially Gorbachev) gave to Iraq. You've also got to take into consideration the massive snubs the Iranians delivered to the Soviets (such as the crackdown on the Iranian communists in 1983). They didn't want to be allied with either of the superpowers. --Folantin (talk) 08:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Replied on my own talk page (interrupted by a computer crash and an unexpected real world problem, so it's a bit summary). --Folantin (talk) 14:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Debate page
Hi, nice to see you've got the debate page rolling. Just a couple of things: could you sign each section so it's easier for others to respond to the separate issues under the relevant headings; and could you change statements such as "as you know from our current discussions" because I hope a lot of other people will be taking part in these debates, not just me, and they might not be aware of the background. I'm only hosting this in my userspace for the time being, with any luck it should be moved into general Wikipedia talk space at some point. We really need a centralised debate on these issues. Thanks. --Folantin (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Taker war
There was no consensus to separate "Tanker war" from Iran-Iraq war. Most historians consider "Tanker war" a part of or a period of Iran-Iraq war, and any effort to designate it as a separate war, not related to Iran-Iraq war, constitutes original research, and will be dealt with accordingly. --CreazySuit (talk) 19:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I am fine with a sub-page as a part of Iran-Iraq war sub-pages with more details etc, but the section on Iran-Iraq War should not be moved/removed without a consensus. --CreazySuit (talk) 19:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I didn't notice it was still on your userspace, I thought it was on Wikipedia mainspace.--CreazySuit (talk) 20:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Source
If you're writing a sub-page on Israeli Support for Iran during the war, here is a good source you could use. --CreazySuit (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not much of a writer. I only recommended "Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States" as a source, because it has got many positive reviews and is one of the best books written on Iran-Israel relations during the war. --CreazySuit (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Assadabadi
No. no message. --BoogaLouie (talk) 21:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Apropos of nothing
Given your LoC experience, I thought you might enjoy this story in today's Washington Post, if you haven't already seen it: I would have sent you the link via e-mail rather than posting it to your talk page, but I'm not sure you've made an address publicly available to receive such things from other Wikipedians. As a fascinated reader of your intelligence cycle management series of articles, how recent/representative is the photo on this page? It's fun to put a face with a name. Plausible to deny (talk) 16:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

My Fault
Sorry, that was my fault. The NP watcher was going crazy on me. I accidently tagged it and I thought I took it off. But as you found out it didnt come off. Sorry. Fattyjwoods ( Push my button  ) 02:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

CIA Africa
Hi Howard. Looking at the CIA activities in Africa page, it seems, especially for Liberia 2003, there's events there which did not involve the CIA. Would you mind if I culled it a bit? Buckshot06 (talk) 04:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No worries Howard; please feel free to check/reedit my small change as you see fit... Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 22:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Your kind help on Operation Storm
Thank you so very much. I found it very helpful and learned from it. This is one reason I went ahead and joined Wikipedia, to learn as well as contribute. Thank you for being generous with your time in teaching me. I have been around and even in the middle of military operations, but always as a civvie, so I have much to learn on terminology!

Ref the "largest" quote, it read "The biggest European land offensive since World War II." This was fairly standard in press accounts, and I used a Robert Fisk piece as the source. You can see it in the 21:35 14 April 2008 diff.

Unfortunately, the other editor seems to have taken your helpful suggestion as encouragement to become even more combative as he perceives you have taken "his side" and believes you agreed that it is a Nazi term. Now he/she has started a new section on the talk page which I can't make heads or tails of.

As you can see from the talk page on Operation Storm and from my exchange with Roger Davies about a far more disturbing matter concerning an artifact of the Holocaust, there is little hope of finding peace with this editor and achieving any semblance of NPOV on Operation Storm or anything else to do the Balkans.

Ref the "largest" quote, it read "The biggest European land offensive since World War II." This was fairly standard in press accounts, and I used a Robert Fisk piece as the source. You are truly kind to take an interest, and I hope to learn more about correct terminology -- if I can ever write anything that does not get reverted every single day! Civilaffairs (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

(copied on my userpage)
 * Wikipedia can be surprising. When I was doing bold reorganization of Central Intelligence Agency, first creating the sub-articles, an editor who had worked extensively on CIA in the past showed up, became angry, and redirected links around the subarticles. An admin restored them, and the editor announced he was taking a Wikibreak. My impression, at the time, was that he objected to anyone who did not treat the CIA as the darkest of evil forces, as opposed to a more realistic splotched and dirty gray.


 * A few weeks later, he came back, and, to my utter surprise and pleasure, he bestowed a Barnstar of Diplomacy on me.


 * There are editors that have seemed combative and POV, that, for no apparent reason, suddenly become cooperative and constructive. Alternatively, some manage to get more combative and banned. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 01:46, 16 April 2008

(UTC)


 * That is a wonderful story! I love it. I usually hope for the best in people, but I suspect the latter will be the case here. It may be a long time in coming unless the editor starts to venture into areas where his POV does not prevail, however.  The latest version of Operation Storm is well, interesting.  I really see no hope for getting Operation Storm and related entries beyond Start Class until that happens.  Or, perhaps, until more NPOV editors (who, like me, have no Balkan roots or ties) and perhaps some of the opposite POV become involved. In the meantime, those entries will simply have to read more like Tudjman-era propaganda than encyclopedia entries, I suppose.  Oh, is there a Barnstar for long-suffering politeness?  Maybe I can eventually earn that one.


 * Edited to add: I just had a look at the CIA entry.  I am impressed!  I was finding it hard for me to believe that it is possible to achieve anything approaching professionalism on Wikipedia after my experiences, but I see that it is.  Perhaps the key is to stay away from the Balkans?  A pity that is where my own expertise lies. Civilaffairs (talk) 02:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs


 * I don't think I was clear about problem with the "largest European land offensive since WWII." The fact is not disputed.  The other editor agreed that indeed it was the largest.  His/her contention was that it invited comparison with Srebrenica (hello?) and somehow cast aspersions on its legality (???).  There is no point in trying to reason with the illogical. Civilaffairs (talk) 14:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs


 * Part of the reason I consider this approach historically justifiable While I am admittedly no expert, I find it entirely justifiable and with precedent. Go for it. I want to read it.


 * While I can control it, I have an intense flash of anger when I read about releasing free-floating naval mines into international waters. Same here.  It's on my short list for what constitutes grounds for military action.


 * How many wars have started when sane people on both sides saw the matter building to a crisis, but didn't know how to stop the momentum? I just finished Shirer's Collapse of the Third Republic so that question has been on my mind, too.  Sadly, in some cases, such as Former Yugoslavia, too many people were interested in building rather that stopping the momentum.I haven't read March to Folly yet, so on your recommendation, I'll see about getting a copy.  Civilaffairs (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Re Bringing up the standard of an article
Thank you for this. You are indeed generous, and I appreciate your taking the time to guide me. Sandbox? Do I have a sandbox? I need to learn about this. Maybe that is the way to go, if I continue at all. I wrote a nice, patient reply for the talk page of Op Storm, hoping that one question the other editor asked was an opening for reasonable dialogue, but now I see that he/she has gone off on a tangent, so I'll skip posting it. The talk page is now taken up with long excerpts from ICTY transcripts completely unrelated to Op Storm (sigh). I think I'll go the sandbox route, if I can figure it out. Meanwhile Operation Storm will simply have to read like a disjointed Tudjman-era propaganda piece.

That is truly a shame about the networking entry. Pity the fool who trusts Wikipedia on such matters, no?

What happens if an entry is brought up to a higher standard, then trashed by POV editors? Is it then demoted to a lower rating?

Amateurs talk tactics, dilettantes talk strategy, but professionals talk logistics. I love this quote, and will add it to my favourite quotations collection. I am hardly a professional, but have found it nearly impossible to get through to people that, political will aside, there is no way anyone is going into Sudan. It is a matter of logistics. On the other hand, these same people are naive enough to imagine that the US engages in combat for strictly humanitarian reasons, so what could I expect? Civilaffairs (talk) 14:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Guy Gabaldon
I've heard that was done, but (I'm ashamed to say) I never heard of him before. Thanks. (He wuz robbed. He earned the Medal.) For that, & for just making me think:

Re: Protection
Protecting the page and actually adding the template to the page that shows it is protected is 2 different steps. As you see in the history, the page is protected, I just didn't add the template. I usually don't bother with adding the template, as anyone can do that even if they are not an admin. You can do it if you want, just add to the page and the small lock on the top right will show up. VegaDark (talk) 21:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

RE:Chemical warfare
To fix the link away from the bookstore, just find the ISBN number and replace the reference with the book citation. The same link keeps getting replaced with "where to buy" by an improper user. The article seems okay now, as Neon white reverted the book link edits. Hope that helps. Keegan talk 06:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Armia Krajowa
Thanks for your comments. I hope we have reached a consensus on the issue of size and "largest", but this still needs to be addressed. If you could comment on that it would be much appreciated (threads this was discussed: "Lead" - see my post at the bottom of it; "The lead is extremely biased" and "Claims of AK atrocities against the civilian population".--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ranjan Wijeratne
Hello,

I was wondering if I could ask you to share your thoughts regarding the appropriateness of placing the article Ranjan Wijeratne in Category:Terrorism victims? For context, the text of the ongoing discussion regarding this issue is here.

The assassination of Wijeratne is given by Patterns of Global Terrorism as an example of "urban terrorism" by the LTTE (see here); however, the situation is convoluted by the fact that, at the time of his death, Wijeratne was a Lt. Colonel and deputy defence minister of Sri Lanka.

On the one hand, looking at the incident from the viewpoint that terrorism is appropriately defined as a tactic rather than a value system or ideology, I am hesitant to classify the targeted assassination of a military officer, who was also a high-ranking member of the country's Defence Ministry, during the course of a civil war as an instance of terrorism. On the other hand, it does not seem that much regard was taken by the perpetrators to avoid civilian casualties (Wijeratne was assassinated by a remote-controlled car bomb that was exploded on a city street during rush hour, and the attack killed 13 civilian bystanders), and I also do not want to give primacy to my tentative original analysis of the situation over the analysis of the linked source.

I would be most grateful for any assistance that you could offer. Thank you in advance, Black Falcon (Talk) 06:27, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Intelligence articles generally
...but to counter, in a reasonable and fact-based way, that the US was not the only involved third country, and did not pull Saddam's strings. This needs to be countered? Does anyone really believe that? Oh my. Thank you for pointing these articles. Fascinating stuff! I have always been interested in this. It looks like I some reading to do. Off topic, sorry, how does one bring up the standard of an entry, write the whole thing offline, then submit that version for review? Civilaffairs (talk) 03:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs


 * I honestly believe that is better described as the Iran-U.S. war There is a good deal of merit in that premise.


 * ...believe that a report that the U.S. had 600 intelligence officers assisting the Iraqis meant the U.S. dominated Iraqi decisionmaking. One of the many reasons MPRI was formed.  The US government is one step removed and the headlines aren't as punchy.  I agree that 600 is not that many in a war of that size.  In general, and Iraq aside, people often forget the puppet can pull at the strings, too. Speaking of strings, your Saddam funny gave me a chuckle.  I needed a laugh right about then. Civilaffairs (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs


 * You can read about MPRI by clicking Note 2 on the Operation Storm entry (The Parameters article.) Scroll down to the bottom third of that page.  It begins there.  It's headed by retired Gen. Carl Vuono and is well-connected at the Pentagon.  They've been involved in a number of our little adventures.  They were also active in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, I believe, involved with training KLA/UCK in Kosovo.  Oh, they Op Storm "combined arms" in that article -- thank you for teaching me about how to use that term.  I think Janes called it that, too.  I'll have to dig out my copy of it.


 * Part of the reason I consider this approach historically justifiable While I am admittedly no expert, I find it entirely justifiable and with precedent. Go for it. I want to read it.


 * While I can control it, I have an intense flash of anger when I read about releasing free-floating naval mines into international waters. Same here.  It's on my short list for what constitutes grounds for military action.


 * How many wars have started when sane people on both sides saw the matter building to a crisis, but didn't know how to stop the momentum? I just finished Shirer's Collapse of the Third Republic so that question has been on my mind, too.  Sadly, in some cases, such as Former Yugoslavia, too many people were interested in building rather that stopping the momentum.I haven't read March to Folly yet, so on your recommendation, I'll see about getting a copy.


 * Edited to add: You can read about MPRI by clicking Note 2 on the Operation Storm entry (The Parameters article.) Scroll down to the bottom third of that page.  It begins there.  It's headed by retired Gen. Carl Vuono and is naturally well-connected at the Pentagon.  They've been involved in a number of our little adventures.  In Former Y, in addition to their involvement with Op Storm, they were active in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, I believe, involved with training KLA/UCK in Kosovo.  Oh, Op Storm is called "combined arms" in that article -- thank you for teaching me about how to use that term!  I think Janes called it that, too.  I'll have to dig out my copy of it. Civilaffairs (talk) 21:14, 16 April 2008(UTC)Civilaffairs


 * Thank you for the suggestion on the on the Fred Ikle book. It sounds like one I would truly enjoy reading.  I will look for it next time I'm able to get to a library or book store.  Many thanks as well for Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned.  I read it with great interest.  The UN always does a similar "Lessons Learned" project for each Mission, and I read the one for Somalia many years ago.  Comparing the two would make a nice little project for a student.  The issues raised by the events in Somalia also affected the UNPROFOR Mission, with much talk about "crossing the Mogadishu line." They also factored into some the disagreements between the Europeans and Americans participating in the peace initiatives in Former Yugoslavia.  Civilaffairs (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs


 * Some of the papers can be quite critical of military and political leadership, but that seems to be accepted there although it could be career-ending if said, in public, when not in school. True.  Not knowing this before, I was amazed at how critical the Naval War College was of some aspects of Operation Allied Force.  I found this earlier today from the American War College:  War in the Balkans, 1991-2002.  There is a summary of Op Storm starting on page 190.


 * Thank you for introducing me to Barnett's System Administrator and Leviathan concept. I have heard it discussed, but not in those exact terms.  This will give my grey cells some exercise!  As best I can tell, this was not executed as described in former Yugoslavia because the System Administrator (EU) and Leviathan (US) were at odds.  If I am on the right track with this, then no wonder it turned into a soup sandwich early on.  The Europeans are still rankled by this. Civilaffairs (talk) 21:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Intelligence requirements
No doubt intelligence requirements and collection and espionage and dead drops and who knows what else all fall under these broad categories. Separate articles encourage collaboration on a range of topics. I'm concerned that Wikipedians will find it difficult to introduce ideas because these topics are already included in overly broad and complex articles. The topic of intelligence was underrepresented at Wikipedia, so I applaud your effort to include more about it, but contributions should be broken down into smaller pieces. And the articles, like HUMINT, need to be more encyclopedic, less instructional. Consider taking advantage of Wikiversity to teach some of these concepts. Intelligence requirements deserve their own article. I thought the intelligence cycle article had a logical reason for being and that the article on intel cycle management should have been filtered into the intel cycle article and maybe a new intel management article. --Pat (talk) 22:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Collaboration can be uneven, that's for sure. I added some content to the George Washington article a couple of months ago and stirred every teenager with a computer to add nonsense edits to the article. I'd be happy to get incorrect edits. It seems that articles are either too hot (Islamic terrorism), too potentially fun to tease about (Tuna fish sandwich), or too boring Erie Cemetery to bother with. I fear that intelligence methodology might be the latter. I think you can write long, detailed articles, but they need to remain narrowly focused. I think your background in writing textbooks is both a help and a hindrance in Wiki work. I'm sure these intel articles will find the right balance over time. --Pat (talk) 03:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is certainly an Everyman's Encyclopedia and not to everyone's liking. It sounds like you've not drunk the Kool Aid, as it were. If you've not read it, try looking at Philip E. Tetlock's book "Expert Political Judgment." I'm a generalist in most things and a specialist in some. I probably qualify as an expert on counterintelligence, for example. I respect experts such as yourself but I value broader participation. I recently completed a ten-week study in an area in which I had no previous experience and did a better than decent job of it. I prefer sticking to my field, but 70% of what you need to know about most any subject is available through open sources and can be assembled respectably well. Wiki editors can add to the dialog in small pieces, citing sources and building the subject slowly and carefully under the watchful eyes of those who know the subject well. That is the reason for the use and citation of secondary sources; if the issue was thought valid enough to be published, it should be valid enough for Wiki, or, at a minimum, recognized as an unreliable source. People who don't adequately source their material become instantly suspect. Some initial fact checking of a new editor is de rigeur on Wikipedia. Ultimately, Wiki is a shared space and will be modified constantly. There are online encyclopedias that accept specialists and are view-only for most readers. --Pat (talk) 04:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The material that is unavailable probably crosses the line into sources and methods that insiders can't or won't publish. I'm sure there is only so much that needs to appear at Wikipedia anyway on the more esoteric INTs. More of a familiarization than a how-to. --Pat (talk) 17:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, you could overcome some of your space problems in the SIGINT article by Wikifying your connections between articles and abandoning your tendency to refer people to other articles by adding See Also. You should rely on your intel management banner at the bottom of the page to place SIGINT in context and allow them to find broad links. COMINT and ELINT are begging to be made into separate articles. The opening paragraph should be relatively short and sweet, then you can have a definitional section that gets into more detail, including the definitions of other branches. Your electro-optical MASINT article would benefit from a more orderly breakdown of the topics. Half of the sections should be based on field of science, while the balance could be under a section for examples of particular devices. For example, a section on spectroscopy could have subsections on hyperspectroscopy and multispectroscopy. I would abandon the use of MASINT with so many of the section and subsection titles. I would also make sure to make an internal link to the first use of MASINT in your electro-optical MASINT article. --Pat (talk) 18:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

FA Status?
Hi Howard, a couple of things: First, I'm sorry that I have not been able to contribute to the work on the CIA page as much as I had originally hoped. Unfortunately my resources out here in Vietnam are rather limited as far as contributing new content. However, if there's any editing or other policing work you would like some assistance on, for the main page or any of the sub-articles, please let me know, and i'd be happy to take a look.

Second, I think you've done an amazing job with the CIA pages, especially the main page. I was thinking about a possible nomination of the main article for FA status, but did not want to step on your toes if you feel there's still more work you'd like to put into it before then. I'm sure you know more about getting articles to FA status than I, so I'll leave the decision ultimately up to you.

Also, as a little thank you:

Re Trivia
I love that story -- thanks for giving me a laugh. Always good medicine. That would make a great opening line for a book or article about clueless war reporting. Your Uncle Bill sounds like a neat character. I never heard of a real, honest-to-goodness soup sandwich before!

Now, my favourite joke from the 1990s Balkan Wars: Milosevic dies and is shocked to find himself standing in front of the Pearly Gates. "So Mira was wrong about that, too" he mumbles to himself before announcing himself to St. Peter. St. Peter checks the list and informs Slobo he isn't on it. "I thought as much," Milosevic shrugs, whereupon the cloud under his feet gives way and whoosh--he is cast into the netherworld. A few years later, Tudjman dies and appears before at the Pearly Gates. "I am President Doctor President Franjo Tudjman, President of Croatia" he announces. St. Peter checks his list and tells Franjo he is not on it. "But you don't understand, I am President Doctor President Franjo Tudjman, the George Washington of Croatia. Check your list again." St. Peter checks again, shakes his head, and whoosh--Tudjman drops down Below. A few months later, hundreds of thousands of little devils come swarming up and begin beating on the Pearly Gates. "St. Peter! St. Peter!  You've got to let us in!  We're the refugees from Hell!" Civilaffairs (talk) 21:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Operation Storm
On talk page you are having Operation Storm timeline with english language source. I am sure that we can have few questions if this source is NPOV but timeline when towns has fallen is not possible to question. When we finish this question I will have 1 other interesting article for you (if you are interested ?)--Rjecina (talk) 09:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for late answer but 2 users are edit warring on my talk page and I have seen your question only yesterday. Now I am having source for question about number of soldiers in Croatia Guard Brigade during war 1991-95. This Croatian language source is speaking that battle ready 7 Guard Brigade is having only 1803 soldiers during Croatian War of Independence. Using this number it is safe to think that other Guard Brigades are having similar number of soldiers ?--Rjecina (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Revert
Ok, cheers, I only flatly reverted his edit because he made no edit summary, no attempt to communicate etc.

P.S. He's been around the article for a while tho, doesn't add the discussions just adds the flag. Ryan 4314  (talk) 16:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:
Hey, no problem. And hopefully you will visit Amman someday :) Imad marie (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Arab armies effectiveness
Be very interested in anything up to date you could point me to about Arab armies' effectiveness; be nice to know they have improved a bit... Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 03:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Just thought you might get a kick out of this
The mother of all infoboxes: French Wikipedia spy portal.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 13:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am reminded of a French anecdote about precisely defining savoir faire, which is actually rather complimentary to the French but too un-PC for a public page. :-) Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

UW
Do you have a preferred title in mind, assuming that we move the article? I was thinking something along the links of Unconventional warfare (U.S. Military Doctrine), but I'm not that attached to the term over any other one. Best, -- B figura (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * In any event, it seems as the disagreement is about what to have at Unconventional warfare, rather than the move of the current article to a more precise title. I propose that we just do the move to a title of your choice, and let people argue over what to place at the disambiguation / more general article. Thoughts? -- B figura (talk) 21:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've move your content to Unconventional warfare (U.S. Department of Defense doctrine)‎. I'm sorry about all the IP drama on the original page, and I hope you'll consider staying on as an editor: it'd be a shame to lose you. I understand the appeal of Veropedia and Citizendium, but I'm personally hoping that some of those issues will be resolved here once the devs turn on stable versions. Best, -- B figura (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Insurgency
Hi, Would you mind giving me the link to the source, please. I looked at |this one and conducted a search and it did not mention Pakistan in it. Either I am looking at the wrong link or the search did not work. Following this I removed Pakistan from it. Thank you for contacting me before reverting. --→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 02:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I find it more beneficial if the comments are posted on both userpages and thank you for noticing.


 * If I were you, I could have also created the table. I looked through the source and now understand why Pakistan was categorized as a weak state but I guess I find it hard to believe a state with a nuclear power and the 7 largest standing armies. However referring to the topic of insurgency, I believe the problem is recent, as Pakistan has not had a history of insurgency-related problems. Otherwise, I see believe you may revert my edit since I now see the justification. Thank you.--→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 02:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * With respect to insurgency, Pakistan is particularly complex. I agree that it has a large and potent military, and needs one to maintain a balance of power -- or of terror -- with India. Since this is a talk page and some synthesis is reasonable, I suspect Eizenstat is thinking more of the FATA, where the national government has very little control, and where there is a porous border with Afghanistan, which is in even worse shape.


 * I believe that there should be a series of country-specific articles on the national doctrines for insurgency and counterinsurgency. Fortunately or unfortunately, the U.S. publishes more of its doctrine than any country I know, so it's easier to document. Over at the Military History Project, we are thinking about how to organize articles about the global/general level, which insurgency tries to do. I have just pulled my material, as a result of an unpleasant edit war, out of an apparently idle article on unconventional warfare. Unconventional warfare is really an ambiguous term, but what I shall call "UW" is the U.S. doctrinal mission for conducting guerilla warfare. Foreign internal defense (FID) is the U.S. counterpart for counterinsurgency, although it does have some British and French history that should split out.


 * If there were an article on Pakistani policy towards the FATA and Afghanistan, and how the national government sees it, I would be fascinated to read it. It is my hope that the rest of Pakistan is moving in a very positive direction, and, if one ignores the FATA, it certainly is not a weak state if present trends towards political freedom continue.


 * Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I can see where you are going with country-specific articles, some nations are more hard hit by insurgency than others. I am not sure what the edit war was about, but I always thought of unconventional warfare as guerrilla warfare (state vs. individual groups). I also have particular interest in historical military topics.

There are very few good articles here that contain Pakistan's policy towards the tribal areas. Frontier Crimes Regulations are the rules through which Pakistan governs the tribal areas. However, that article is small and not up-to-date. I assume you have read the Federally Administered Tribal Areas article. If not, might I suggest this section regarding the political system in FATA. This article gives some information on the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I can tell you now, that Pakistan and Afghanistan do not get along currently. I shall see if I can find more articles about FATA. Otherwise, if you have any questions about a topic relating to Pakistan, you can ask me.

Also might I mention that, the government does have little control over FATA, however, it relies heavily on the tribal system there to enforce the laws. --→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 03:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Here is a link to the direction I'd like to go, for discussion in the Military History project. I prefer "insurgency" to "unconventional warfare", as unconventional warfare has at least two wildly different meanings:
 * Unconventional as in guerilla warfare
 * Unconventional as in nuclear warfare


 * Now, rightly or wrongly (my personal opinion is wrongly), the U.S. special operations doctrine defines "UW" (I prefer the abbreviation to avoid the ambiguity) as the mission of conducting guerilla warfare. You'll see the other doctrinal mentions at the link. As I understand, the British Commonwealth prefers "low intensity conflict" to "special operations", and has its own doctrinal terms. We have one New Zealand editor who says that his country has yet another term.


 * The Military History project has "article improvement drives", and I had signed up to get "unconventional warfare" out of "start class". I soon realized that what was there was ambiguous, mixing up guerilla warfare and blockades and nuclear weapons and emasculation and white phosphorus -- I am not joking. On April 14, I posted, both at MILHIST and the article talk page, that I proposed to do a rewrite and update. As you will see in the MILHIST discussion, we decided to make insurgency the globalised article and UW the U.S. doctrinal article.


 * A few days ago, a furious anonymous IP editor burst back at UW, and argued that it had to be globalised, after I had proposed that UW refer to the U.S. doctrine while insurgency would be the global. After several days of arguing, appealing to other editors, etc., I gave up.  My U.S. discussion is stored on my computer until we decide what to name a new article about U.S. doctrine. I can put it in my userspace if there's interest.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It does seem odd to have UW as the international article. I have always seen UW as a term used by United State officials and US army manuals. Farther more, if each country has their own term, it would be better to use a more common term than UW, which is frequently used only in the US. I can't think of another word that would fit the US doctrine so it is hard for me to suggest a new name for the article. It is also better if the insurgency article was chosen since it contains more information that fits the international level rather than unconventional warfare, which has vivid information that applies only to the current Iraq war and to the US. --→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 23:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, just looked at the FID article, and it is long! You will have to go through a lot of information to edit out foreign topics. It is a better if you dismantle unconventional warfare into other articles. So it might be a good idea to work on insurgency and counterinsurgency articles. Let me know if you need help with anything. --→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 00:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The Farewell Dossier - or rather the Thomas C. Reed story of the CIA reaction
My problem isn't with Farewell Dossier, and I can easily believe the CIA reacted the way described - but the anecdote as told by Reed in his book, quoted by Safire and taken for a fact by just about any media outlet out there without any fact checking just seems to me like the prototype of an Urban Myth. And what really irks me about it is that I had to search hard to find a story that even doubted that it happened exactly like this. Everybody takes it as proof that the CIA is extremely clever or ruthless, but nobody asks for a second source. Well, I found one article where a KGB veteran said there was a small explosion at the pipeline, but it had nothing to do with any CIA action. And just now this article that calls the story a myth (but has no way to prove it either). Lars T. (talk) 17:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

68.39.174.238 (talk) 20:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Done and for your meſſage. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 20:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied
I replied to your comments on my talk page. (Figure it makes sense to keep everything there). -- B figura (talk) 20:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Foreign Internal Defense should not be moved
FID doesn't need to be moved to have a (US DOD doctrine) suffix after it; it's always been a US term and nothing more, and it's so specialised that confusions occasioned by a generalist term like UW will not apply. Just remove all the non-US material to counter-insurgency and state right up front that 'FID is a US doctrinal concept defined in JXX 9999.01 (19XX) as...'. I've looked in my meagre sources and found that the Brits/Commonwealth at least keep things simple: they call their counter-insurgency approach... counter-insurgency!! So there may be a need for counter-insurgency (British doctrine) and counter-insurgency (French doctrine) but, in my mind at least, FID divorced from its US DOD meaning is meaningless - it only exists as a US DOD term and, possibly, when people try to find matching doctrinal material in other national doctrines. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you add your voice here please? Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Cat change? Yes, I convinced them when I used the word 'doctrines' seventeen times in a single sentence! Buckshot06 (talk) 03:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Useless AK-47s?
You may find this interesting. Reporting on the recent assassination attempt in Afghanistan, the "expert" suggested the attempt failed because "the AK-47s used are not a very good weapon"!. Considering the shooting was from across a sports stadium, so well outside the 300m or so recommended aimed fire range of the weapon, this is not entirely surprising, which is why the Afghan parade troops are seen rather calmly walking away from the source of firing in the video ;o) --mrg3105 (comms) ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 02:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Doctrine
Thanks for your input at WP:CFD on the doctine vs. doctrines issue. Your example was convincing to me, so I've withdrawn the nomination. "Doctrines" vs. "doctrine" must be another one of those American vs. UK English issues. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yugoslav Wars
We are creating consensus for sources which will be used in all articles related with Yugoslav Wars. It will be nice if you can vote on Talk:Serbs of Croatia. --Rjecina (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

PR
What's this all about? Ryan 4314  (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

What's going on? Are you trying to put the "unconventional warfare article" up for peer review? Ryan 4314  (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Good reading
Thought you would find the following interesting: Charles Tilly, Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists in Sociological Theory (2004) 22, 5-13 online. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review of Unconventional warfare (United States Department of Defense doctrine)
The procedure for starting a peer review is explained in detail at the top of WP:PR. I removed what you started on the HMS Cardiff Peer Review as that was incorrect. I have been bold and started a peer review for you at Talk:Unconventional warfare (United States Department of Defense doctrine). Please go to the talk page and finish the process. if you do not finish it in 24 hours I will remove the PR request from the talk page. Thanks, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 20:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The link is working now to Peer review/Unconventional warfare (United States Department of Defense doctrine)/archive1, so I think you've done it all correctly. The update to add your PR request to the main PR page atWP:PR is done by a bot once an hour, so it may take an hour to show up there. You may also have to bypass your cache to see the change. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 20:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Re thanks
You are most welcome :) I've been wanting to give you an award for a long time, but didn't know how to do it, or if I was allowed to give awards.  Your efforts to develop guidelines and methods for dispute resolution are most commendable and should be of enormous value to the WP community and beyond.  I am very interested in conflict resolution and have collected some methods you might find of interest.   If you are interested, feel free to email me at nocheerios@yahoo.com.  (I just got this email address for public use on WP, so I can just ignore it if crazies and extemists from whatever side start bombarding me with undesirable emails.)  By the way, you were right about things working out on WP in very surprising ways, too :)  Civilaffairs (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

US Intelligence involvement with war criminals after world war II
I've removed the tags; the article seems much improved. I'd recommend slimming the intro down a lottle more though, or maybe making it a bit less dense. Pictures of the figures involved (Hans Globke, for example, has an image on file) would make it an easier read. Apologies if i sound holier-than-thou. Ironholds (talk) 16:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * the politicians bring the dence to the conversation themselves! In the words of M "I report to the Prime Minister and even he's smart enough not to ask me what we do. They don't care what we do; they care what we get photographed doing."

Army SF Strength
I've been doing a little bit of research and I was wondering if the book Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch would be a reliable source as to how many men make up the Special Forces Groups? I'll give you some direct quotes from the book and you can let me know what you think.

"A Special Forces Group will have an authorized strength of about 1,400 personnel, of which some 650 soldiers make up the operational detachments, the ODAs."

"As of this writing, we have something on the order of forty-five hundred Green Berets to carry this fight to the enemy."

Furthermore, he breaks the Groups down like this: 12 men per ODA, 6 ODA's per SF Company, 3 SF Companies per Battalion, 3 Battalions per SF Group. I did the math and it comes to 648 SF Warriors per SF Group.

One last thing, he was writing the book in late 2004 and it was published sometime in 2007. So just let me know what you think. If it's no good, then that's fine with me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shizz4553 (talk • contribs) 02:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's a bad book, but I'd first go to Army reference manuals for the table of organization. The current operations manual is FM 31-20.


 * There's more infrastructure than ODA's. IIRC, there's an ODB to every 3 ODA's, but there may be local differences. Also, not so much in the UW but in the DA and SR roles, ODAs may split into two 6-man detachments, although either an ODA or split A could be augmented with a SOT-A four-man SIGINT team, a two-man HUMINT/CI team, or both. I don't want to trust to memory, but as you move up the food chain, you start having more support units (e.g., parachute riggers, strategic comms). There are going to be SF staff in JSOTFs, as well as in SOCOM components at UCC level. There's the Special Warfare Center for schools, doctrinal development, etc. A certain number of qualified SF personnel are going to be on non-SF assignments, such as staff and war colleges for officers, staff duty at DA/JCS (and UCC not in a SF role).


 * Rumsfeld has been calling for massive increases in SF, although I'm not sure it's possible to increase by a third or more and maintain quality, at least for the several years to get a fully qualified team.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

"tunred out to be untrue"
I have no problem with your revert of the anonymous IP's original research, but while reverting the anon, you also removed some sourced information that had been there originally. The "untrue" comment is sourced and referring to the original claim that USS Vincennes was in international waters, which later turned out to be false. --CreazySuit (talk) 00:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oops. Sorry; just meant to get the part about the F-14A air-to-surface capability. You are correcet that Vincennes was in Iranian waters. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * NP, cheers. --CreazySuit (talk) 01:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Snipers gone wild
Hi Howard,

Just wondered if you had any thoughts on this article. (If you press on the link it will throw up an ad but will allow you to go in for free after a few seconds with button on top left.) Alternatively (no ads):


 * The Time version, see also Time blog
 * NY Times version
 * Drop weapon
 * Idaho Falls discussion

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 04:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Distance in military affairs
Well, in it's state at the moment, I don't think it should stay - maybe be recreated by someone else later with a more coherent subject. Would you second a Prod if I put one on it? Also, do you have a contributions log at Citizendium? Scratch that, I've found you there - and you're making me think about signing up myself. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 21:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Howard, I'd like to wind CIA activities in Democratic Republic of the Congo into Congo Crisis; without anything except the assassination thing in the early 1960s, it is a bit of an isolated piece there that would have more value as part of the bigger article. How does that sound?(and would you second a prod for the distance article?) Kind regards Buckshot06(prof) 04:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

NOIWON
I thought I had most US intelligence/military acronyms down pat, but that one was new for me. Would you mind pointing me at what you think the best two or three sources on it are? (new article coming on, I think!) Regards Buckshot06(prof) 10:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * "NOIWON is a secure telephone conference-call system that the major Washington national security watch centers (National Military Command Center, National Military Joint Intelligence Center, State Department Operations Center, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, CIA Operations Center, NSA Operations Center, and the Situation Room) use for rapid evaluation of breaking crises." Intelligence inside the White House. Erxnmedia (talk) 14:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

New page for MILHIST copy-editors
The coordinators have decided to make it easier for copy-editors to watch the new requests by creating an own page for this purpose. On WikiProject Military history/Logistics/Copy-editing/Requests all new and old requests are listed. Please add this page to your watchlist. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Uh...hello
I'm an editor who took a long hiatus and saw your name on someone elses talk page. I knew a Howard Berkowitz as a young teen. You wouldn't happen to be from Illinois, would you? --NinaOdell | Talk 14:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, born and brought up in New Jersey, and then in the Washington DC area for the next 40 years or so. In the small world department, there was, while I was a biochemistry technician at Georgetown University, there was a medical student of the same name -- we were constantly getting confused. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Ennui
I was very sorry to discover that you're close to having your dose. May I ask a favour and perhaps suggest a solution that will help keep a trusted and valued editor on board? Perhaps you could take a furlough from the firing line and concentrate on copy-editing? We are desperately short of copy-editors and we have many article which need a helping hand. I find there's something very stimulating and immensely rewarded about shaping a better article out of the shards. I suppose it's akin to what Michelangelo was talking about when he said that there was a statue within every piece of marble and that all you had to do was to strip away the layers to release it :) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 19:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the thought, but that's not going to do it. Not too long ago, I realized something: I am absolutely uninterested in tuning my, or anyone else's article to meet the various Wiki standards. Indeed, I don't like some of the "Pillars" and such; if all my articles were suddenly FA, it would make absolutely no difference to me. The scholarship interests me, but, while I am not burning any bridges, I'm doing more and more at another venue where people have consciously chosen not to follow some of Wikipedia's axioms.


 * These days, when I look at my watchlist, I mostly see vandalism to fix. I see things like the radical changes in CIA article structure. WP:SYNTH really bothers me, and I am bothered by not being able to make use of my own expertise if I can't find secondary sources to document things that I may literally have designed. In other words, whether it's my inability to imagine, I'm more and more seeing Wikipedia as place that does nothing but editing--putting together articles out of secondary sources is, to me, a mechanical editing task. I'm tired of the drive-by article-wide complaints that an article isn't "encyclopedic", but with no substantive feedback; I can't conceive of why anons should be able to do such tagging when there is no way to interact with them.


 * So, if you define copyediting as helping an author articulate an argument, that's one thing. If it's moving articles closer to the WP stylistic criteria for higher levels, I'm not motivated to do that. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As a followup, 101 "CIA in Country X" are now off my watchlist. Am I proud of that? Not necessarily. But it is a relief to choose, consciously, to pay no further attention to the result of a change I consider unworkable, done with no consensus, and with a set of "rules" agreed-to only by their creator. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Gulf of Tonkin
See section "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" on fourth page of this article. Erxnmedia (talk) 15:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Your assessment requested
Hi Howard. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to assess the referencing in the article Budapest Offensive, with particular attention to the reference used to claim the operation was a joint operation.

On the more amusing side of the military history which I know you enjoy, below is, what must be the most unlikely source for naming a military operation courtesy of David Glantz, and one that has been often repeated by other authors over 25 years without so much as a question raised.

Dear Greg: As my family and I sat around the table eating dinner one night, we were trying to come up with a "catchy" title for my Leavenworth Paper on the Manchurian offensive. My younger daughter, Susie, 11 years old at the time, asked, "Didn't the Soviets conduct their initial attacks during heavy thundershowers and rain?" Why don't you title the book, "August Storm," and so I did. Strangely enough, by now most Western sources (the Oxford Historical Atlas, for example) and some Russian books now assume that was the actual code-name for the operation. As far as I know, it was not. But that is how myths and errors are born. You are the first (original bolding) to know that bit of historical trivia, simply because you are the first to ask that question. All the best, David

--mrg3105 (comms) ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 01:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Intelligence
I can relate first and foremost to your lament about the lack of a critical mass on extremely salient and essential topics while editors generate ever more tripe about video games and TV shows. This is certainly the case on many of the prominent university articles when I've made some admittedly dramatic or controversial changes without so much as a peep most of the time. I wrote the whole of Technological and industrial history of the United States intentionally leaving the more recent sections uncompleted to encourage collaboration, but it has remained completely stagnant but for a miscellaneous correction or random vandalism for the past 15 months.

But to your point of contradictions, I would assert that the innate intricacies and complexities of "pure" scientific processes and concepts (transesterification, et al) escape the "jargon" classification because they're non-human processes and agents - it would be silly to analogize or anthropomorphize them. I have no intuition from the outset about how socially-constructed scientific abstractions affect other abstractions. However, intelligence gathering is a human activity and despite the professional tendency to engage in systemization and abstraction, people have natural intuitions about social organizations and interactions and they import these cognitive structures/biases to their reading of the article. I can describe the kinship relations of aboriginal tribes on remote Pacific Islands, but there is a latent or universal understanding that every society requires biological parents, ruling elite(s), etc. When I read something like Intelligence cycle management, I found few landmarks around which to re-calibrate my view (whether it is accurate or not) of how the intelligence community operates. Instead there is an abundance of semi-synthesized information involving acronyms, authors, and flow-charts that I couldn't integrate with my naive intuitions. I'm a bit swamped at the moment, but this weekend I'll sandbox my thinking on improving the flow by emphasizing initial "accessibility" and explicitness of the model initially and then shifting to concise, but specific and nuanced cases and historical instances of failure types. Madcoverboy (talk) 05:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Library of Congress on CZ
This is a tag. No, it really is! Would you mind referencing the statement that the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world? Sure the British Library or something in Moscow isn't bigger? Best regards, Buckshot06(prof) 06:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No worries. What are the five largest libraries then? Buckshot06(prof) 22:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * CZ also: check the China part of the CIA transnational proliferation article. Seems to be just two repeated sentences which doesn't actually say much. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 05:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Length of articles
Hi there. I just noticed your contributions, and let me first say how impressed I am - I'm in awe of how much content you've added to Wikipedia. When most of our editors (myself included) are more concerned with making minor edits than expanding articles, we need all the people like you we can get. However, there is one point I want to raise with you - the length of some of those articles. The cost of writing a long and detailed article on a subject is that it can be very slow to load and edit, which is a problem for users on slower Internet connections; typically, long articles are split into two or more smaller articles that link to each other, for ease of reading and editing.

There are no strict rules or limits on how long an article should be, but Article size provides some guidelines: an article over 60KB in length should probably be divided (although such an article can be justified if it is on a topic with extremely broad scope), and one around 100KB or more should almost certainly be divided. I have added the template Toolong to a few of your articles I feel are close to or stretching those limits. No offence is intended, and I would never go as far as to delete any of your content to reduce them in size; that would be seriously uncivil. I only want to bring them to your attention, and suggest that you consider splitting some of them into smaller sub-articles, where appropriate.

As an example, Counter-intelligence is currently 91KB long; while a long article is appropriate here, as it covers a very broad topic, it would nonetheless be better if some of it could be split into smaller articles. Take a look, and see what you think. It's up to you; if you disagree, feel free to remove my templates and leave the articles as they are. Thanks for reading. Terraxos (talk) 23:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. In that case, I'll leave your articles alone for the time being, but I may come back to edit them later. I understand your feelings about Citizendium: from what I've seen of it, it's superior to Wikipedia in many ways, and I think it has the potential to become just as successful. To be honest, the only reason I edit here instead of there is because Wikipedia's articles are much more in need of cleanup. Good luck with your editing there, and thanks again for your contributions. Terraxos (talk) 02:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Citizendium
I've read your note at Folantin space. I appreciate Citizendium "peace and quiet", but I consider it an "ivory tower retreat" - a place to rest, but pointless for work. Almost nobody reads it (compared to Wikipedia), and as much as trolls and idiots annoy me here, I know that effort I put into creating or improving articles will not be wasted. I could write content for Citizendium, with 1% of stress I get from editing Wikipedia - but why waste my time writing for a website few will read? I could as well go back to playing computer games for recreation, or edit non-Wikipedia wikis about game or fiction, without deluding myself that I am doing something useful. In the end, Wikipedia is the frontline: its not easy to be here, but one's impact can be much larger than that of a civilian living behind the lines. :> I hope you don't mind my 2 cents... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I completely agree that Wikipedia peer review, well, sucks. But what can we expect when majority of the reviewers are not academic? They try their best, and if their best is a 15-year old high student best, well, that's the world of encyclopedia for everybody, by everybody.
 * The issue stems from the idea that "all editors are equal". Bullproduct, but the fact that experts or scholars can be freely harassed by anonymous trolls is indeed a problem. That, however, will not be fixed by itself. We can only work within the system to reform it - hence I suggested on Folantin's page a new protection level for pages that could be edited only by verified, non-anonymous experts.
 * The fact remains that when people look for info, they increasingly look to Wikipedia. People are lazy. We can criticize it and hide in the ivory towers, or come down, face the flames, and try to do some good in the wiki world. And as I wrote above, certainly, I think that we need to increase the position of non-anonymous editors and experts, and weaken that of the anonymous trolls.
 * How to do so, exactly? Write, complain, hope for a miracle :) Hard to say, seriously, when we still don't understand so many things about the wiki world. I would like in the future to write a scholarly article about why editors become disappointed with Wikipedia and leave it. Perhaps such an article would be of some use. For now, however, I am busy working on other articles, my PhD (and I am not even thinking about the next year or so when I'll have to consider looking for jobs... I hope there will be growing demand for sociologists of the 'net :). PS. Would you mind if I were to create an article on this subject? Seems notable :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * By all means feel free to email me. I do agree that some non-academics - or academics outside their discipline - can be good experts, certainly. Also, consider the "truth vs. verifiability" discussion: if it is not easy to distinguish an expert from a quack, we have to stick to verifiability, even if we have to give up on the occasional morsel of truth. It's not perfect, but how can it be improved? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Can you answer a quick question for me please?
I read on the IP addresses discussion that you have extensive experience of IP address stuff and I was hoping you could tell me if I should be worried about the fact that my IP address ends with a "0", so it is like 33.44.55.0 for example? I'm sure you are very busy, but please can you tell me if it is a security problem? My connection is cable broadband with Virgin Media if that helps (I know people hate Virgin Media, but please don't let that turn you off answering!) Thank-you if you can help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.0 (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There's no inherent reason that won't work. The number is evaluated internally as a 32 bit binary; the Internet doesn't care about decimal octets. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much Howard (the people on MSFN Forums and the lady at Virgin Media also said there is no problem!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.0 (talk) 09:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:COMPUTING Invitation
I have noticed that you are already a member of a related project and thought you might be interested in this wikiproject also and hence leaving this note ... - From the outreach dept