Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unofficial decorations of the United States military


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Unofficial decorations of the United States military

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Appears to be completely original research. To state that a decoration is "authorized" by military regulations yet "unofficial" is a contradiction in terms. The article is full of inaccuracies. For example, The Antarctic Expedtion Medals are clearly in older precedence charts, and removing them would leave the article almost bare. To refer to the Chaplain's Medal for Heroism as "unofficial" is questionable at best and nonsense at worst. It is also by no means clear that the NC-4 Medal was never authorized for wear, in fact it almost certainly was (note added: it was). The rationale behind calling the National Guard Cold War Victory Medal unofficial escapes me, but then again the rationale of the entire article escapes me. Call the medal what it is, a National Guard medal.

There is an article, Unofficial badges of the United States military which at least makes some sense at it states in the introduction, "Unofficial badges of the United States military are those badges or emblems which do not appear in United States military regulations but are worn or displayed by many individuals serving in the United States military" (emphasis mine). But in this article, it states "Unofficial decorations of the United States military are those awards and decorations that were authorized under military regulations, but never appeared on official precedence charts." How can one prove that an award or decoration was never in a precedence chart unless it was never authorized for wear in the first instance? For example a medal may become obsolete (which is a legitimate category) and not show up on current charts. That doesn't mean it was NEVER authorized for wear. The Antarctic medals are a good example.

The information in articles on the listed Civil War era medals is either unsourced, contradictory, or both. There may have been medals that were privately issued by local commanders. But to title them "Unoffical decorations of the United States Military" can be misleading. To explain the circumstances of the medal in an individual article is fine, but a category "Unoffical Decorations of The United States Military" has resulted in contradiction and error. For example,

The article on the Walter Reed Medal states it was an official United States Army award, but the medal was never designed to be worn on a military uniform and did not appear on any military precedence charts. This doesn't make it an "unofficial" decoration. It makes it a medal that was not designed to be worn. In fact, the statute that authorized the medal authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to create and issue the award. It may not be an Army award at all. It may not even be a decoration, but a non portable "table" medal. (note added: I have since edited the Walter Reed Medal article. If interested, see its talk page).

Furthermore, the article states "Unofficial military awards were fairly common in the early 20th century" yet it provides little or no evidence of this.

Bottom line, the information contained in the article is misleading, wrong, and deserving of deletion. It's not as if the awards contained in the article will be assigned to oblivion. They have articles of their own or are mentioned in other articles. Nyctc7 (talk) 06:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2012 September 15.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  07:07, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 11:33, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - This seems to be a content dispute. Clicking on the Cold War Victory Medal link makes it clear that this is not so cut-and-dried as the nominator would have it to be. If the parameters are unclear, they should be clarified. If there are medals listed that do not meet the parameters, they should be deleted. Adding descriptions and commentary to the gallery of images that is this page might help move things forward in this regard. Carrite (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Point taken, and if the consensus (if any) is to keep, I am prepared to delete the medals (their entry in this category, not the articles on the medals themselves) where it can be shown that they appeared on a precedence chart, or for other valid reason. As to the cold war medal, it appears to be a privately made decoration for purchase, and subsequently adopted by the National Guard of Louisiana and Alaska as an official decoration. That's fine, but to call it an "unofficial decoration of the U.S. Military" -- what does that even mean? According to Navy here U.S. Navy on Cold War Medals "The Department of Defense will not be creating a Cold War Service medal, and commemorative medals being sold by private vendors are not authorized for wear on military uniforms." That means what it says, it doesn't mean that it is an "unofficial decoration of the U.S. Military" it means that it is medal sold by private vendors, and the DOD disavows them.--Nyctc7 (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - "Unofficial" does not mean "don't exist". Wikipedia is a civilian encyclopedia, not an official army regulation. Wikipedia is not restricted to only including official military awards, traditions, etc. Also, as Carrite points out, this seems to be a content dispute. - Atfyfe (talk)
 * Point taken, and let me say that this is the first time I have ever nominated an article for deletion, it is a learning experience.--Nyctc7 (talk) 18:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - there's no harm to the project, and in thoery, this is the sort of thing that could be sourced. It needs a lot of work, but it is not in my areas of expertise. Bearian (talk) 20:23, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.