Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of countries by number of active troops

List of countries by number of active troops
Self-Nomination. Worked on this for a while and after an exhaustive time finding the proper troop levels for all the countries of the world and getting them referenced. I think this is the most referenced and numerically accurate article on Wikipedia. I think this deserves to be FAC. Mercenary2k 09:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * reluctant weak oppose. Good work! It is a very nice list, but you need to fix some things to get it to FL status:
 * describe what exactly "Active Troops", "Reserve Force" and "Paramilitary" mean (read it as: expand the lead, man)
 * add the 29 countries that do not maintain a military to the list (the fact that they have 0 troops doesn't mean they shouldn't be on the list)
 * add the countries you don't have information for (I don't see Somalia on the list, for instance - add it to the list and put "n/a" as numbers, maybe in few years the numbers turn up)
 * reference the population count
 * Yes, the last one is painful, but you can't WP:CITE Wikipedia, unfortunately (WP:RS: "Wikipedia cannot cite itself as a source"), and that's exactly what your list does. I hope that this remarks won't make you sink into defeatism because you are on a right path, just a bit more work is needed... --Dijxtra 10:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * the CIA rankings should do the job for the pop I think... :) -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  11:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, you should deal with the fact that Serbia and Montenegro are now separated entities. CG 14:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: I picked one easily verified number (the totals for the U.S.) and found that the listed source gives a different number for active troops, and contains no mention of reserve or paramilitary troops. While the number of reserves is similar to the number listed in the U.S. military article on Wikipedia, I can find no source for the paramilitary or even what groups were included in that number. 53,000 is listed but the Coast Guard only has 41,000, what else was counted? Rmhermen 17:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose then since my concerns were not addressed. Rmhermen 17:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Conditional support — If Serbia and Montenegro is divided into two entries and countries without a military are added at the bottom. – Zntrip 03:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Support However, I feel that the terms need to be defined for greater transparency of facts. Otherwise, nice! Daniel.Bryant 03:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak Support Because I feel that someone has to update this next year, else again it will have to be renominated if it still is FA status. But for now i'd say it's a nice compilation. Idleguy 11:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * WOW! With 230+ references it must be a record :) Hoewever the are two main things to fix: Lead which is too short and the same references that need better formatting (i.e. it needs page/article name, publisher, author, and all the other stuff from cite web). Renata 01:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose It may appear to have 230+ references but in fact (despite different names) many point to the same web page or document. Of those that are separate web pages, the majority are pages within "Encyclopedia of the Nations". Really, you only want to give the full cite web treatment once per document/site. Those references that are shared should be shared. The reference should be named with its actual name (e.g. "Jamaica", within the site "Encyclopedia of the Nations") rather than what you are taking from it (e.g. "Jamaica Armed Forces"). If certain references come from specific pages within a larger document that is used many times, consider separating the footnote from the full reference citation (see List of DanceSport dances). Colin°Talk 08:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment I spend almost a week getting this whole page referenced. And do you realize how long it will take to do what you are asking? :( Mercenary2k 03:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You've done the hard bit. It just needs reformatting and a little bit of extra info added. I reckon about an hour or so with a decent text editor. If you would like me to have a go, let me know. Colin°Talk 09:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment Thanks for your comments guy. I will try to expand the lead, add countries which dont have an army and stuff. Been busy with exams at University. So I will try to accomodate these changes, really soon. Mercenary2k 03:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)