Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Creating and maintaining "Black Project" articles

A "Black Project" is defined as a project whose existence is denied by all officially involved parties, i.e. defense contractor(s) and associated government branches assigned to work on the project in question. These black projects are among the world's greatest military secrets; as they go unacknowledged in the public domain. Those who monitor the armed forces and their contract companies are typically left with little if any useful information on the program, and those who are eyewitnesses to the end result of a black project – particularly covert vehicles like spy planes – may have little idea how else to explain what they have witnessed.

On Wikipedia, writing and maintaining an article about a black project can be among the most difficult and demanding tasks of all. Since black projects are by their very nature secret, the usual sources our editors go to for information – defense contractor sites, government reports, etc – are rendered useless, yet the demand on the article that it meet Wikipedia's core policies concerning reliable third party sources, maintain a neutral point of view, and so forth do not change simply because the article in question reports on an alleged black project. On more than one occasion coordinators for the Military history Project passing through the black project pages have nominated articles on black projects for deletion because they fail to meet the standards of inclusion placed upon them by Wikipedia as a whole.

As a result of these two opposing forces the number of alleged black projects that have articles on Wikipedia are small, and those who create and maintain the articles are careful to weigh the information they have against the criteria we have for the inclusion of an article on site. While there is no guarantee that a black project article will survive its first coordinator–initiated sweep of the black project pages, there are a few things that you can do to help the article stay on Wikipedia.

First, foremost, and above all, you must locate reliable sources. This is among the most difficult tasks those writing or maintaining a black project can tackle, but the reward for locating reliable sources for an article can spare an article from an unpleasant experience at articles for deletion. The simple reason for this is summarized at Verifiability: The threshold for inclusion on Wikipedia is Verifiability, Not Truth. No matter how odd the article in question may be, if the sources are reliable and they support what the article states then the odds that the article will end up at Afd go down dramatically. This is not to say that the article will be absolutely be spared deletion, but reliable sources provide a compelling reason for it to remain on Wikipedia.

Your next goal should be to locate technical information. Although the reliable sources may guess at the dimensions and other aspects of the black project, if the information seems plausible it should be added to the article. If the black project in question concerns a vehicle, consider adding an infobox for the article so as to provide a more professional appearance. If your project reports on a black project that does not concern a vehicle then try as best as you can to summarize the information in the history section. If you have these two pieces of information then the next goal should be to try and create a time line or history section to give readers some idea of when the black project in question started or was initiated. Do not for any reason guess on this information; if the sources do not support what you are writing then the additions will be removed.

From here a black project should be able to stand on its own on Wikipedia; it will fall to you to ensure that the article remains up to date and free of fringe theories, original research, and other questionable material. If the article degenerates enough it may be considered a liability more than an asset and there is a good chance it will end up at AFD. In most cases, when an article on a black project arrives at afd, it does not come back. If you want your black project article to remain here take care of it.