Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/August 2012/Project news

Hello and welcome to the August 2012 issue of the Bugle! This month we would like to remind everyone that the annual military history coordinator election will begin soon. These coordinators are responsible for various tasks, as elucidated on the coordinator page:

"The primary responsibility of the project coordinators is the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the project and its internal processes running smoothly; this includes a variety of tasks, such as keeping the announcement and open task lists updated, overseeing the assessment and review processes, managing the proposal and creation of task forces, and so forth. There is fairly little involved that couldn't theoretically be done by any other editor, of course—in only a few places have the coordinators been explicitly written into a process—but, since experience suggests that people tend to assume that someone else is doing whatever needs to be done, it has proven beneficial to formally delegate responsibility for this administrative work to a specified group."

"The coordinators also have several additional roles. They serve as the project's designated points of contact, and are explicitly listed as people to whom questions can be directed in a variety of places around the project. In addition, they have (highly informal) roles in leading the drafting of project guidelines, overseeing the implementation of project decisions on issues like category schemes and template use, and helping to resolve disputes and keep discussions from becoming heated and unproductive."

Nominations will open on 3 September and will run until 23:59 14 September; subsequently, there will be a two-week voting period. The editor with the most votes will be given the lead coordinator position, while the next-highest fourteen editors will become coordinators. We encourage members of the project to nominate themselves; even if you do not become a coordinator, your views will help shape the direction the project takes over the next year. We also encourage everyone to vote for candidates and share their views on what the project should do this year.

Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Ed [talk] [majestic titan]


 * The A-Class medal with Swords has been awarded to:
 * Hawkeye7 for Arthur S. Carpender, James Bryant Conant and Vannevar Bush
 * Ian Rose for Henry Petre, Reg Saunders and Central Flying School RAAF
 * Parsecboy for List of battleships of Greece, SMS König Albert and List of protected cruisers of Germany
 * Sturmvogel 66 for HMS Argus (I49), List of battlecruisers of the United States, and HMS Agincourt (1913)


 * The A-Class medal has been awarded to:
 * Constantine for John Troglita, Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith and Abbasid invasion of Asia Minor (806)
 * Nikkimaria for If Day, Ray Farquharson and Melville Island (Nova Scotia)


 * The contest department completed its 62nd round of competition last month. A total of 62 articles were submitted by 8 editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 130 points from 17 entries, followed by Parsecboy with 118 points from 15 entries. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar, respectively. Honourable mentions go to Ian Rose (42 points), Ed! (38) and RoslynSKP (32). Arius1998, Djmaschek and Zawed also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for this month's contest now.

On 25 August, Bidgee, Hawkeye7 and Nick-D visited the Australian War Memorial (AWM) to take part in Wikipedia Takes the Australian War Memorial. This event was co-organised by LauraHale, and was very kindly facilitated by the AWM's web manager Liz Holcombe, who also took time out of her Saturday morning to assist.

The main purpose of the project was to document the Memorial's First World War galleries, which will soon be closed for a major redevelopment ahead of the centenary of the Gallipoli Campaign. Liz noted that some elements of these galleries have been in place since the AWM first opened in 1941 and have historic value in their own right (especially the enduringly popular dioramas).

Photos from the event are being uploaded on Wikimedia Commons here.


 * The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is holding a conference on the Kokoda Track campaign on 6 and 7 September. Further details are available on the Memorial's website here.
 * The National Army Museum in London will host a military history book festival on 8 and 9 September. Information on this event is available here. Now cancelled.