Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals

""Men will fight long and hard for a piece of coloured ribbon.""

- Emperor Napoleon

Welcome! Are you interested in orders, decorations and medals? Would you like to improve Wikipedia's coverage on this topic? Then we would like to invite you to help us in our project!

Message board
The content of this old message board section has been moved to. New messages should be posted at |the talk page.

Project Banner
Add the Project banner WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals to the talk page all relevant articles.

Stubs
Add Orders-medals-stub to all relevant stub articles.

Categorisation

 * Migrate any orders, decorations, and medals content from Category:Awards to appropriate sub-categories in Category:Orders, decorations, and medals.
 * Revision of present topic categorisation. Please  help evolve consensus by joining the discussion on the Project talk page.

Content

 * Add Template:Infobox Military Award to all decorations and medals articles.
 * Develop articles for standardised presentation of each nation's national honours system.

Scope
This WikiProject aims to
 * 1) To thoroughly explore national orders, decorations, and medals, along with their associated national honours systems, both globally and historically.
 * 2) To improve related articles.
 * 3) To provide a place to discuss common issues on orders, decorations, and medals related pages.
 * 4) Organise, discuss, and categorise Category:Orders, decorations, and medals by country
 * 5) To ensure all pages meet the standards of Cite sources.
 * 6) Develop standards and templates for orders, decorations, and medals related articles.

Related WikiProjects

 * WikiProject Military history
 * WikiProject Numismatics
 * WikiProject Awards and prizes

How to Contribute
How you can help depends on your time, resources and interest:
 * Create new articles about national orders, decorations, and medals.
 * Expand stub articles into full articles.
 * Improve the quality of existing articles, see How to structure the content.
 * Communicate with others interested in these topics on the WikiProject message board or on the WikiProject talk page.

Expand articles

 * Add Infoboxes to articles.
 * Upload images to the WikiMedia:Commons and add images to all orders, decorations, and medals pages.
 * Add external links to websites with additional information about the subject of an article and respect the rules regarding copyright violations.
 * Check references and cite sources for articles.
 * Expand orders, decorations, and medals stub articles into full articles.

Improve articles

 * Check for spelling and factual errors and correct wikilinks.
 * Help organise and Check categorisation of existing articles.
 * Revert Vandalism on this portal and on articles.

Communicate

 * Submit quality articles for Peer review or Featured article candidates.
 * Discuss articles with members who have displayed interest in these subjects on the talk pages of the user or the article.
 * List any questions or requests on the WikiProject talk page.

Article naming
Two main issues arise here: How we should deal with multiple instances of the same medal name, as awarded by different countries, and how foreign medals, which have their own non-English names, should be named.

Disambiguation
In any case where the same name is shared, disambiguation is the key. To take an example, a medal by the name of the Cross of Valour is awarded by both Australia and Canada. As a result we turn this page into a disambiguation page, as per the usual Wikipedia disambiguation guidelines. The medals in question are then moved to individual pages, named according to the convention Medal Name (Country). Therefore the Australian medal is to be found at Cross of Valour (Australia) and the Canadian at Cross of Valour (Canada). The disambiguation qualifier should always adopt the conventional short form of the country's name, never an abbreviation or initials - eg United Kingdom, not Great Britain or UK; United States, not US, USA, America, etc.

Non-English language awards
The basic rule is that the names of foreign-language awards should be translated into English except where there is an established track-record of referring to it by its foreign-language name. Therefore we use Iron Cross in favour of "Eiserne Kreuz", Pour le Mérite in favour of "For the Merit" or "Merit Award", and Param Vir Chakra in favour of "Bravest of the Brave Award". This effectively means that the article will reside at the customary English-language name. Having said this, editors are encouraged to create redirects for all reasonable permutations and variations on the name, whether in English or in the native language.

Selecting the right category
The main category for this topic is Category:Orders, decorations, and medals. This should not be used for articles about individual orders, decorations, or medals - instead these should be directed to the appropriate national sub-category. Only articles of pan-national importance or those dealing with the topic itself should be placed in the main category.

For further details see the WikiProject category policy.

Stub articles
If your article is a stub, please add the following stub template to the bottom of the article. All articles tagged with this stub will appear in Category:Order, decoration, and medal stubs.
 * orders-medals-stub - for all orders, decorations, and medals stubs

Project Templates
Please use the Template:Infobox Military Award in all articles relating to decorations and medals. This provides all the key information in a smart, easily accessible format. Other Project templates can be found here - feel free to add to this list if you develop your own templates.

WikiProject banner
Put the Project template, WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals, on the talk page of articles related to this Wikiproject. This will display:

All article talk pages tagged with this banner will appear in Category:WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals articles.

WikiProject sub-pages

 * WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals/Category Policies
 * WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals/Project Templates
 * WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals/Article grading
 * Category:WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals articles
 * Category:Orders, decorations, and medals articles by quality
 * Category:Orders, decorations, and medals articles by importance
 * Category:Orders, decorations, and medals articles needing attention
 * Category:Orders, decorations, and medals articles needing infoboxes

Useful resources

 * WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals/References

Participants
New participants, sign your name at the bottom of this list ( ~ ), and leave a short note of your particular area of interest:


 * X damr talk  - UK and Commonwealth awards, military and civil.
 * Craigy (talk) 21:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * --Enzomartinelli 01:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 01:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC) (former Soviet-era/CIS awards)
 * USer:Dowew (Canadian and Commonwealth) Dowew 08:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Inge 13:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC) (Norwegian medals and orders)
 * dave-- Passing interest, but I'm severely limited in time these days...
 * Ibagli ( Talk ) - Commonwealth (Canada and UK in particular)
 * ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie  (Awards and decorations of the military of Sri Lanka)
 * Zain Sadullah Khan 09:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC) Civil & military awards & decorations of Pakistan
 * Chez 10:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC) (Indian honours system)
 * Superzohar [[Image:Star*.svg|13px]] Talk 6:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC) Awards and decorations of the Russian Federation
 * User:JAYMEDINC - My specialty in medals is challenge coins.
 * Ingsoc 00:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC) I mostly write about German and Israeli decorations.
 * Krym66 1 January 2007  (Australian Decorations and Medals)
 * Chewygum - Philippine Military Awards & Decorations
 * Dudtz 2/24/07 1:45 PM ET Russian, Soviet and other decorations
 * JRWalko 23:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC) - Polish civilian and military orders
 * Pesco 05:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC) - Awards and decorations of the United States Merchant Marine
 * Crested Penguin 09:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC) Australian Decorations and Medals
 * &mdash; MrDolomite • Talk 14:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC) US decorations and medals, including documents which authorize them, such as Executive Orders. See also my page on wikisource.
 * Boothferry - Soviet and Third Reich Awards along with anything else I can get my hands on!
 * Most Wanted Emo - Distinguished Flying Cross and Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients.
 * PalawanOz 03:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC) - Australian, NZ, Singaporean medals and decorations.
 * Stabilo boss 15:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC) Decorations and Awards of Irish Defence Forces
 * BRI70 01:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC) Awards and decorations of the National Guard
 * Guran70 23:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC) - patrols Australian award entries for accuracy
 * JDBlues 14:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC) US Decorations, updating images with better representations
 * J S Ayer 02:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC) Broad interests; replaced Order of Charles XIII and created Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary by copying from EB1911
 * ItemCo16527 00:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC) US and British medals & ribbons, uniforms, badges, and rank & unit insignia.
 * Aarhap 08:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC) New Zealand, Commonwealth and British medals, ribbons and honours.
 * Woody 09:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC) Victoria Cross (disambiguation) and all its recipients.
 * AusTerrapin 15:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC) Australian honours system, United Kingdom honours system, United Nations peacekeeping/making medals, categorization/taxonomy
 * Leo71538 20:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC) Manager of Iran Collection.
 * Miraculousrandomness 10:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC) I have a number o soviet union ww2 medals
 * Dreadpirater 03:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC) Medals/awards of the United States Intelligence Community and Air Force
 * F4wkez 20:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)Nordic medals mostly
 * Robert Prummel (talk) 04:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC) I wrote hundreds of articles on orders on the Dutch and other Wikipedias. I illustrated many of them with photo's from my extensive collection. I also made a lot of drawings.
 * Examples of my work: all Dutch decorations, collars on  and  . Can I join?
 * Sarmad (talk) 10:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Royalhistorian (talk) 08:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC) My interests are in dynastic and chivalric orders. I am especially interested in Papal orders. I am also interested in the orders listed on my website at Lindgren under World Orders of Knighthood and Merit.
 * Yopie 11:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC) Chivalric orders, orders and medals of Czech rep., Czechoslovakia and Slovakia.
 * Imbris (talk) -- Yugoslavian orders, frm contries also.
 * User:Byterock Commonwealth/Canadian and obscure TR awards
 * bahamut0013 United States Marine Corps and related US decorations.
 * Groovenow (talk) 18:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC) All British Commonwealth ODM, but in particular, British Victorian and Canadian medals from all periods.
 * IGuNny - Soviet Union World War Two orders, decorations, and medals.
 * Anthony Staunton (talk) 15:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Victoria Cross, George Cross and US Medal of Honor. Australian Honours System.
 * Demophon (talk) 15:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC) - Orders, decorations, and medals of the Netherlands.
 * Cefaro (talk) 19:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC) - Medal of Honor recipients, decorations, awards, medals and others.
 * Scapler (talk) 11:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC) - Adding infoboxes to articles
 * 95jb14 (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * --Arturolorioli (talk) 14:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC) Italian Medals, Decorations and orders.
 * Whoosis (talk) 12:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC) UK and Commonwealth (especially South African) medals and decorations.
 * JMesh (talk) 22:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC) Canadian Orders, Decorations and Medals
 * EHDI5YS (talk) 07:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC) Authorized foreign decorations of the United States military
 * Mitch 3000 10:03, 9 January 2009 (UTC) I would like to add DFC recipients from 390th BG
 * Leujohn ( talk ) 10:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC) US, UK, French, or Commonwealth military decorations, awards, ribbons, orders, past and present
 * Par4d0x (talk) 20:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC) Soviet Union orders, decorations, and medals.
 * Dandvsp (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC) Authorized foreign decorations of the United States military
 * Kernel Saunters (talk) 13:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC) British military awards
 * Caponer (talk) 01:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC) - Focused on family and military orders of Two Sicilies and Thurn and Taxis.
 * Tanzhang (talk) 23:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC) - Mainly interested in Thai and Extended Commonwealth (ie. Commonwealth + HK) Orders and post-nominal letters.
 * Outback the koala (talk) 07:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC) - Baronet related article mostly.
 * Oliver Nouther (talk) 11:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC) - British and Australian Honours and Awards, and method of wearing.
 *  Kimon talk 20:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC) - Various orders and decorations in general. More focus on those of the Orthodox countries. Also, their heraldic privileges.
 * LeonidasSpartan European Medals
 * Der rikkk (talk) 09:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC) European and Israeli Medals
 * MilborneOne (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC) Mainly British and Empire awards and honours
 * SkibDen: Will soon add a LOT of Danish medals to Wikipedia. I have my own website, but I am moving it all to wikipedia.
 * Wustefuchs: I will write about Croatian World War II decorations and Croatian today decorations.
 * Flyguy33 (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * KRockefeller (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Billybradshaw (talk) 27th December 2010 British and Commonwealth Medals
 * Nford24: I have an interest in Australian, Imperial and International Honours and Awards. Also The Australia Day and Queen's Birthday Honours List's. Nford24 (Want to have a chat?) 07:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 46.246.178.119 (talk) 10:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Interest in Order of Merit, Order of the Golden Fleece.
 * Bullmoosebell (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC) I'm a Combat Medic in the United States Army and I'm interested in cleaning up and creating articles on awards, decorations, badges, et cetera, to help properly reflect a servicemember's honor and lineage.
 * Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 07:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC) - My specialty is Dutch orders.
 * ChevronTango (talk) 21:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC) - Vector Graphics of the UK and Commonwealth awards, military and civil. Examples of my work here
 * Fdutil (talk) 23:30, 15 January 2012 (UTC) - Soviet, Russian Federation, French and Belgian awards
 * P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC) - Orders of the Russian Empire (tsarist Russia)
 * Gbawden (talk) 11:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC) South African military medals
 * Bheuninckx (talk) 07:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC) Belgian and French medals
 * PunkyNZ talk 🇳🇿 Foreign awards to New Zealanders (especially French and Greek awards).
 * Anthony Staunton (talk) 01:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC) Clarify the meaning of the non numismatic but Wikipedia invented term ‘military decoration’
 * Takvaal (talk) 15:35, 1 April 2013 (UTC) British, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish decorations
 * Qzxpqbp (talk) 03:53, 14 April 2013 (UTC) Philippine civilian honors
 * JTiainen (talk) 15:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC) Scandinavian (Especially Finnish), German, Baltic Imperial- and Soviet Russian awards. I have hundreds of pictures on my web site and in my hard disk. Let me know how I could authorize Wikipedia to use freely any pictures needeed from http:\\www.finnmedals.net?
 * Kintrix (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2013 (UTC) Generally most of my experience and interest is in US Awards, in particular US DoD and State military medals, though after some recent experience I've started looking at European orders and medals as well.
 * Taming (talk) 25th DEC. 2013 UK and Commonwealth ，soviet and chinese medals and decorations.
 * Lieutenantpdg (talk)- 13 March 2011 - Philippine Awards & Decorations
 * CambodiaSocial (talk) 05:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC) - Cambodian Honors and Decorations
 * NINTENPUG 13:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC) Mostly orders
 * Tjlynnjr (talk) 23:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC) Interested in all, to include "challenge coins".
 * BoonDock - John Dovey Mostly South African and Commonwealth medals with a passing interest in the UN Medals. BoonDock (talk) 19:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Megan-robertson (talk) 11:07, 17 September 2015 (UTC) - owner of the Medals of the World website
 * Researcher1944 Mainly British and Commonwealth 1914 to date.Researcher1944 (talk) 13:28, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Zamorakphat (talk) 18:33, 24 February 2016 (UTC) I just really like medals
 * RevelationDirect (talk) 23:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC) Mostly in the categorization space.
 * Exemplo347 (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2016 (UTC) The 1857-59 Indian Mutiny
 * Charlesvvvv (talk) 13:12 7 July 2016 (UTC) Mainly interested in the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Order of the Black Eagle, and other European Orders.
 * CsikosLo (talk) 13:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC) US Army medals and awards
 * Jionunez (talk) 05:33 16 October 2016 (UTC) Particularly interested in more obscure medals and orders, especially those not limited to military personnel or heads of state.
 * Isaiasad2 (talk) 07:57, 8 november 2016 (UTC) US Medals and European Orders such as the Golden Fleece and the Garter.
 * Kiltpin (talk) 10:25, 16 November 2016 (UTC) Just general interest
 * Doctordrew Honours and Awards of the English-Speaking World (e.g. the US, UK, and Major Commonwealths)
 * Alexeinikolayevichromanov Orders and Medals from all Nations.
 * Pmt (talk) 20:20, 30 October 2017 (UTC) Medal and orders design and designers
 * GELongstreet (talk) 18:44, 3 February 2018 (UTC) - Military medals and decorations, minor fixes & additions
 * Nat965 (talk) 22:57, 9 March 2018 (UTC) - Australian and UK honours system.
 * Hull19 (talk) 04:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC) - Interested in Canadian and Western European orders and decorations.
 * —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 22:24, 5 September 2018 (UTC) – I've been working on ribbons, templates, and their placement in mil bio articles.
 * Australian Coin Information (talk) 20:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC) - Israeli and related medals, ribbons, orders and decorations.
 * MarkZusab (talk) 01:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC), interested in working on various American and foreign government awards, learned of this WikiProject after creating DEA Purple Heart Award
 * CharlesViBritannia (talk) 15:46, 6 June 2019 (UTC), Dutch and British orders and decorations
 * Zulfadli51 (talk) 05:19, 24 July 2019 (UTC), orders, decorations, and medals of Brunei
 * Kilgore89 (talk) 18:08, 25 July 2019 (UTC) - Orders, decorations, and medals of Canada - particularly Ontario
 * Problemsmith (talk) 10:49, 25 November 2019 (UTC) - US Civil Orders of Merit, Awards, and Decorations
 * Aeengath - Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Yugoslavia Military Awards & Decorations
 * Rodrigo Valequez - Orders, decorations and medals of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.
 * Augusto Mello - Brazilian orders, decorations and Medals.
 * Kangaresearch - Orders, decorations and medals of the Australian Honours and Awards system, especially the significant but not so well known ones (Nursing Service Cross, Australian Antarctic Medal, etc). Kangaresearch (talk) 08:02, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Roller26 - Roller26 (talk) 23:56, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * MarkoOn - Croatian orders, decorations and medals.
 * Vulphere - Indonesian orders, decorations, and medals. -- Vulp here  15:16, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Finnusertop – Highest state orders of any country. You can also contact me if you need help with Finland/Finnish sources. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Dr. Console - Current orders and decorations of Germany Dr. Console (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Duke of Somewhere (talk) 17:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC) - Awards and Decorations (especially orders) of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
 * Statesmannnn - Orders and Medals of People's Republic of Bulgaria
 * Xuanxuan.shen - Orders and Medals of People's Republic of China
 * Robin S. Taylor - Orders of chivalry in the Commonwealth of Nations
 * 1000mm (talk) 00:59, 4 July 2022 (UTC) - Norwegian awards, but also foreign ones awarded to personell in the Norwegian armed forces. Mainly active on no-Wiki, updating bios with ribbon bar graphics and info. Founder of a FB group where we discuss and identify ribbons on photos of military personell. Willing to participate in translating Norwegian medal names to English, and elsewhere my knowledge can be of use.
 * Nick Metcalfe (talk) 12:55, 11 September 2022 (UTC) - UK & Commonwealth gallantry awards, in particular Queen's Gallantry Medal, Colonial Police Medal For Gallantry, Burma Gallantry Medal.
 * ISUtahraptor (talk) 01:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC) - African orders and decorations, specifically Rhodesia and South Africa.
 * User:Lambik1982 (talk) - Orders, decorations and medals of Belgium, Netherlands, United States, United Kingdom, NATO and important awards for valour from over the world.
 * ChaseYUL99 (talk) 09:35, 8 January 2023 (UTC) - Orders, decorations and medals from Canada.
 * Thornfield Hall US military decorations and uniforms, mostly navy and air force
 * DEnglish (talk) 23:44, 9 August 2023 (UTC) – Keen German>English (UK) translator. ODM interests: German (all eras, regimes, and historical territories), UK (incl. Empire & Commonwealth), and freemasonry (mainly UK, but internationally too).
 * Christian292004 15:56, 20 December 2023. My main interest is in US military decorations.

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Belarus

 * Hero of Belarus (de-listed March 2021)

Poland

 * Virtuti Militari (de-listed November 2008)

Ukraine

 * Hero of Ukraine (de-listed December 2011)

United Kingdom and Commonwealth

 * Victoria Cross

Australia

 * Victoria Cross for Australia

Canada

 * Order of Canada
 * Victoria Cross (Canada)

New Zealand

 * Victoria Cross for New Zealand

United Kingdom

 * Victoria Cross
 * Order of the Garter
 * Order of the Thistle
 * Order of St Patrick (de-listed May 2021)
 * Order of the Bath (de-listed July 2022)

United States

 * Medal of Honor (de-listed May 2012)

Current Featured Topics
Victoria Cross medals

Current Featured Images
None at present.

Most Wanted
List 'most wanted' articles.


 * Massachusetts National Guard Commonwealth Awards Listed at {{Section link|Awards and decorations of the National Guard|Massachusetts]] like other states
 * Cross of Catrava
 * Cross of Saint-Louis
 * Royal Purple Heart
 * Canadian Forces Medallion for Distinguished Service
 * [[File:Operational Distinguishing Device.svg]]

Tools

 * Main tool page: toolserver.org


 * Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
 * Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
 * Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
 * Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.