Wikipedia talk:WikiProject ADF

ADF Category
I'm not sure about the value of lumping all the articles into a single 'ADF' category. Leaving aside the fact that many of the articles which are being placed in this category actually cover Australian military units or military history before the formation of the ADF in the late 1970s, this single vauge category can't be used to properly classify ADF units - the existing Army, Navy, RAAF, etc, categories are much more meaningful IMO. More to the point, there's nothing wrong with these categories, which strike me as being well organised and useful. At present, the current approach of lumping random articles into an 'ADF' category is acting against the project's described objective of "better organize[ing] information in articles related to ADF".

Perhaps a better approach would be to only tag articles which are being targeted for improvement, and not articles which don't need work? --Nick Dowling 05:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hence, the category has been nominated for deletion.--cj | talk 03:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm open to the idea of not using it - in my mind it was only there for us to keep track of the pages in the project. If there is another method, I'm all ears. Justinbrett 10:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

A separate project?
I don't know how broad of a scope you intend to be dealing with here, but if it's all going to be military/military history-related, you might want to consider creating a task force within the Military history WikiProject instead. Just something you may want to think about ;-) Kirill Lok s h in 03:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No thanks Feedyourfeet 09:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Stub proposal
I have been trying to clean up the mil-stub page and have run across alot of ADF related stubs. With that in mind I proposed an Australia military stub. Please have a look and give a vote. This will help consolidating all of those ADF relateed articles that need improvement. Thanks--Looper5920 22:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC) I agree, this is a good idea. Justinbrett 00:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

repairs or integration needed in List of Australian military bases
List of Australian military bases receved a lit of edits from IPs on 12 April. It needs to be either reverted or better integrated, but I don't know which. Is there a naming standard for the army bases that should be followed by both the list and the articles? --Scott Davis Talk 00:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've cleaned up some of the more obvious errors on the page such as misnaming (e.g. 'Head Quaters') and removed a couple that class as Units, not bases (e.g. Land Headquarters). However there's more work to do and it may help us to create stubs for all those red links such as Holsworthy, etc, etc. In fact I'm not even sure about a page like this that has to be maintained separately to the articles. We have a category of Royal Australian Air Force bases, what about a super-category of Australian military bases that's effectively self-maintaining? BTW, the naming convention for the RAAF and Navy bases is correct to my knowledge but I admit to being less of an expert on Army nomenclature. Cheers, Ian Rose 03:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree this page needs work - it does duplicate information from each service which has its own list of bases. Should this page even exist? If we keep it, we need to make sure the information is the same. The RAAF page lists Defence Establishments Fairbairn and Orchard Hills, which are of significance to the RAAF - but perhaps there needs to be a seperate heading on the big page to list these, along with Defence Establishment Berrimah (Navy, NT) and of course Russell, Campbell Park etc. On the topic, I notice the Category 'Australian Army Bases' lists a few bases (including RAAF Base Tindal and HMAS Harman) as Army bases. Whilst there may be an army pressence, they are clearly not Army bases and nobody in their right mind would ever call it one. We need to come to an agreement on this, as just about every base could be classified as tri-service. Justinbrett 04:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, my suggestions: 1) kill the 'big page' and replace with a category of 'Australian military bases'; 2) 'Australian Army bases', 'Royal Australian Air Force bases' and 'Royal Australian Navy bases' are sub-categories underneath; 3) Tri-service or other 'Defence establishments' are either subcategorised under 'Australian tri-service establishments' or go directly under 'Australian military bases'. Also, I agree with Justin we shouldn't list bases under multiple Army, Navy or Air Force categories; almost every base nominally belonging to one service will have elements of the others' there but let's not be over the top about that. Where two major service bases are co-located, e.g. Larrakeyah Barracks and HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin, they have their own names so there should be no issue - one belongem one and one belongem the other. Cheers, Ian Rose 08:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Referenced complete lists are useful - whether it's best as one or three/four is up to the project to decide. However the links should have the same names as the articles in the corresponding category. At the moment, List of Australian air force bases contains more information than the RAAF part of List of Australian military bases. There are not corresponding List of Australian army bases, List of Australian navy bases or List of Australian Defence establishments articles. Names in the big list for Army bases are nothing like the names in Category:Australian Army bases, and there isn't a Category:Australian Navy bases. As an interested outsider, I'd suggest splitting the big list by service, renaming existing articles if required, and making the list entries link to the articles. Are army base names in the big list right, the ones in the category, or are they both wrong? --Scott Davis Talk 11:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * We need a list of Australian Defence Sites. Not all sites are bases. Not all sites are Army, Navy or RAAF. Swan Island is a good example. A new category needed. What should it be called? --Commking 02:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Military history
I found this place while tagging Australian Military stub articles for Wikiproject Military history, and think you might benefit from the larger project's structure. I'm sure there are some Aussies over there that would appreciate a larger subgroup to coordinate within. Visit us if you're interested! UnDeadGoat 01:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed Kirill Lokshin's comment above; you appear not to have reacted to his proposal, though, so I'm not deleting this, just in case.UnDeadGoat 01:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks but no thanks. That's my view anyway. Justinbrett 02:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Interesting "off the cuff" dismissal. What rationale - other than reasons of personal or national ego - does the ADF Project have for maintaining a seperate project whose mandate is a subset of an existing WikiProject? It just seems odd that you would reject the aid, resources, and expertise of 200+ contributers (only some of which would have something to contribute to articles about the ADF, it must be admitted), and settle for the contributions of 6 (your current count of members). - 04:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * From my perpective, the best use of the ADF project would be to develop articles on current Australian military units and contempary Australian defence issues. As such, it doesn't really fall in the basket of 'military history' (though there is, of course, considerable cross over). --Nick Dowling 10:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, good point. That makes a lot more sense to me than duplicating the efforts of the Military history project, and is a niche in the "infoecology" that, while I think still falls under the mandate of of Military history project, definatly has a lower priority than the 6000 years of backlog work that is being done there. - 13:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

RAAF unit pages
You may have noticed I have created a heap of articles for RAAF units - mainly groups and wings, and also squadrons which were not already created.

I need your help to start putting in text - to stop other people nominating them for deletion. There are infoboxes on each page which really add quite a lot of information to them. However we need some basic text as well.

Justinbrett 09:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Justin, I'd be happy to help with this. Can you please post a list of these articles and add them to the relevant categories? You may also want to participate in the discussion of this topic at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history --Nick Dowling 09:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I will do that, tomorrow probably. In the mean time if you go to RAAF Air Command and just work your way through the tree you will see all the articles. But I will make a list up, that will be easier. Justinbrett 11:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a lot of the articles to categories (creating a few new categories in the process, using the Royal Air Force category structure as a guide) but I'm sure that I missed some. --Nick Dowling 11:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Guys, I'll throw my hat in for starting off the 78 Wing and 82 Wing entries and will try a few squadrons after that. Somewhere also I have base histories I wrote for Richmond and Darwin for the multi-volume history of the RAAF that the Historical Section did about 10 years ago, so I'll adapt those as well when I get the chance; the Richmond history naturally had a fair bit on ALG and 84/86 Wings so I'll volunteer for those as well if no-one else gets to them first - but dibs on 78 and 82! Also happy to review/copyedit anyone else's stuff if you let me know where/when to look... Cheers, Ian Rose 06:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The list of Air Command units (majority) that need to be developed are available on the main project page, at WikiProject_ADF. Please take the page off the list once you are done. Perhaps even nominate yourself for some pages by placing your nickname next to the unit name. Many hands make light work.

-- minor correction: the RAAF page under 'Post War Service' said two Canberras were lost during the Vietnam War and both crews were rescued. This is incorrect - the first crew, FO M.P.J. Herbert and PO R.C. Carver, remain missing to this day. I believe this error came about from misinterpretation of the information at http://www.defence.gov.au/raaf/history/airforce_history/vietnam.htm (or a similar page) which states "Both were rescued." This however refers to both men of the second crew, WCDR F.J.L. Downing and FLTLT A.J. Pinches, not to both CREWS. I have fixed the error for you guys to review. Cheers. -Simon Parmiter (I am also working on the 9RQR unit page)
 * That gels with my info. Here's another source . Cheers, Ian Rose 13:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Military of Australia
Anybody willing to help me make this into a propper article? Feedyourfeet 09:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

project under consideration
A new project call Australian maritime history is currently under consideration. If you have comments, suggestions or wish to participate please join us Gnangarra 00:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging the project
As this project seems to have become entirely inactive, a merger of it with the active Australian military history task force is being discussed here; comments are welcome. Kirill Lokshin 05:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)