Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 10

Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618)
This article has been nominated for Featured Article status at Featured article candidates/Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618). It would be nice to know what the military history community, in their expert analysis, thinks of the article and whether it is deserving. --maclean25 22:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * As a follow-up, the article was successful and is now a Featured Article. --maclean25 11:50, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

battle of the metaurus + battle of the metaurus river
Being a "newbie" I am not sure if this is the correct place to place this request but... I noticed that Wikipedia has two articles about the same battle with the titles battle of the metaurus and battle of the metaurus river. Regrettably, I don´t know how and where i can request a merger of the two articles. Perhaps this is the correct place? Thanx


 * Turns out that Battle of the Metaurus River was a copy violation from . Thanks for pointing it out.  As for requesting a merger of two articles, see the "Mark current duplicates" section of Duplicate articles for instructions. Geoff/Gsl 22:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Nationality categories for wars
It seems we have, in some sense, shot ourselves in the foot. Since active discussion is called for, does anyone object to declaring "Wars of Foo" (as opposed to "Fooish wars") to be the standard for these categories? Kirill Lokshin 21:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Wars of so-and-so sounds unnatural and forced in many cases. -- Миборовский U 23:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * True; on the other hand, So-and-so-ish wars often requires knowledge of rather obscure adjective forms. The main problem, however, is that Wars of the Holy Roman Empire doesn't have an alternate form (technically, the adjectival form would be Imperial wars, but that's far too ambiguous to be used as a category name).
 * The upshot is that (1) we need to have some standard, and (2) I don't see how to possibly use Fooish wars for the Holy Roman Empire (and possibly some others&mdash;Kingdom of Jerusalem, for instance, also lacks a good adjective). Wars of Foo, while somewhat forced, is doable. Kirill Lokshin 00:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Point taken. I believe the best way would be to go along with the most natural-sounding format, but that would be impossible to implement. -- Миборовский U 00:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * "Wars Of Foo" sounds fine to me. Remember, if it's FOO it must be true :>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 11:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Yet another vote has been started here. Kirill Lokshin 14:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Renaming issue: Battle of Herdonia vs. First Battle of Herdonia
I have nominated the 212 BC "Battle of Herdonia" page to be renamed the "First Battle of Herdonia", because there is a "Second Battle of Herdonia" in 210 BC. If any of you would like to vote, here is a link to that battle's talk page. Roy Al Blue 20:21, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Requested moves is only for cases where the "Move" button cannot be used -- that is, there is an article at the destination that doesn't have a trivial edit history. So there is nothing stopping you making the move yourself, seeing as "First Battle of Herdonia" doesn't exist. Geoff/Gsl 20:58, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the guidelines say "Battle of XXXX (XXXX)", instead of "First/Second Battle of XXXX"? -- Миборовский U 21:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no absolute rule and the most commonly accepted name in the literature should be used where possible. Generally, if the two battles are part of the same conflict, ordinal number can be used, whether the battles are in the same year or not.  After all, it's "First" to "Fourth" Battle of Ypres, even though they all occurred in different years.  On the other hand, it is "Battle of Arras (1914)", "Battle of Arras (1917)" and "Battle of Arras (1918)".  It could be worthwhile expanding the "Article title" section into a separate "Naming conventions (battles)" article where the various rules, examples and exceptions can be listed.  Geoff/Gsl 21:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. Lets keep it simple. Redirects can be used for the exceptions. Besides I have just spent the last hour "fixing" the battles of the Second Punic War, before following the "what links here" to here and seeing this conversation :-( Besides there is very rarly consistency in these things. For example the four battles of Ypres are not always known under those ordinals particularly no 3 which is often known as Passchendaele and if that one is not then the fourth can not be the fourth because it is the third! -- Philip Baird Shearer 13:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Not to mention Battle of Changsha 1 2 3 4 5 6! (And possibly more.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miborovsky (talk • contribs) 10:39, 15 November 2005


 * So we should be self-consistent, at the expense of consistency with the rest of the literature, and let redirects handle the difference? I don't think so. Geoff/Gsl 01:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Consistency with literature should take priority over self-consistency&mdash;if a battle is always referred to by a particular name, it should be located at that name, even if said name is incorrect or inconsistent. This doesn't apply, obviously, when the literature is itself inconsistent; when given a choice between equally valid names, we should use the more convenient one.
 * At the same time, we need to be careful not to get tripped up by different numbering in different sources. This isn't generally a very major issue for battles, but can be quite unpleasant for wars; the Italian Wars (to use my favorite example) can be, and are, numbered a dozen different ways by different authors.  In such cases, I think it's easier to settle for using the date (e.g. Italian War of 1521) rather than creating dozens of disambiguation pages to cover every possible combination of numbering schemes. Kirill Lokshin 01:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

APP-6a?
Not the most appropriate page for this but I guess wikipedia's military minds are all congregated here so, I was wondering if it is appropriate/convention/allowed to use APP-6a for historical battles and armies? Say, WW2? Also, wouldn't it be a lot easier (after the initial learning curve) to use this in wikipedia articles/maps? -- Миборовский U 06:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's really an existing convention; APP-6a seems fine, provided it's only used for "modern" conflicts. I don't want to see divisonal symbols on Battle of Hastings, for example ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not as if they had divisions back then... no, I'm talking about WW2, maybe WW1. Mapmaking can be a lot easier if we implement APP-6a as a standard for battles. Just a thought. -- Миборовский U 23:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

War categories
Given that Category:Wars and everything under it is somewhat of a mess, I thought I'd try my hand at a proposal:


 * Wars will be categorized primarily by (a) country, under Category:Wars by country, and (b) type, under Category:Wars by type.
 * Category:Wars by type will contain sub-categories like "Guerilla wars", "Civil wars", "Wars of independence", etc.
 * Most wars will have their articles placed directly in categories.
 * More notable wars will get their own categories (e.g. Category:Second Punic War or Category:Hundred Years' War). This category will be nested under the above two hierarchies as appropriate.  The article(s) on the war will then include the war-specific category, but not its parent categories, to reduce redundancy.
 * Groups of related wars, particularly those where adding categories by country may be impossible due to changing participants (e.g. Category:Crusades or Category:Italian Wars) will be placed directly in Category:Wars.
 * Category:World War I and Category:World War II will be placed&mdash;where?
 * Non-military conflicts (e.g. War on Drugs) will be removed from Category:Wars, as they are not appropriate there.

This isn't a final, or possibly even a well-thought-out proposal; just something I threw together. Any ideas or comments would be welcome. Kirill Lokshin 00:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess the World War I & II categories just go in the "Wars" category, unless a "World wars" category is created, however that would probably result in disputes over which other wars qualify as world wars (Seven Years War, Cold War, etc.) Currently there are Category:Wars by date and Category:Wars by region which are just populated by lists.  If they remain as they are, they should be moved under Category:Lists of wars as "Lists of wars by date" and "Lists of wars by region".  Is there any merit in a properly populated "Wars by date" category, or perhaps "Wars by century"? Geoff/Gsl 09:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * We already have century categories (e.g. Category:16th century) that I've been adding wars into as necessary. I suppose we could have our own set (Category:16th century wars or something), but I'm not sure what benefits that would have over using the standard categories. Kirill Lokshin 13:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of Kirill's suggestions. I think World War I and II are fine having their own categories, and not being grouped into "World Wars"; though if we do want to have a World Wars Category, it should be strictly for those two, as no other wars are called World Wars (if there were, we'd be up to III or IV). The lists by date and region don't need to have categories, and I also don't think we need to have separate categories for "Xth century wars" - they can go into the "Xth century" category. What do you think about whether or not we need categories for "battles of X war"? Right now, last I checked, there was a separate category for "Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War" within the "Category:Hundred Years' War". Do we think that's redundant and unnecessary, or valuable and useful? LordAmeth 21:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * They're probably useful in at least some cases; Category:American Civil War, for instance, would quickly grow to hundreds of articles if battles, leaders, units, and everything else were thrown in with no sub-categorization. They also provide a nice hook into the Category:Battles hierarchy.
 * Having said that, some of them, particularly the smaller ones, could probably be eliminated if anyone so desires. Kirill Lokshin 21:56, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Battle of Fulford
One of the most overlooked battles of 1066 is the Battle of Fulford. I have tried to edit the article to quality better than a stub, but my efforts have failed. I am requesting and appreciate any aid pertaining to this matter. Thank you.

Requesting assistance with warboxes
Could a more experienced editor add basic warboxes to the new articles Battle of Jargeau, Battle of Meung, and Battle of Beaugency? These were part of Joan of Arc's 1429 Loire offensive following the Siege of Orleans. I've been having trouble getting the warbox template to load. Durova 18:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I've added one to Battle of Beaugency; I don't know when I'll have time to do the others, so you might just want to copy the code and change the names as appropriate. It looks like the campaignbox will need to be updated to include these new articles as well. Kirill Lokshin 19:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the help. Durova 00:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Battle categories
For a battle, like say the Battle of Tsuntua, which was between two now-defunct states (Gobir and the Fulani Empire, before it was really the Fulani Empire)--how to categorize that? Geographically ("Battles of Nigeria") or by state ("Battles of Gobir")? I'm having the same problem at Marracuene; advice is welcome. --Dvyost 20:22, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Definitely by historical state; in this case, you would have Category:Battles of Gobir and Category:Battles of the Fulani Empire. (Take a look at some of the other sub-categories of Category:Battles by country for some examples of how to create these).  Kirill Lokshin 22:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess what concerns me is that, for example, Battles of Gobir is going to sit as a useless, one-article category for years--possibly forever. I could be wrong, but I think there just aren't enough named, recorded battles in pre-colonial African history to fill out a category for each of hundreds of city states.  Any thoughts on a more useful way to lump these, or should I just go ahead with the one-article categories?  --Dvyost 22:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Heh, I didn't realize that. You could try something like Category:Battles of Sub-Saharan Africa (it's a bad name&mdash;maybe someone with a bit more knowledge of the region can suggest a better one).  Generally, though, we don't want to lump battles into the modern country categories; single-article categories are bad, but still better than incorrect ones.  Kirill Lokshin 22:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe I'll do it by regional divisions then--I'll poke around and see what Africa battle articles are already out there. Maybe Battles of pre-colonial West Africa, etc.?  Thanks for the advice!  --Dvyost 23:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for peer review: Pontiac's Rebellion
If there's a spot reserved somewhere around here to post notices of military history-related articles currently up for peer review, I don't see it, so I'll plop it right here:


 * Peer review/Pontiac's Rebellion/archive1

Thanks! --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 09:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The Battle of Taringham Acres
Can anyone confirm "the Battle of Taringham Acres" stub, supposedly part of the Napoleonic wars? No hits on Google, only three hits for "Taringham". I also couldn't find any mention of "the modern day city of Elberg, in Germany". Geoff/Gsl 21:09, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Looks like utter nonsense&mdash;the Second Coalition didn't include Prussia! &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 21:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No mention of it in Chandler's Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars so I shall put it up for speedy deletion. Geoff/Gsl 09:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Now deleted. Geoff/Gsl 01:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hachigata and Odawara
I have a concern about the Campaignbox for the battles of the Hojo. Immediately before the 1590 Siege of Odawara, there is listed a Siege of Hachigata. However, I found a reference to a Siege of Hachigata on the article Hojo Ujiyasu, which appears to indicate that it preceded the 1569 Siege of Odawara. Neither link (both are "red-links") has a date index. Is Hachigata listed in the wrong place, or are there two such battles? Roy Al Blue 23:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * LordAmeth would probably be able to tell us if there were two battles; it's certainly possible, given the period. Another funny thing, though&mdash;the 1590 Siege of Odawara is listed on two separate campaignboxes: the Hojo and the Hideyoshi ones.  It's obviously a bad thing to do, as a user browsing the battles via the campaignbox will suddenly be switched to another campaign; but I'm not sure how to fix this.  Possibly the campaignboxes should be broken up by period?  &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 23:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hachigata was actually sieged twice, in 1568 and 1590. I have very little on either battle, but I suppose just enough that it should be listed twice. I'll go fix that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. As for duplicating battles across multiple campaignboxes, I realized it might be a problem, but I don't know of any better way to do it. LordAmeth 11:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Warbox size
(copied from the warbox template talk page, as per Kirill's suggestion)

One of the objections above, I believe, is that the "warbox" is too large. For those who use the warbox, do you like a wide or a narrow box? Some other infoboxes on Wikipedia are set at 20ems, with a 200px image, or something like that. I like that narrower look, although it does tend to crowd the information in the warbox. (95% font size would help.) If we want the narrower look, we'd need to change the campaignbox so that it doesn't widen the warbox, and change the image width instructions to 200px or thereabouts. What say you? (If any of this makes sense, that is.) --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think 200px might be too small, particularly if the commander or country names are long. It's definitely something to consider, though.
 * Since very few people watch the template page, you might want to pose the same question on the project talk page, where it will probably generate more discussion. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 15:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Battles
"Template:Infobox Battles" has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at "Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Infobox Battles". Thank you. Geoff/Gsl 21:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Now deleted. Geoff/Gsl 02:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for War of 1812 Stub
Hello, can we get a stub created specifically for the War of 1812. Thank you Battlefield 23:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Announcements section
Spurred by a comment made by Kevin Myers regarding not having a place to put peer review requests, I've created an announcements section at the top of the page. Any comments, either about the format of the section or about the overall usefulness of having it, would be appreciated. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 01:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that section could be on the main page and not the talk page. Some projects have the "Pending tasks" box on the front page too. So maybe a little infobox with all that stuff on the top corner of the main page would serve as a handy "notice board" to those interested.


 * Additionally, some of the stuff on the main page, like the list of participants and the categorization information, could be moved to sub-pages, so as to keep primary focus on the arguably more important "article guidelines" and warbox information.--Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 11:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Moving the announcements section to the front page is a possibility. I think the to-do box may be a little too large and messy to be placed there, but maybe others disagree.


 * As far as removing content from the front page, I think that's a rather bad idea. It's arguable which of the sections is the most important (I happen to think the categorization instructions are far more useful than the article guidelines), and we're not really running out of space.  I'd like to hear if anyone else has any ideas on this, of course :-) &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 14:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well whatever works to make the page more user-friendly is okay with me; I think there's room for improvement in that area. Personally, I dislike long pages: I prefer a short overview page with various sub-pages, so people can get a quick feel for the content without having to scroll down and scan through a bunch of stuff that might not interest them, because they may give up and never see the one thing they might be interested in. (My user page is an extreme example of this minimalist approach.) Obviously there are other valid approaches.


 * This project has a real advantage over many other Wikiprojects: the content here is actually useful. Really, this page is not just a project, per se, it's a "how to" reference for writing about military history. An "announcements" section on the front page would also make it a handy "notice board" for participants and general readers passing by. I agree with you that the "to-do box" is too messy for the front page; it's more nuts and bolts project stuff anyway, and shouldn't be up front. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 16:59, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've moved the announcements section to the front page; hopefully it'll be useful there.
 * As far as the length of the page goes, there's definitely room for some improvement. I've compressed the list of templates at the end into table form, which should help somewhat.  The main offender, obviously, is the category instructions, which are greatly extended by the diagrams of the category trees.  If anybody has ideas for shrinking the diagrams, or even rewriting the text to be clear without them, feel free to take a stab at it ;-) &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 17:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The announcements section is a fine idea. If it were placed on a sub-page (and transcluded on the main page) it could be watchlisted separately, which might, or might not, be useful. I like having the Participants section near the top but it is a bit long. Perhaps listing only recent new participants on the main project page and have a complete list on the sub-page, where people can include their field of interest/expertise (and beverage of choice). Or move the entire list to the bottom where size doesn't matter. Geoff/Gsl 01:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure whether having the announcements on a subpage would be useful. I'm assuming people watch the main project page; whether they would bother doing so for a subpage is questionable.  It shouldn't get too long, in any case, if we limit it to "formal" discussions.
 * I actually like having the participants section where it is. It's one of the most interesting parts of the page, so I think hiding it at the bottom or on a subpage would be a loss; it would also be harder for newcomers to find, I suspect.  Possibly some sort of reorganization to compress it might be in order; but as I mentioned above, other sections can probably be shortened more easily if page length is a concern.
 * I'm quite willing to hear other ideas on this, of course :-) &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Warbox formatting
Just a little suggestion. I think that Warbox seems very archaic and cold. Battlebox colors and formatting are better in my opinion. - Darwinek 12:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Like I said on Darwinek's talk page, I'm inclined to agree. What say you, Kirill? SoLando (Talk) 12:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Do you mean that the entire warbox should be the funny blue color that the battlebox currently uses (which is fairly easy to do, and to which I have no objections) or that we should return to a full-blown color scheme (to which I do object, for reasons that have been discussed on this page a number of times)?
 * If it's the first option, or some variant of it (a different color, perhaps) I can change it quite quickly. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 13:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * IT's a pretty trivial matter, as the warbox is great in its current form. It's just the grey can strain the eyes (at least mine.....at 4 in the morning ;-)). I'd personally prefer a lighter colour tone similar to that used with the battlebox.......maybe i'm just being nostalgic, but I did prefer that. SoLando (Talk) 13:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Then again, grey is probably more compatible with a white field than any other colour, which leads back to a full colour scheme. Like I said, it's a trivial matter. SoLando (Talk) 13:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, if you'd like to try something else, just give me a name from Web colors and I'll stick it in. We can see what it looks like, at least :-) &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 13:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've got to profess that I'm lacking when it comes to colour schemes (and oh how my fashion sense knows it ;-)) Light steel blue seems like it could go well with the white fields, or even combined with f0f8ff to replace the white field (I feel like Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen here!). I'm going to pre-emptively apologise here if anyone yanks their hair out at the thought of such a scheme. SoLando (Talk) 13:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Done! The warbox now uses lightsteelblue for the filled boxes. As far as other things for which colors can be chosen, we have: background (currently white/transparent), outer border (currently gray), inner borders (currently silver), and the campaignbox (currently silver? but should probably be changed to match the final color choice for the filled boxes).
 * My taste in colors leaves something to be desired as well (which is why I stuck with grayscale in my original design). Anybody want to come up with a better set of colors? &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 14:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have a feeling I've been unduly (and subconsciously) influenced by the battlebox in choosing that colour (what can I say?). I'm hoping there'll be many suggestions - is there a Stella McCartney about by any chance? ;-) SoLando (Talk) 14:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it is much better for eyes right now. - Darwinek 17:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Dubious War of 1812 naval actions
Some odd titles popping up in the New Articles listings: Battle of Chile, Battle of Virginia, Battle of Great Britain, etc. These were for the most part frigate v. frigate actions and the article names ought maybe to reflect this. Google testing suggests zero correlation between the titles as they are now and the events the articles describe.

Have we a standardized naming convention for small naval actions? Albrecht 16:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * We have a lot of existing "Action of Day Month Year" articles, but I don't believe we've ever discussed a standard for naming. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 16:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not terribly high priority for me, mind you; I just thought I'd give a heads-up before I forgot about it. I'm generally a proponent of being as flexible as possible with the word "battle" (NPOV and all that; plus, Canadian history is full of battles that foreigners would find comically small-scale), but seeing it applied to entirely bloodless events (Guam, 1898) or places that were merely surrendered or abandoned on account of an earlier defeat (Montreal, Ticonderoga) is sometimes too much. Albrecht 16:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * On a side note, I believe these names are coming from List of battles 1801-1900 and its ilk. I have no idea how they got on that page, though. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 01:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Looking at the original version of List_of_battles_1801-1900 most of these were originally "Battle off XXX" (eg. "Battle off Great Britain") which might, or might not, make more sense. Perhaps all such articles could be renamed "Naval action off XXX", if the location is meaningful, otherwise use the date.  Or perhaps if it's a two-ship action, "Naval action between XXX and YYY". Geoff/Gsl 03:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I messaged the person that started all of these dubious articles. He simply clicked on all the "List of Battles" links that did not have an article and he started one.  He does not know anything about any of the battles.  I advised him the names for the battles is wrong as no one uses those terms, he replied to change them.  The names of naval actions are going to vary depending on the action, for example if it involves just two ships the precident naming convention is Chesapeake-Leopard Affair Little Belt Affair.  Perhaps, changing "Affair" to "Naval Action" would be better though.  There were many small naval battles in the War of 1812 so I think we should come up with a Wiki naming policy for all small naval battles. This article might help guide us: List of naval battles Cordially Battlefield 13:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think the word "affair" is used in those cases because they were political/diplomatic incidents rather than wartime actions – in the American consciousness, therefore, they became part of the casus belli against Britain. But any standardized solution suits me fine. Albrecht 17:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Some of the "battles" in question are:
 * Battle of Nova Scotia, 19 August 1812, USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere (1806)
 * renamed Capture of HMS Guerriere
 * Battle of Virginia, 17 October 1812, USS Wasp (1807) and HMS Frolic (1806)
 * renamed Capture of HMS Frolic
 * Battle of Madeira, 25 October 1812, USS United States (1797) and HMS Macedonian
 * renamaed Capture of HMS Macedonian
 * Battle of Brazil, 29 December 1812, USS Constitution and HMS Java (1811)
 * renamed to Sinking of HMS Java
 * Battle of Guiana, 24 February 1813, USS Hornet (1805, brig) and HMS Peacock
 * renamed Sinking of HMS Peacock
 * Battle of Boston Harbor, 1 June 1813, USS Chesapeake (1799) and HMS Shannon (1806)
 * Battle of Great Britain, 14 August 1813, USS Argus (1803) and HMS Pelican
 * renamed Capture of USS Argus
 * Battle of Chile, 28 March 1814, USS Essex (1799) and HMS Phoebe (1795) and HMS Cherub
 * renamed Capture of USS Essex
 * Battle of Florida, 29 April 1814, USS Peacock (1813) and HMS Epervier
 * renamed Capture of HMS Epervier
 * Battle of Cherbourg France, 19 June 1864, USS Kearsarge (1861) and CSS Alabama
 * renamed Sinking of CSS Alabama

In many cases details of the action are in the ship articles so I don't know whether these articles are necessary or will ever be more than stubs linking two ships. Not being familiar with the War of 1812 or naval history, I don't know what is the best name to use, but anything is going to be better than the current titles. "Action of day month year" is the de facto format for nameless battles but "Sinking of XXX by YYY" or "Capture of XXX by YYY" might be more useful. Geoff/Gsl 01:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Warbox implementation and naming
Thanks to the efforts of Netoholic, the funny meta-templates have been eliminated from the warbox code. There are some minor changes in appearance that have resulted from copying code over; I'll try to nudge the border alignments and such back to the older style in the near future.

As an aside, we've been asked to rename "Template:Warbox" to "Template:Infobox War" for consistency with the other infobox templates. Are there any objections (or suggestions for a better name than "... War")? &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 17:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The minor changes are actually intentional, so as to allow people to configure their personal CSS setting to adjust certain aspects. Be careful not to hard-code too much for appearance purposes, unless those things are critical to the template's function.  As far as renaming, you'll not notice any difference.  A redirect will be left in place, so there is no immediate need to edit all the articles to change the reference.  You can do that incrementally over time.  "Infobox Xxx" has become a standard naming convention for infobox templates. -- Netoholic @ 17:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Having looked over the template more carefully, the only change to the appearance I'd like to make is removing the blank space between the "conflict" and "partof" rows. It's a minor issue, though. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, I kinda liked it myself. -- Netoholic @ 17:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I've renamed the template to Infobox Military Conflict, which I think more adequately describes what it's used for. Warbox is left as a redirect (it's a useful shorthand, in any case). If anyone has any objections, let me know. &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 19:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

List of Continental units for the American Revolutionary War
I have started assembling a List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War. This is not a straightforward task, so any help and input would be appreciated. I have also made a proposal for an infobox on the Talk page. --Leifern 00:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe a general infobox for military units would be more appropriate? &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 00:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)