Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force/Archive 2

Adding Articles To This Task Force
Hi every body, I think we should work together to add articles to this task force it has only 20 articles right now. let's start working, it's so simple just add   Menasim (  discuss  ) 12:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Good idea. Another thing to do (if nobody has done it yet) would be to leave notes introducing the task force at the more active of the related WikiProjects; I'm not sure whether they're aware it exists now. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 13:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think there but i am sure that people interested in this topic are many. So I think if someone creates a template to invite users to his task force it will be good idea  Menasim ( discuss  ) 13:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Scope
In tagging and assessing articles, I have come across the question of overlapping scope between this task force and that of Africa. Ultimately, I don't think it's a bad thing to overlap, and double-tag articles, but I wanted to double-check with people. Thanks. LordAmeth 21:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, double-tagging is pretty normal now. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 21:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Can someone look over the Nagmachon stub?
Hi. I made a few changes on the Nagmachon stub due to some inaccuracies that were there before, but to be honest, I'm not entirely confident in the info I added either. I think I may be getting info about the Nagmachon vehicle, the NagmaSho't vehicle and the Nakpadon vehicles mixed up... for example, would the "NagmaSho't" also have been referred to as "Nagmachon" at some point? thanks, Mike McGregor (Can) 17:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Opinion Requested for results of war for 2006_Lebanon_War
I would like to ask you to weigh-in with your thoughts on changing the results tab on the 2006_Lebanon_War to say "Widely considered a Hezbollah Victory" please see the discussion on the talk page here and here. You will also see a reference posted by user:George that shows that most Israeli's believe that Israel lost. So the reasoning goes that if the losing side believes they lost then the other side won. I find this an interesting topic with the advent of assymetrical war we need to come up with a better way of determining the winning side in these articles. Pocopocopocopoco 15:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal
At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict Kirill suggested merging WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict into this Middle Eastern military history task force. It sounds like a good idea to me.

So I put up the merger proposal template at the top of:
 * WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict

It links to this "Merger proposal" section. --Timeshifter 03:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, as there have been no objections, I've carried out the merger. Kirill 22:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

WPMILHIST project banner
Concerning WikiProject Military history/Project banner, I have a question or two.

As instructed on our task force page I added this below near the top of Talk:Occupation 101:



But none of the links in the resulting banner link back to:
 * WikiProject Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force

I don't see how this task force will get many members unless the addition of the parameter "Middle-Eastern-task-force=yes" also produces a direct link to this task force from the banner.

Is there a way to change the template action of "Middle-Eastern-task-force=yes" to add that link (labeled and named, too) to the banner on all the talk pages using that particular banner? --Timeshifter 04:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Did you click the [show] link next to "Additional information:"? That's where the task force links show up. ;-) Kirill 15:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * OK. Thanks, I see now. I can see why though this project has so few members. Most people ignore all the details except for the name of a project banner. Unless they are a member of a project or thinking of joining that particular one.


 * Even then all I would have remembered is "WikiProject Military history" if just scrolling through the usual pile of project banners on a talk page. And I would have clicked the top link on the banner, not the additional info link, if I was interested in checking out a project to see whether I wanted to join it.


 * Actually, I am not interested in military history exactly. I am interested in current Arab/Israeli casualties, conflicts, interactions, negotiations, and recent military history as it relates to that.


 * So when I saw the banner that I added to Talk:Occupation 101, and then visited the "WikiProject Military history" page linked from the top of the banner, I was disappointed not to see anything of interest in the first page or 2 of the project page. And so I moved on.


 * That is a shame because I see that the Military history project has a lot of tools. But without enough members the Middle Eastern military history task force will not get nearly as much done as it could. Especially in the particularly contentious topics of recent Middle Eastern military history.


 * I suggest making the first sentence of the banner read something like this:


 * "This article is within the scope of the Middle Eastern military history task force, part of the Military history WikiProject."


 * Then it has a better chance of getting members. As concerns Arab/Israeli and Middle East topics it is competing with other WikiProjects to get members in this area. There is
 * WikiProject Palestine
 * WikiProject Israel
 * WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict
 * WikiProject Arab world
 * Category:WikiProject Middle East and its many WikiProjects.--Timeshifter 01:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That's not feasible from a technical standpoint, unfortunately, since the various task forces are not mutually exclusive. Placing the name of the task force within the top text may seem reasonable for an article that's only associated with one; but most articles have multiple linked task forces, which would make the text inordinately long.  (And, of course, something like the tag on Talk:World War II would be completely impossible to deal with in this form.)
 * In reality, I suspect this is more systemic bias issues (and the relative youth of the task force) rather than anything more technical. The project's welcome template, the note at the top of the member list, the ubiquitous navigation bar, and the introduction at the top of the project page all prominently mention the availability of task forces; I think that's probably enough to catch the attention of anyone who'd be willing to join in the first place. Kirill 02:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I see what you mean about the banner at Talk:World War II.

The WikiProject Military history shows the list of task forces in the bottom half of the page. And people have to know that task forces exist before they can know to search for them.

Many people editing in the controversial area of Middle Eastern military history are looking for help concerning the systemic bias in this specific area, and one soon learns that numbers of editors matters most.

People are desperate to find a group of editors with more moderating elements than hotheads. And they are so happy when they find WikiProjects with a lot of editors such as WikiProject Palestine and WikiProject Israel.

What sells the Middle Eastern military history task force, in my opinion, are the table of tools at the top right of the task force page. That is what sold it to me, and so I think a direct link to the task force is needed in a short talk-page banner.

Maybe we can create a separate banner just for this task force. I tried adapting the generic WikiProjectNotice template, WikiProjectNotice

But it uses the same name twice in the template, and it doesn't work since there is no article named "Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force". I checked the template notes, and there is no way to fix, or get rid of, that second link.

I am thinking about creating a WikiProjectNotice2 that does not have the second part of the sentence. It would not have "a project to improve Wikipedia's articles related to Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force." --Timeshifter 02:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Introducing another banner is impractical; the actual MILHIST contains a lot of code necessary to make the project's various tools work, and using a separate banner will break most of them. This is the reason why we don't simply use a different banner for each task force.
 * But, again, I don't think there's a real issue with the banner, per se; certainly, in my experience, people do find the task forces through the tags. What may be a neater solution—and certainly a simpler one—would be moving the task force list closer to the top of the project page.  That should make things a bit easier on anyone coming in through that direction.  Another (easy to implement) thing would be to have the "Additional information" line in the main banner indicate the presence of relevant task forces. Kirill 02:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Both done now, incidentally; you can see the result at Talk:Occupation 101. That will give most editors a sufficient hint that task forces exist, I think. ;-) Kirill 03:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That will help. I suggest also maybe changing one of the sentences in the main project banner from


 * If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.


 * to


 * If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks, and topical and regional task forces.


 * "Regional" being the key word, especially if emphasized. --Timeshifter 03:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I should mention that "task force" is not a phrase I use often, or would recognize offhand as having something to do with a region. One of my thoughts on seeing the phrase was that it was a subgroup of the project that had a to-do list. So I am not sure that many people with a geographical focus will follow that link unless a geographical adjective is added. --Timeshifter 04:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Good idea; now done. Kirill 06:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I hope it works. --Timeshifter 07:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Operation Spark (1973)
Operation Spark (1973) (connected to the Yom Kippur War) does not cite references or sources. Can anyone help? Thanks a lot. IZAK 08:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)