Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Operation Great War Centennial

Priority vs workload
In creating a list of key topics it would be useful to know at what levle the current article stands from stub through to FA. That way the possible editors might be able to identify what sort of task is involved for each.GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I concur. Obviously, anyone should feel free to suggest topics, and to add that kind of information :-)=== The Land (talk) 12:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added some status. Where there is a mixture of ratings with other projects, I've gone with the military project rating.GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Where would users put suggestions for topics that could be covered by this Special Project? Commander Zulu (talk) 01:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If you believe they are core topics then add them to the core topics list. Which obviously begs the question of what is a core topic. I would suggest for the minute:


 * General articles which cover large aspects of WWI from an international angle
 * All major battles and operations ('major' meaning 'wouldn't be summarised in an article on another battle or operation'; so Battle of the Somme would eb core, but Battle of Bazentin Ridge would not be)
 * All combatant armies (as relevant to WWI)
 * Navies and airforces where significant
 * Individual units only where there is particular significance to them, e.g. because they represented a national contribution - so Australian and New Zealand Army Corps is a core topic but not I Corps (United Kingdom)
 * Lists of armies, corps, divisions, warships etc which participated
 * The most important weapons, equipment, tactics and technologies
 * So Sopwith Camel might be a core topic but not every fighter model deployed by the UK
 * corps technologies should be based on the princaple of- "move, shoot, and comunicate, or vehicles, weapons, como. Brian in denver (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Individuals of major strategic importance - specifically....
 * Any supreme commander of combatant nations
 * Most theatre commanders, Prime Ministers, Ministers of War etc
 * The most important army commanders, diplomats and other influential politicians
 * Other individuals regardless of rank/position who had a genuinely profound strategic impact
 * Other individuals who achieved international, historic reputation from their actions in WWI, regardless of their impact (e.g. Manfred von Richtofen)
 * Any comments on this list? The Land (talk) 11:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * What about the home front?GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point. Where do you think it best fits in? The Land (talk) 21:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There are several articles on WWI by country: (eg. Portugal in World War I, Canada in World War I). What do we think about adding a "by country " article list? - Canglesea (talk) 21:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. The Land (talk) 21:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I will populate one today. - Canglesea (talk) 21:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The Library of Congress has a high number of propoganda posters for WWI from a variety of countries. Would these be good lead images for the Home Front articles? Most should be featureable. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Goals
So what should the goals of this drive be? for the time being, I would suggest: What do people think....? The Land (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Create and maintain a list of core topics
 * Improve all core topics to a minimum of B-class; i.e. a broadly accurate article with no glaring ommissions, and at least minimal referencing.
 * Improve a significant number of articles from the Core Topics list to A-class, GA or FA status. These articles should be distributed across areas and should include a high proportion of the most popular pages. This will inevitably involve the creation of some Featured Topics.
 * Improve the article on World War I to Featured Article status.


 * I think it'd be worth trying to get "core groups" defined and decide if we can reasonably create them - divisional histories, for example, or articles on all corps commanders or above. They're certainly within our scope, and there's a definite potential for "complete sets" on a lot of topics. Shimgray | talk | 23:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * We could do! However that would markedly increase the number of articles we were trying to deal with... The Land (talk) 10:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * How about listing articles which do not yet exist yet? Should the redlink be included in the list?  For example, I'm fairly sure that Marinekorps Flandern warrants inclusion (German naval force which occupied the Belgian coast, manned the front line, operated U-Boats against merchant shipping and destroyers in the English channel and had its own naval airforce.  It of course also fought off the Zeebruge and Ostende Raids in 1918.  It would tie in fairly nicely with Dover Patrol, which ought to be listed as well. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep. Where an important topic has no article, create a redlink - you'll notice there are a few in the list already... If you feel that Marinekorps Flandern and Dover Patrol are important enough to be on the list, do add them. I imagine they count as significant naval operations. The Land (talk) 19:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Does anyone object if I replace Convoy in the naval section with Battle of the Atlantic (1914-1918)? "Convoy" is at best going to be a summary of the events of World War I, while one day going into detail in the Battle of the Atlantic article won't pose a problem (provided someone can sort that article out).  One of these days someone will have to create some new topic articles, such as Commerce raiding in World War I, Naval aviation in World War I and perhaps rename some of the existing ones, which seem a bit of a hodgepodge: Mediterranean U-boat Campaign (World War I), Mediterranean naval engagements during World War I, Naval warfare of World War I, Battle of the Atlantic (1914–1918), Adriatic Campaign of World War I, Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign.  Is it worth trying to produce some order in these? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In some areas it will be appropriate to have separate articles on doctrines/tactics/methods and on operations/engagments - e.g. 'barrage' is probably worth including in the list. That said I agree that Battle of the Atlantic will cover the relevant material... And yes, do suggest new articles and imposing order onto existing ones. The Land (talk) 12:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you've underestimated the value of featured pictures in promoting an article. For getting an article promoted on the main page, an FP is almost as good (slightly lower down the page) as a featured article, and there's less competition for anniversaries with FPs.
 * As such, I'd suggest that a parallel process of getting FPs wouldn't be a bad idea, though we should probably make sure the articles are at least a solid B before they run on the main page.
 * For those that don't know, I'm fairly expert at preparing images and getting them up to Featured picture requirements, and am happy to help. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been working with WP:GLAM/Pritzker to get more WWI biographies up and fill out some of the smaller battle articles. Please check out the articles for Clayton Knight, Joseph B. Sanborn, and Some Day They're Coming Home Again - a WWI song by The Orpheus Quartet.  Those articles were created in Feb. 2015.  More to come as we approach the centennial of American entry into the war. TeriEmbrey (talk) 15:46, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Category:World War I by country cleanup
The articles are named "country in/during/and World War I". We should probably standardize that. See also my comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Poland. PS. Many of those countries in that category need to be added to WWI history by nation. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion
It doesn't look like there's been a lot of activity here (unless I'm missing something), but I figured I'd throw this suggestion out there: how about we standardize the country articles? Right now there's a variety of titles: I know there is a difference between 'military history' and general history, but because there isn't both Australia in World War II and Military history of Australia during World War I, I propose that we rename them all under one name. Or, at the very least, can we change all the "during"s to "in"s?
 * Military history of Australia during World War I
 * Bulgaria during World War I
 * Canada in World War I
 * History of the United States (1865-1918)

Or is there something I'm missing in the MOS? Bsimmons 666  (talk) 03:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I suggest the new names *Egypt in World War I, *The Levant in World War I and *Mesopotamia in World War I should be added to the categories to encourage growth of scholarship in these campaigns, currently lumped together as Middle East. Also I suggest the 'Sinai and Palestine campaigns' page should be separated into two pages; 'Campaigns in Egypt' and 'Campaigns in The Levant' so that the dynamic, fluid and therefore complex operations can begin to be more easily understood. --RoslynSKP (talk) 06:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Core Impact and Aftermath Topics
I noticed there isn't anything yet listed under the "Core Impact and Aftermath Topics" section. My interest is mainly in this area (currently WW1 memorials), and I thought maybe giving some examples here might get ideas going for what could go there. As well as memorials, there are the commemoration events themselves, a timeline of 'legacy' events since WW1, articles on the centenary events themselves, articles on WW1 historians and the development of the study of the history, museums, archives, education, and other stuff. War poetry, art and literature as well (both during and after the war). And reconstruction efforts and political treaties and such things. That's all I can think of for now, but which of those (and other stuff I've forgotten) would be core topics? Carcharoth (talk) 09:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Medal of Honor/Victoria cross recipients
I wanted to suggest that a mention of the Medal of Honor/Victoria cross (and potential other major awards) recipients be included as well. I am not trying to suggest that every recipient be included but in regards to World War I we have a list of recipients and several very well known individuals (Sergeant Alvin York or Eddie Rickenbacher for example) that could be included. --Kumioko (talk) 18:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Refocus?
This project hasn't had a large amount of work done since July. Should the focus of the project be altered to get all of the articles up to a B-class standard, so there is actually an outside shot at achieving the goal? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:28, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Something more attainable might be wise. That said, for the moment, it might be simplest to focus on actually getting a clear list of core & secondary topics so we can spot the biggest holes! I'll have a look at the main lists and see what's still missing... Shimgray | talk | 21:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Setting new targets
Similar to the above section, I'm posting here to see if there is any interest in moving things forward here again, starting with some fairly easy goal and then moving on from there. Maybe a good starting point would be to tidy things up a bit, and see where things have got to at the moment in terms of article quality. And then pick an area to focus on and maybe even try and set some broad goals for the next year or so. One key point is to distinguish between what this specific project is trying to achieve and what the WWI taskforce is doing. The latter currently has 12,812 articles tagged within its purview. Clearly the list currently on the front page here ('Operation Great War Centennial') is only a high-level subset of that, but in my view the current list is too long. What is needed is to either focus on a limited area for a few months and then move on to another area, or to identify a smaller list of articles and work on those. But it is vital to avoid falling into the trap of making lists and plans and not doing any actual work. My suggestion would be to take a high-level template such as Template:World War I, and concentrate on those articles. Though having now looked at that template, even that is a bit much. Maybe identify a limited number of subtopics. Anything so long as it can be broken down into manageable chunks. Carcharoth (talk) 01:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

General discussion of special projects
Posting a brief note here to alert anyone watching this page of the discussion I've started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, regarding the special projects in general. Carcharoth (talk) 19:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK - activity plan and microgrant
Hello all,

Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia movement and recently achieved full charity status. As part of its 2012 activity plan the WWI centenary is listed as one of the things time, energy and finances will be devoted to. There will be outreach to institutions with a view to collaborating with them to bring WWI resources to the public with Wiki-friendly licenses. The chap that's going to be running it (whose name sadly escapes me at the moment) is going to kick off activities in early 2012 and I'll try to make sure MILHIST knows what we're up to and when.

As part of the activity plan I have initiated an application for a microgrant for UK editors who wish to get their hands on some WWI resources they can use to improve our articles. A microgrant can be of up to £250 in value, although Wikimedia UK does have a significantly larger proposed budget for the World War aspects of their activity plan. Please do take a look at the Microgrant application even if you're not eligible to receive the resources as I would like us to collaboratively decide which books (etc) would give us most bang for our buck, ie the best resources to aid article improvement.

I am personally committing to spending 2 to 4 hours a week on WWI Wiki-stuff from now til the centenary. Unfortunately I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a military buff (though I can see myself growing into it). I approach WWI as very much a newbie but I do at least have a long track record of involvement with Wikipedia and have solid article creation and editing skills. I hope to make myself useful. I look forward to seeing how this Operation develops and helping out where I can. --bodnotbod (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Memorials...
Just to say that I've taken a stab at a page on World War I memorials as an overview of the theme; in particular, if anyone has any info on the creation of the Turkish memorials to the war in the 1940s and 1950s, that would be really useful, as I couldn't find much in English! Hchc2009 (talk) 19:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Hchc2009. I'm pinging you because I'm going through some of these talk page sections to see if people are interested in editing on this topic over the next 4-5 years (see section at the bottom of this talk page). I don't know of any sources on the Turkish memorials myself, but hopefully it will be possible to find something eventually. One thing I did notice in relation to memorials recently was that one of the memorials mentioned in Centenary of the outbreak of World War I doesn't have an article on the English Wikipedia. There is an article on the French Wikipedia at: fr:Mémorial Interallié. I may eventually get round to creating an en-WP article on that, but am hoping you or someone else might also be interested. Carcharoth (talk) 02:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Adding classicons
Just been adding classicons to the Sinai and Palestine campaign articles and I wondered if they need to be rearranged into chronological order at this stage? Happy to do so if necessary. --Rskp (talk) 01:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi - I work on the Old Weather project, which transcribed the log books of 318 Royal Navy ships during the WWI era. In the course of this work, it was discovered that HMS Macedonia was involved in the Battle of the Falkland Islands, and she is not included in the Wiki article re this battle. I have included the links to the Old Weather website on the talk page for the Battle of The Falkland Islands. Per agreement, information from Old Weather log transcriptions is not considered original research. Kwendolk (talk) 00:56, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

wp:TFA
Hey guys, is anybody thinking about featuring your articles on the main page? Nergaal (talk) 18:57, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Welcoming new and current editors
I'm posting this talk page section as part of an attempt to welcome new and current editors on the WWI topic. What I'd like to eventually see is a group of editors participating here actively over the next five years and trying to work together to achieve a substantial improvement in our coverage of the WWI topic. I'm aware that many editors are working on this topic, but getting an idea of the diversity of topics being worked on is not easy. I'm going to post at a few places pointing people to here. If you are interested in joining this project or just helping out here and there or reading about future plans, please leave a message below saying what you have been or would like to work on. Carcharoth (talk) 08:18, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I want to do lots of World War I featured pictures, which will both help get articles onto the main page by a secondary route, and also improve illustration of the articles. I will need help choosing, but even a little bit of guidance, like "can you find anything for X", and I'll do my best. I'm limited by what resources I have, of course, but will try to get more over time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:31, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, hey, neat. Pétain is one of the listed key articles. I'm half-way through an FP of him. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Adam. One thing that will really help get people more aware of this wikiproject is to tell them about it when you encounter others editing on this topic. If you could do that, and also remind people about this discussion page and project when you see people turn up at WT:MILHIST with questions on WWI topics, that would help a lot. You could also drop a note on the Pétain talk page (do you also have a link to the pictures you are or might be working on, as I might be able to make some suggestions?). Another way to get people discussing things here is to shamelessly ping them with questions. I was recently trying to do an interwiki link between fr:Commémoration de la Première Guerre mondiale and First World War centenary (though the topics are not a complete match, I think they are close enough). But I got a conflict between wikidata items Q5454099 and Q17494019. Pinging User:Andrew Davidson (who created the en-WP article) and User:Pigsonthewing to see if either can help. Carcharoth (talk) 02:01, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Everything at User:Adam_Cuerden is at least under consideration. There's a section on WWI, though anything currently being worked on is jumbled in the top section. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * John Jellicoe is the first image out of the project. Pétain is still happening, but slow. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I'll next be jumping forward to WWII for Mahan-mania, as I like to call it, and "USS Mahan (DD-364) is being written by a veteran who served on her, must feature every image in the article" as others phrase it; then back, finish up Petain - the damage on Pétain is.... interesting (see below). Probably going to do some American Civil War stuff as well, as that's also an anniversary. General Joseph Dana Webster is about 70% done.  Lusitania soon after Petain. 33rd Regiment Alabama Infantry needs to fit in there as well. I've promised to help out on some of the images.  Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Dating
For purposes of scheduling things for specific dates, it'd be helpful to add the dates of battles to the sortable lists. I currently want to work on things from around November 1914 to June 1915, as they're the "urgent" anniversaries. October is probably too soon to sort things out. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for help with bios
Who is alive and working on this project? I've been doing a ton of British honours lists and there are so many deserving people who do not have bios. Top generals, admirals, knights, etc. I'm very impressed with the number of bios the Aussies and New Zealanders already have out there, but there remains work to be done on the British and Canadian side, and probably Americans too. Would there be any other people interested in working on bios? The honours list are a good place to start. —Мандичка YO 😜 21:09, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * A bit of a late reply, but I am interested if you are still working on this, User:Wikimandia? Carcharoth (talk) 19:46, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I can help with biographies, especially American and Canadian. TeriEmbrey (talk) 14:57, 2 July 2016 (UTC)