Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Polish military history task force/Archive 1

Start
I started this project to coordinate our efforts on development of articles on the Polish Army, WWII in Poland, Polish-Bolshevik War and other topics. I believe that so far we should concentrate on 20th century. Gradually, we could start also other sub-projects related to other wars in which Poland was involved - back to the times of Battle of Cedynia:).

Let's keep this page for general discussion (Polish Army, polish generals, history of warfare in Poland in general and such). Topics related to either World War II in Poland or Polish-Bolshevik War should be kept in the following sub-pages. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 21:18, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Naming
Ladies (?) and Gentlemen, I started to work on the Polish 1939 OOB recently (check here) and a need arose to set up a naming policy for Polish infantry units. I used the system used in other division-related articles in Wikipedia, that is "Country Number Name". I suggest we sticked to the system and referred to 1 Dywizja Piechoty Legionów as Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division, to 15 Dywizja Piechoty as Polish 15th Infantry Division and so on. I was also thinking about the cavalry brigades since we have two options: Nowogródzka Brygada Kawalerii could be referred to as either Nowogródzka Cavalry Brigade or Nowogródek Cavalry Brigade. We can go either way here, what do you suggest? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 02:19, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * That is a very good question. Generally we use as much Polish as possible, thus Nowogródzka Cavarly Brigade would better. On the other hand, this may be totally incomprehensible to English speakers (not used to declension), so Nowogródek Cavarly Brigade would be more natural. So, my vote goes for Nowogródek Cavarly Brigade.Przepla 23:49, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Halibutt on the naming policy, so Country Number Name. As far as declinations go, I prefer to stick to the Nominativ in the English version just like Przepla has suggested. I propose the following rule for divisions that existed simultaneously, if they aren't distinguished already by name, adding the front or campaign, e.g.: Polish 3rd Infantry Division (September Campaign), Polish 3rd Infantry Division (Eastern Front), Polish 3rd Carpathian Infantry Division. What do the honorable gentlemen  think about this? :-) Pkmink 14:55, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * My 3 gr. - I think Nowogródzka Cavarly Brigade would be better, since English reader would likely get confused comparing Nowogródek Cavarly Brigade with Nowogródzka Brygada Kawalerii, or moreover, Mazowsze.. with Mazowiecka... Alternative (not that bad IMO) is "Mazovian Cavalry Brigade". Pibwl 16:56, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm more used to the system I used in the divisions articles on the Polish wiki long time ago (check pl:Dywizje polskie for details). There we merged all divisions of certain number into one article (that is 5th Infantry fighting in 1920, 1939, 1940 and 1943 were all placed in one article and disambiguated by different sections. This is pretty much the same system as the one used by most historians of the military units of Bellona or the ministry and I must say I like it. It shows the "tradition queue" (any ideas as to how to translate ciąg tradycji?) and the evolution, as well as allows us to limit the number of articles that would have to share much of the info. So, in this system the Polish 3rd Legions Infantry Division (no September Feldzug, for G*ds sake!), Polish 3rd Infantry Division, Polish 3rd Carpathian Infantry Division, Polish 3rd Home Army Infantry Division and all the rest are placed in one article and the link should redirect simply to Polish 3rd Infantry Division. How about that? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 03:21, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * On the second thought, the translation of Dywizja Strzelców Karpackich should rather be Polish 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division, much like other Rifle divisions are translated, both French and Russian. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 03:23, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Help!
Here: Talk:Polish_September_Campaign --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Naming scheme
Apparently User:Witkacy started moving around the articles on the Polish Army and I must say that I can't see any system behind it. I propose that the currently-existing articles on the armed forces on Poland be all combined into one article. I prefer the English name of Polish Army, though Wojsko Polskie could be equally good. (see the to-do list above)

From there we could start splitting the article onto sub-articles, like for instance History of the Polish Army, Polish Land Forces, Polish Navy, Polish Air Forces (the latter two are pretty good currently and could be left as they are, without combining them with the Polish Army first), and so on.

The third thing to decide before we make any changes in the structure is how many articles do we actually need. IMO the basic article on the Polish Army could be the main article of a series, with the articles on different branches of the armed forces, and a plethora of units and organizations of the past. So, how about the following structure?

--Halibutt 17:13, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Dobry podzial. Wojsko Polskie niech zostanie pod polska nazwa, reszta niech bedzie po angielsku, z tym ze tez mozna sie nad tym zastanowic - niemcy maja chyba lotnictwo pod luftwaffe. (w tabelce oczywiscie po angielsku wszystko powinno byc). Co do samej tabelki proponuje podobna do tej brytyjskiej jak np na tej stronie British Army officer rank insignia.--Witkacy 03:02, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Ja bym jednak nie przesadzał z tym promowaniem polszczyzny. Wehrmacht jest o wiele lepiej znany pod nazwą niemiecką, ale polska armia już raczej nie. Zostawiłbym Polish Army. Co do tabelki - gotowa. Halibutt 11:51, May 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * Wiec mozemy rozpromowac polska nazwe ;) jak chcesz dla mnie to w sumie obojetne. Tabelka swieta, dodalem orzelka na czerwonym tle--Witkacy 19:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Soldiers
Zmienilem troche Mniej wiecej to wyglada tak: Stanislaw Kopanski, Bronislaw Duch, Gustaw Orlicz-Dreszer co Wy na to?--Witkacy 02:58, 26 May 2005 (UTC) P.S. dla wojakow z lotnictwa i marynarki trzeba bedzie stworzyc identyczna lecz z jasniejszymi kolorami, by bylo widac ciemne pagony.

Voting
And again we have a lengthy voting on name issues - this time at Talk:Wojsko Polskie. Please join. Halibutt July 5, 2005 05:56 (UTC)

A stub type?
There's not a huge number of Polish military stub articles, and probably not enough for a stub category ordinarily, but a "supporting" WikiProject could justify such a thing. By my tally there are about 15 article in the main mil-stub category, plus doubtless more in subordinates categories such as weapons, aircraft types, etc. If it'd be useful here, it should of course be proposed first. Alai 00:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * And discussed (see this). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Piotrus. I think that if proposed as a WP-specific stub, it'd already be viable, due to the additional ones you've found.  Alternatively, if there are enough other stubs in Poland-stub, etc, to bring it up to about 60 total, I'll propose it myself.  (Currently these would go into the newly-created Europe-mil-stub.)  Alai 00:59, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Anyone have any thoughts on this, then? It seems like a good idea to me, but then, I can hardly speak for this WPJ. Alai 02:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Still no takers? I'll do a recount presently, and if it hits 60, and propose it regardless, but some interest from this wikiproject would be faintly encouraging.  Alai 05:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I already created a Polish Air Force stub to suit our needs some time ago. It's still underpopulated (and facing TfD), but it's there.  // Halibutt 13:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe just re-scope it as a "Polish military stub" for now? Are there many Polish Air Force articles that would need a separate stub type? Kirill Lok s  h in 14:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki
I have expanded Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki's career in the Russian military and his January-February 1918 clashes with pro-Bolshevik (mostly Latvian riflemen) forces using English and Russian language sources. Unfortunately, his role in the Greater Poland Uprising is poorly covered in most English language books and my Polish is so weak these days that carefully checking Polish language sources would take too long. If somebody could review/expand his contributions in 1918-1920, it would be lovely :) Ahasuerus 15:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. Halibutt 14:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Great work, thanks! Ahasuerus 03:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Karol Werner
I am pondering starting a page on my great-uncle Karol Werner (son of Edward Werner). I know that he was an officer with one of the WWII Polish divisions at Falaise Gap, probably a tank commander of some sort, based in Scotland, but I haven't been able to dig up much more information. Writing to the UK office just got a letter confirming that he was an officer, along with his dates of service. Can anyone here suggest a source of information to get more details about his military career? Have you seen his name in any of your books? It would be useful both for me personally, for Wikipedia, and also for his widow who is still living in France. --Elonka 19:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The question is, is being an officer notable? My grandfother reacher a rank of captain, fought in three wars (IWW, PSW and IIWW (PSC and then captive, to be specific)) and wrote memoires (recently published), but I am still not sure if he qualifies as notable...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Polish death camps
Hello all. I recently stumbled upon the article on Polish death camps phenomenon. It was poorly written so I gave it a try and referenced some of the remarks there. Do you think that the phenomenon deserves a better article than a mere stub? Halibutt 10:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Molobo notified me that there were articles both on Polish death camps and Polish concentration camps. As there was little content in the latter, I simply redirected it. Feel free to correct me if you think I was wrong. Anyway, there's a lot of books to complete the article (also here). There are some particularly outrageous quotations there, as for instance here: (..) the numbers of murders piling up in the name of the German people—in the Polish concentration camps, in the German camps, on the streets, in prisons (...) So, there were both Polish and German camps at the same time? A hard nut it seems...  // Halibutt 10:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I have been doing my bit on this subject on the Dutch wikipedia...both on the main page (what happened on this day?) as well the article about Auschwitz was talking about Polish death camp. Quickly changed it, with commentary, in the hope people will learn something... Pkmink 12:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Project userbox
Would be nice, don't you think so?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * User WPMILHIST Polish military history task force ← here you go. —Kirill Lok s hin 00:45, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Rayski
I'm currently working on a lengthy article on one of my personal heroes, Ludomił Rayski. I managed to write his story up to 1938 or so, but the most interesting part is still ahead. Anyway, I would appreciate any help, especially with sourcing the article. Do we know of any non-Polish language sources mentioning him?  // Halibutt 18:40, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Polish Air Force stub
Gentlemen, there's been some ado around the PolishAirForce-stub recently, but it seems I managed to defend it against TfDers and it seems it would stay. To populate the category I created some stubs on Polish WWII air squadrons and some notable pilots, feel free to write more :)  // Halibutt 09:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Polish armament
Hello all (is there anyone here?). Balcer has provided us with excellent pics of some of Polish military equipment kept in Finnish museums. commons:Vickers 6-Ton already has it's article, but commons:Wz. 78-09-31 Schneider 120 mm gun and commons:Wz. 29 Schneider 105 mm gun don't. Anyone interested or should I do it myself?  // Halibutt 10:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess it's 'if you want to have it done, do it yourself' world :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Stubs in voting
At WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/2006/June we are voting on Poland-battle-stub and Poland-mil-stub.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Military history Collaboration of the Fortnight
The article Battles of Narvik which is supported by this task force is now the focus of the current collaboration of the fortnight. Please join in improving this article. Inge 12:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Central European military history task force
I am member of the German military history task force. We do have a problem defining German, it is simply an impossible task to define German in medieval history without hurting anybody´s national feelings (Swiss, Dutch, Austrians, Czechs, etc.) because some of it was part of the Holy Roman Empire of German (stupid translation of an ancient word of germanic origin meaning common people) Nation.

Well, I suggested to skip all national identity issues. Current Germany does have Slavic roots (for example Rügen, Pomerania, Brandenburg) as well as Baltic (former Prussia), Romano-Celtic (Bavaria) and Germanic (Lower Saxony) and it is according to scientific literature impossible to define the German nation back in history, while there are lots of nations defining themselves as non-German (Dutch, Swiss, Austrians, etc.). Instead we could write from the perspective of a Central European military history taskforce. This way we could give a better view upon the multiple connections in between these areas. Personally I think it would be sad if such a cooperation in wikipedia was not possible, while France and Germany publish together a history schoolbook.

Kirill Lokshin pointed out there is likely to be some hot debate about Gdansk/Danzig. Well it had German, Polish and other inhabitants and was member of the Hanseatic League for some time. If you could tell me any troublespots and perhaps your opinion on the suggested merger. Thank you. Wandalstouring 23:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * (It would probably be a good idea to note—before anyone gets terribly upset—that this is only a query, and that no merger can take place without the explicit agreement of both task forces.) Kirill Lokshin 23:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is just a personal suggestion, nothing official. (Honestly, tell me how this idea could upset anyone?) Wandalstouring 23:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's refershing to see such a novel and level headed approach to this. As Krill pointed out, this was often not the case in the past. Unfortunately I am afraid this proposal will fail because there would be not enough people willing (or having time) to contribute both to their favourite nation project and the regional project. We have already tried a similar experiment with the Eastern European Wikipedians' notice board which is almost completly forgotten now. Perhaps one of these two projects can be adapted to facilitate crossposting? User:Ingoolemo/Thread help or LiquidThreads? PS. I wonder if this thread has been crossposted to other boards then this one?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Well there is only a German and Polish taskforce really concerned. The Dutch taskforce is something in between Central and Western Europe, so I left them out for now. Actually there might be some gaps to fill which might escape national attention. Writing about the Holy Roman Empire is also much easier this way. On the other hand you pointed out that interested to contribute tends to be correlated with interest to contribute on a specific ethnity. Perhaps we can find a solution like a superstructure. (This way national ID disputes are also easier to solve). Wandalstouring 12:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * One approach might be to keep the national task forces—as there are a great many topics for which such an association is perfectly clear—and let the variety of items around the fringes either be considered by muliple task forces (including period-based, rather than geographic ones), or even simply taken by the central project as a whole, without being tagged into any task force. Insofar as the task forces are meant to be more collaborative work areas based on common interests, rather than separate projects with formal scopes, I think it might be easier to avoid overthinking questions of inclusion a priori and let them be guided instead by the interests of the participants. Kirill Lokshin 15:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wake-up
Hello lads and lassies, it's been ages since we promoted any article to FA. Any suggestions for a new candidate?  // Halibutt 21:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Battle of Grunwald? ;-)
 * (I suspect it's too specialized a topic to attract much interest; but it's definitely something that deserves an FA.) Kirill Lokshin 21:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Frankly, recently I expanded the article on Władysław II of Poland, which is quite related to the issue, and would rather try to FA that one first. Then we could simply add the same set of references to the article on the Battle of Grunwald and push it through PR, as the article is pretty well written already. Anyway, being more specialised in modern warfare I was thinking of some WWI or WWII topic...  // Halibutt 07:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Józef Piłsudski is really close, the only issue that made it fail was unsourced accusations of POVness :( Any help with addressing those issues would be nice, although since very fact in the article is referenced, and accusations of POVness were not, I wonder what can be done if such 'liberum veto' can stop any artilce from FAing? PS. Our older articles - Battle of Warsaw. Stanisław Koniecpolski - desperatly need inline citations!--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's go with the Battle of Warsaw then. I'm pretty sure we could dig up lots of fine refs for that one. I'll see what I can do as soon as I finish my latest project (that would be the French... err... Saturday)  // Halibutt 16:10, 27 October 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 21:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Polish military biography stub
Antoni Dunin is a Polish military biography stub listed for deletion. In the article it is claimed he received the Virtuti Militari. One of his grandchildren User:Elonka seems interested in the biography. Perhaps you have an idea what can be done about this. Wandalstouring 05:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Polish-Swedish Wars
Don't know if this project is going outside 20th century yet, but anyways.... I stubbed Polish-Sweden War (1600–1611), Polish-Sweden War (1620–1622), Polish-Sweden War (1625–1629) out from this one, which was getting unwieldy, but am having difficulty rewriting them into independent articles, with a beginning, middle and end etc. Any takers to help? Neddyseagoon - talk 16:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Konotop
Battle of Konotop is listed as part of the Polish-Russian Wars in the Polish wiki. The article has stirred up some heated disputes. Perhaps some of you know a bit about the topic and can help. Wandalstouring 20:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Armia Krajowa
There's a new peer review request for Armia Krajowa that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Vilnius Castle Complex
There's a new peer review request for Vilnius Castle Complex that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 20:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
There's a new peer review request for Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 04:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

How to combine Tagging and assessment between projects?
Articles of interest to Polish military history task force are obviously of interest to WikiProject Poland. First question of order: if an article is tagged with Polish military history task force, does it need to be tagged with WikiProject Poland/Assessment template? I have synchronized the categories (ex. Category:Polish military history articles by quality is now a subcategory of Category:Poland-related articles by quality. The question is, do we want to duplicate templates (WPMILHIST and WikiProject Poland) on article's talk page?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, there are two technical issues to consider here:
 * I don't believe the assessment bot will go through sub-categories. In other words, it's not enough that the task force assessment categories be inside the Poland ones; each article has to be in both categories separately for it to be picked up into both sets of assessments.
 * It would be possible to add code to WPMILHIST such that the task force assessment data would automatically be replicated for the Poland project.
 * The rest of it is a project policy issue rather than a technical one. Does the Poland project want to use the Military history assessments of articles covered by both?  If so, the technical fix above would be helpful.  Note, however, that the Military history tag doesn't support importance ratings; if that data is of interest, you'll need to double-tag the articles anyways. Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It is my belief that assessment should not vary between projects, as quality is constant (importance is another issue, but WPMILHIST is not dealing with that anymore, as we know). Therefore a script (bot) that would add Poland assessment template with WPMILHIST rating to articles that have WPMILHIST Poland-yes but no Poland template would indeed be quite useful.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I vaguely recall that some of the project-tagging bots out there will pick up existing ratings and carry them over to the template they're adding; you might want to ask at WP:BOTREQ to see if one would be available to go through Category:Polish military history task force articles. Kirill Lokshin 00:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Kingbotk bot seems to be doing something along those line.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 06:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really, my tool doesn't currently transfer ratings between WikiProjects. It could do that in version 2 perhaps. --kingboyk 13:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Soviet partisans
There's a new peer review request for Soviet partisans that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
There's a new request for A-Class status for Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Operation Wilno
There's a new peer review request for Operation Wilno that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 20:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Warsaw Uprising FAR
Warsaw Uprising has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 15:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Antoni Dunin (2nd nomination)
Since I'm definitely not an expert on this topic, if anyone has insight on the Virtuti Militari in the WWII era, your comments would be greatly appreciated. Also, some of the references to this medal and his military work are in Polish, so anyone who might be able to translate, we could certainly use the help :) Thanks. Shell babelfish 18:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Smolensk War now open
The A-Class review for Smolensk War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 01:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle of Albuera
There's a new peer review request for Battle of Albuera that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 12:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)