Portal talk:War

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The War Portal is a featured portal, which means it has been identified as one of the best portals on Wikipedia. If you see a way this portal can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.

	This non-article page is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
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More information... PEER This page has had a peer review which is now archived.

War has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

This talk page is for the Portal about War. Ensure this portals' details are listed in the Portal directory. For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.

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Contents 1 Suggestions 2 Intro 3 Biographies 4 DYK's 5 Weekly featured pictures 6 Balance 7 Spam fritter from a new WikiProject

[edit] Suggestions

Howdy.

This portal looks pretty good thus far. Can I recommend though that you add a Collaboration of the Week and an Article Improvement Drive?

If you need any help with this project, I'll be glad to pitch in. Oberiko 02:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'll add the existing collaboration for the time being; unfortunately, it's been inactive for quite some time, and I'm not sure this will be enough to revive it. Kirill Lokshin 02:22, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

May I suggest you add a "newest articles" section? Oberiko 16:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's where the content of the Did you know section is coming from (although perhaps it isn't as heavily updated as it could be). I'm not sure that a straight listing of new articles will be useful here, since many of them will be sub-stubs and the like. Kirill Lokshin 22:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I currently update the DYKs at Portal:India and wouldn't mind updating this as I like DYKs (more than featured articles!) on Wikipedia. I'll catch any new DYKs on wars/battles appearing on the main page and update it fortnightly/weekly as applicable. Idleguy 16:12, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I try to update the DYKs as much as I'm able, but I'm grateful for any help. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot that are nominated in the first place, so pickings are rather slim. Kirill Lokshin 16:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

May I suggest that you bold the main event in the selected aniverseries section? TomStar81 02:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

A good idea. I've just started that section today, though, so I haven't had time to get everything together quite yet. —Kirill Lokshin 03:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Can the box containing military-oriented articles currently up on the peer review and FAC pages be modified to include military-oriented featured articles currently on the FARC page here? This would allow the members of War Portal to attempt to fix such articles before they lose their FA status and consequently are forced through peer review and FAC processes all over again. TomStar81 03:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

PS I like the new look!

Thanks! I wasn't aware that any military-related articles were on FARC at the moment; if I do see any, I'll be sure to add them. —Kirill Lokshin 03:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Bless You! Your place in heaven will be high! TomStar81 04:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

Would it be possible to break the intro into several boxes (individual or all contained within a large one)? The information is excellent, but I don't think line breaks are the most clear and eye-catching way to divide the chunks of text. Any thoughts? Thanks, Sango123 (talk) 02:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! I'll see what I can do. Kirill Lokshin 04:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks great! :) Sango123 (talk) 02:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biographies

I'm curious but I haven't been able to find much on information regarding military biographies regarding wanted articles, etc. I've been trying to eliminate the red links of pages such as List of naval commanders and similar pages. Is there a specific project dealing with this subject ? MadMax 10:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The only really active project in this entire field is Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. We don't (formally) do much with biographies at the moment, but a number of members do write them, and there has been some discussion about doing them on a project-wide basis. My suggestion would be to bring the issue up on the project page; if there's interest, we can formally add biographies to the scope of the project. —Kirill Lokshin 18:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK's

how does one go abut nominating DYK's? ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 17:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Nominating? None of that silly red tape here ;-)

I try to grab anything that's listed on Template talk:Did you know; if you have other articles that you'd like added, you should just mention them to me (you can add them yourself, of course, but the archiving scheme is somewhat complicated, so telling me may be easier unless you're willing to spend some time figuring it out). —Kirill Lokshin 17:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weekly featured pictures

It seems there is sufficient demand for weekly featured pictures.. would anyone oppose this? Mlm42 17:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Umm, yeah. We don't have 52 featured pictures to work with, and I don't really think rotating through the same set is a good idea. —Kirill Lokshin 17:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

What about every other week then? Do we have enough FPs for that? TomStar81 20:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

We only have about 14 or 15 FPs; hence my initial decision to rotate them monthly. I suppose we could do it bi-weekly (and run through them twice), but I really don't see any major benefit in doing so. (On another note, I'm not quite sure where this "demand for weekly featured pictures" has been expressed; most portals change material monthly, if at all.) —Kirill Lokshin 20:26, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was just feeling out the FP content for the Portal, I have no strong feelings one way or the other. Roatating once a month is fine by me. TomStar81 20:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

alright, fair enough.. it just seems that pictures relating to war get featured pretty often, so although there may not be 52 now, it seems likely there will be when the time comes. but if you don't mind having the same picture for a month, that's fine.. i guess i just prefer quickly changing things. Mlm42 15:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Should there not be a thread on "Spave Warfare"?

[edit] Balance

For balance and NPOV, shouldn't there be some content here about opposition to war, peace movements, alternatives to violence, etc.? -- Beland 21:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, portals aren't meant to have any particular "balance", any more so than the Main Page is; given that they're not articles, and not dealing with a single topic, it's not clear what we're supposed to be "balancing".

More practically: the topics you mention do (occasionaly) come up in the selected anniversaries. They don't seem to have very many good articles, though; are there any featured articles or featured pictures dealing with them? If there are, they could probably be included in the rotation. Also, there's some discussion of expanding the topic and category lists (see the active peer review link above); we could probably link to some anti-war topics there, if you can give me a list of some major ones. Kirill Lokshin 21:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view explicitly applies to portals. The topic of this portal is "war"; just as the article war should be balanced, so should the portal. Looking at this portal, I would think that a person with a generally anti-war outlook would find that it glorifies war by focusing on the techniques and stories thereof, omitting any mention of efforts to prevent or stop it.

To find additional articles and categories to feature here, Category:Peace is a good starting point. I'm not an expert on the subject, but there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Anti-war which might be able to help. I've left a note on their talk page asking for suggestions; they also have a ranking system in use on their project page which lists a number of articles in various stages of construction. -- Beland 21:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much help their own ranking system would be, since this portal uses only Wikipedia featured articles; but if they can provide a handful of good major topics to link to, we can put those on the topic list. Kirill Lokshin 22:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I've expanded the category list somewhat; it now includes a number of categories that are either directly or indirectly related to anti-war topics; I'll try to add some more links when I expand the topic list. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are any featured articles on anti-war topics; but that's not really a significant issue, in my opinion. Kirill Lokshin 22:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool; I guess the rest is up to contributors to those articles. -- Beland 01:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam fritter from a new WikiProject

Hi folks! I've long been interested in war cemeteries. This isn't as morbid as it sounds: they are places of endless variation, quiet reflection and reminders that war has an aftermath. Also, I live part of the time in Ieper, so I'm surrounded by them!

To further this interest, and to make use of the notes I have made over the past couple of years, I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Commonwealth War Graves to document the notable Imperial/Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries around the world. Many of these are notable for their location, history or some of the chaps sadly interred within.

If members of Portal:War would like to be involved, that would be great. Greater still would be if Portal:War would consider this new WikiProject to be a part of Portal:War and treat it accordingly.

Many thanks! ➨ ≡ЯΞDVΞRS≡ 21:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty much the only person to visit this page on a regular basis; this probably wasn't the most high-profile place to announce things. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Bah! Still, it cost nothing to do, I suppose! :o) ➨ ≡ЯΞDVΞRS≡ 10:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)