BattleTechWiki talk:Project Military Commands

Initial article creation

Would it be OK to first create articels with only a bit basic info like names & nicknames so we can make sure everything is were it should be and furthermore nothing is missing? I was thinking about doing it this way but that sentence: "When creating an article, fill it in with info. Articles with no text may be subject to deletion." made me stop.--BigDuke66 18:37, 17 February 2009 (PST)

I say go for it, add the articles and add a stub tag where appropriate. I think the sentence you mention refers to articles about which nothing can really be written for lack of information. And then there's the difference between "may be" and "will". Frabby 03:23, 18 February 2009 (PST)

Per one of the many discussions on Canon or Notability (I'm too lazy to look it up right down), we discussed deleting tiny articles that were essentially placeholders. I was under the impression at the time that we had consensus for that, but maybe it only applied to articles on fictional characters. Or some fictional characters. That's the reason I placed that in this project. That, and I plan to actually find that and enshrine it as a policy, unless that consensus has changed. Besides, it's a pain in the rear to change the categories for a bunch of articles. It becomes incredibly frustrating when there's no text in them. In case we need to change some background architecture, it's easier to do that with less articles.

Aside from the practical, I would argue that placeholders do not serve a worthwhile purpose. I understand why you would want to do that, but it doesn't provide any information on the subject to the reader. An empty template just makes the article look like the creator didn't care enough to finish it. --Scaletail 17:34, 18 February 2009 (PST)

Well the administrative part(setup, add basic info, category placement, etc.) of all the units made me start creating those articles. We already had a discussion about the commands & what to place were, so I think we are the best ones for the job of making the initial setup so that all the "normal" user especially the “fan boys” of specific units have to do is to fill them up with everything info they can get. That's why I think we should at least place one example unit article for every brigade in every faction so that others know where & how to place the rest of those units.--BigDuke66 16:01, 20 February 2009 (PST)

Naming conventions

The BattleCorps style guide says that numbers in unit names should be spelled out:

Any command military number designation equal to or under 100 should be spelled out. For example: Twenty-first Galedon Regulars and Ninety-seventh Adder Sentinels.

Wonder if we should adopt this approach, as it comes from BattleCorps, and provide redirects from numerical designations. Opinions? Frabby 03:23, 18 February 2009 (PST)

Well when I search for a unit I don't spell the numbers out and personally I hate this approach in sourcebooks too because you have to search for the number and for the spelled out version just to make sure you don't miss something and think of a typo in it and you will never find it no matter if it's a hardcopy or PDF because letters just disappear in the text(numbers are more easily recognizable) and the search function won't find it, only way to get it is by reading the entry. OK you can still search for the name but if it’s common in the book or in our case the Wiki it won’t really help to track a specific unit down.

Furthermore it's a waste of space & time.

Just try and search for thirteenth, you don't get a unit, try 13 you still don't get a unit, now try 13th and you finally get a unit. Getting the user to use those "end forms"(st, nd, rd, th, sorry not sure how they are called) isn't that hard but I don't think they go all the way to even spell the numbers out, I mean that's what numbers are there for instead of letters. In the end it doesn't help in any way I could think of and so I would say lets stay with numbers.--BigDuke66 10:20, 18 February 2009 (PST)

While I do normally like to stick with the BattleCorps style guidelines, I think there's a difference between written text and article titles. The Field Manuals use numerical designations. It would also provide for inconsistency with titles that read "Third Royal Guards" and "666th Mechanized Cluster". I think we should go with numbers in titles and words in text, where appropriate. Note that the requirement to write out numbers in the body of an article is already called for in the Manual of Style, so we don't need to specify that guideline here. --Scaletail 17:39, 18 February 2009 (PST)

After thinking on it a bit I'd say you have me convinced and numericals should be used for the articles. Scaletail is spot on when he says writing fiction and writing wiki articles is a different pair of shoes. Plus, we can have redirects. Just see that we keep a unified approach (I'll mercilessly move articles that do not use the numerical approach). Frabby 14:20, 23 February 2009 (PST)

Unit Tables of Organisation

I've been playing with the military symbology found in Strategic Operations, and I'm willing to generate them for each command as information becomes available. Wikipedia has been doing the same thing for real-life military units. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea? Alkemita 22:28, 23 February 2009 (PST)

I don't understand what you want to do. Could you elaborate further, please? --Scaletail 16:04, 24 February 2009 (PST)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:101st_US_Airborne_Division.png for a real-world example. Since Strategic Operations introduced a canon Military Symbology for the BTU, I thought it would be good to graphically represent BT Military Commands using it. Alkemita 07:26, 25 February 2009 (PST)

Sorry to say that but I feel the idea is more or less unworkable. The main issue I have with the concept is essentially the same that I already mentioned about the Merc Infobox: The information is bound to change quite often, all the more so as BT units frequently see combat action, incur losses and reorganize. For example, a complete rundown of Lindon's Company would see them at virtually all stages between company and regiment at various times until they are destroyed for good approaching Terra. Just how many infoboxes/tables would you want to post for a given command? Frabby 07:46, 25 February 2009 (PST)

I don't intend to do this for every stage of a given command's existence, just where we have enough information to construct such a TOE. There's certainly enough data in some of the Field Manuals for the 3059-3062 timeframe to do this. Alkemita 08:16, 25 February 2009 (PST)

It certainly would be a big mistake to create a heap of articles with empty templates in them.

I'd say, post an example on this page before we come to a conclusion. --Detlef 10:49, 25 February 2009 (PST)

Firstly, just to clarify - this is not a template. It's a graphic showing the TOE of a particular command. As Frabby pointed out, BTU units change over time, and there are many where we don't have enough information to work out their TOE. So, my approach is that if we have enough information, we do one, if not, we don't. If we do one for the unit, the title will include notation specifying the time period, for example, "Waco's Rangers, 3025 TOE". I'll do an example in the next day or so and upload here for comment.Alkemita 10:56, 25 February 2009 (PST)

We have already the section "Composition" were a detailed ToO should be described. Putting a graphical ToO to the left or right of the text or link to a complete grahpic sounds interesting for me.--BigDuke66 19:57, 25 February 2009 (PST)

Waco Rangers TOE 3025

Okay, as promised, here's an example of a unit TOE, in this case, for the Waco Rangers in 3025. This is based on the one found in the Mercenaries Handbook, but using the updated symbology published in Strategic Operations. Now, I must emphasize that one of the nice things about this is that we can be flexible about how much detail we show - we don't have to go down to the Lance level like the example does. We can show only as many levels as we have concrete information for.

Alkemita 13:30, 26 February 2009 (PST)

Comment on picture: The font is too small and some of the symbols are confusing to me. Overall, I don't see how such a hierarchy-tree would add information or clarification. --Detlef 14:45, 26 February 2009 (PST)

Did you view the picture at full size? I used minimum 14pt font, which would have been clearly readable at full size. The symbols used are straight out of Strategic Operations, so if you don't have it, I understand that they would be confusing. Alkemita 21:26, 26 February 2009 (PST)

FedCom Units

What about the Commands of the Federated Commonwealth?

• The FedCom RCTs were specifically units of the FedCom, but neither of the LA or FS. -> FedCom Command
• Some of them joined the LA and were renamed to Alliance Guards. -> FedCom and Lyran Commands
• Virtually(?) all Lyran/FedSun units were FedCom. -> FedCom+Lyran or FedCom+FedSun

I suggest a further category "Federated Commonwealth Commands". --Detlef 03:19, 24 February 2009 (PST)

EDIT: We also still have no category for ComGuard Commands. --Detlef 03:22, 24 February 2009 (PST)

I agree on both counts. --Scaletail 16:04, 24 February 2009 (PST)

As we portray the actual situation as far as possible think it would be enough to put the Alliance Guards into the LA category and set up a FedCom category where the original names are listed and redirect from them to the corresponding Alliance Guards unit. The other FedCom units are now part of the FedSuns(at least I think so) so putting them there and again redirecting from the FedCom category to them seems to be the best. Regarding the ComGuard well I think we wanted to put them into the under Misc Commands.--BigDuke66 19:47, 25 February 2009 (PST)