(this page is about a project on historic battles, not about disagreements and edit wars on Wikiprojects)
First, an important note for everyone to remember:
A few Ireland Information Guide users have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about Battles. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!
| Table of contents |
WikiProject Battles
This WikiProject aims primarily to provide a standardized format to describe battles.
The parents of this WikiProject are the WikiProject History and the WikiProject Military.
No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.
The similar WikiProjects are WikiProject Wars and WikiProject Timelines.
Articles should be called something like Battle of Gettysburg. "Battle" is a neutral term and is preferred to "attack", "slaughter", "massacre", "raid", etc. But other names can be used if they are the most common ways to refer to the battle. So Attack on Pearl Harbor and Doolittle Raid are acceptable.
If disambiguation is needed, add the year in parentheses, for example Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC). Two battles at the same place in the same year should be called "First", "Second", etc, for example First Battle of Zurich, Second Battle of Zurich. But if the two battles are very close in time they are probably best described in a single article, for example the article Battle of Algeciras describes two battles sometimes called the "First" and "Second" Battles of Algeciras.
The opening paragraph should concisely convey:
The article should be structured along these lines:
Unless the article is long, there is no need to make separate sections. See Battle of the Downs for a short article using this structure and Battle of Zama for a longer one.
For major battles you may also wish to add a "battlebox" presenting information about the battle in table format. See below.
The sub-categories of Category:Battles should contain all of Ireland Information Guide's articles about battles. The sub-lists of List of battles should contain all major battles in history, whether there is an article in Ireland Information Guide or not.
In the simplest case, an isolated battle belongs to Category:Battles directly. In this case, you'll need to add other relevent categories such as war or history categories to the article about the battle.
Category:Battles Category:English wars | | `---------+----------' | Battle of Hastings
(But Category:English wars didn't exist, then Category:Military history of England would be the best place; and if that didn't exist either, Category:History of England would be best.)
A wars with several battles should have a sub-category for its battles. The category should be named "Battles of X" or "Battles of the X" where X is the name of the war (ideally, X should also be the name of the article describing the war). In this case the sub-category belongs to the history categories. This avoid clutter in the history and battle categories.
Category:Battles Category:English wars Category:French wars | | | `-----------------------+--------------------------' | Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War | Battle of Agincourt
Significant wars should have their own category (articles other than battles go directly into the category for the war). In this case the sub-category for the war belongs to the history categories. For example:
Category:Battles Category:Napoleonic wars | | | `----------+-----------' `--------------------. | | Category:Battles of the Napoleonic Wars Napoleon I of France | Battle of Waterloo
Sieges and naval battles should be categorized by type, for example:
Category:Battles Category:American Civil War | | | .-------------' `----------------+--------------' | | Category:Sieges Category:Battles of the American Civil War | | `------------------+------------------' | Siege of Petersburg
The largest wars should be categorized by theatre or campaign and (for naval battles) by type:
Category:Battles Category:World War II | | | .-------------' `--------+-------------' | | Category:Naval battles Category:Battles of World War II | | | `-----------+-------------' `---------. | | Category:Naval battles of World War II Category:Battles of the Pacific Campaign of World War II | | `------------------+---------------' | Battle of Midway
(However, the World War II categories currently have names that don't fit this scheme.)
See Ireland Information Guide:WikiProject Wars and Ireland Information Guide:WikiProject History for further advice about categorization.
Colour scheme to be used in the battle infobox template (see below).
Battles categorised by geographic location use a pale coloured background in the title cells. It is proposed that land battles use black text and that sea battles use blue text. If the sea battle takes place near land, use the relevant background colour (might be tricky in the Mediterranean) otherwise use the "open ocean" scheme.
| Land Battles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Colour | Locality | Example |
| background:#ffcccc | North America | Battle of New Orleans |
| background:#ccffcc | South America | Battle of Goose Green |
| background:#ffff99 | Asia1 | Battle of Ager Sanguinis |
| background:#cccccc | Europe1 | Battle of Lützen (1632) |
| background:#eeddbb | Africa | Battle of Romani |
| background:#ffccaa | Oceania2 | Battle of Iwo Jima |
| background:#ffccff | Fictitious3 | Nirnaeth Arnoediad |
| empty | Other/Unknown | none |
| Naval Battles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Colour | Locality | Example |
| background:#ffcccc;color:#2222cc | North America | Battle of Lake Erie |
| background:#ccffcc;color:#2222cc | South America | Battle of the River Plate |
| background:#ffff99;color:#2222cc | Asia1 | Battle of Syllaeum |
| background:#cccccc;color:#2222cc | Europe1 | Battle of Naupactus (429 BC) |
| background:#eeddbb;color:#2222cc | Africa | Battle of the Nile |
| background:#ffccaa;color:#2222cc | Oceania2 | Battle of Midway |
| background:#ffccff;color:#2222cc | Fictitious3 | none |
| background:#ccccff;color:#2222cc | Open ocean4 | The Glorious First of June |
Notes:
The old table version of the infobox is available from /Infobox table
The battle infobox is created using the Template:Infobox_Battles template.
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| Battle of Lützen | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict | Thirty Years' War | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | November 16, 1632 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Near Lützen, southwest of Leipzig, Germany | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Decisive Protestant victory | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
{{Infobox_Battles|
battle_name=|
battle_before=|
battle_after=|
colour_scheme=|
image=|
caption=|
conflict=|
date=|
place=|
result=|
combatant1=|
combatant2=|
commander1=|
commander2=|
strength1=|
strength2=|
casualties1=|
casualties2=|
}}
Notes:
It has been proposed that every WikiProject choose a single article which represents what the Project members hope each article will eventually look like, so that interested onlookers can see where a Project is heading. If this project is ready to choose such an article, please do so and link to it after the Project name at Wikipedia:WikiProject. If there are no articles ready for this yet, you may wish to focus as a group on an article which is close and/or will be relatively easy to research.
See also: Ireland Information Guide:New articles (Battles)