Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Publication

Potential topics

I believe most of the task forces have to be considered as potential topics. Please comment. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 16:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think some of them may be too broad or too vague to produce reasonably-sized collections, at least initially. For example, we might prefer to compile a WikiReader about the British Army rather than all of British military history; about rifles rather than all weaponry; about the Sengoku period rather than all of Japanese military history; about the Punic Wars rather than all of Classical warfare; and so forth. Kirill Lokshin 16:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree, especially given that our top-level articles are often the ones with the most problems (i.e. bloat, POV warring, etc.). Also, given that we don't know how successful this will be, we probably want to start small... Carom 16:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just added some few topics. Please check. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 12:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Kirill Lokshin 12:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

see it as a space to develop wikireaders and as I said in the discussion on the mainpage, a strong connection between portals and readers might help since portals are already intended to have collections of material they could turn into printable documents. Wandalstouring 18:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, a number of portals could probably translate into at least basic frameworks for WikiReaders quite easily. Kirill Lokshin 18:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Process

OK, how do we want to proceed with this? We could, for example, set up "work groups" for particular readers, and the participating editors would select and polish a group of articles. Or we could work, as a project, on one reader at a time. I kind of lean towards the first option, but I'd really just like to get the ball rolling on how we might actually produce one of these things. Carom 19:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be better, for now, to make only one, mostly to observe the process of making it. Once that is done, the work can be split into several topics of focus. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we actually can do both, in some sense:

• In the immediate future, compile an eclectic reader composed of pre-selected high-quality articles. This will let us get through the article selection stage very quickly, and give us a demo/prototype that we can then use for figuring out the subsequent technical process of actually producing a publication.
• At the same time, start the article selection process on a few topic-oriented readers. This may take a fairly long time, but by the time it's done, we should have completed developing the technical aspects, and can then move the topic-oriented readers towards publication in a smooth manner.

Kirill Lokshin 19:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if nobody has any objections, I'll go ahead and set up an initial work area for the "selected readings" reader; are there ideas for some topic-centered ones that we could start with? I think we might initially try for something that's (a) somewhat limited in scope, and (b) has a large selection of decent articles to work with; something like the Vietnam War or the American Civil War might be doable in this sense. Kirill Lokshin 23:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the Civil War; it is a broader topic (just how many major battles were there?), and it would IMO elicit a considerable amount of interest. Both do work, though. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

What about the Italian Wars? I think that is a topic you are really familiar with and it has quite a lot of high quality material. Wandalstouring 09:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

That has the usual problem: a small group of good articles and a vast sea of stubs. It might be doable in the long run, but I'd prefer to start off with something that has more than a dozen usable articles. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 11:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Write an overview and give more details for the important battles. I doubt someone wants to read all battles in detail. We could also think about creating articles about the mercenaries of the early modern age for example. I have Simplicius Simplicissimus and could do some more research (while working on my Punic Wars). Wandalstouring 14:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I kindav support starting w/ the Punic Wars. Most of the articles belonging to the category under the same name are well developed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 14:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a decent idea. Kirill Lokshin 18:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

So, do we have any other opinions on what topic would be good to start with?

(I've created a work page for the prototype one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication/Selected readings, incidentally.) Kirill Lokshin 01:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest "Service Pistols" or "Rifles"? The other question is: "Who is going to be the publisher?". I've had a number of articles published in magazines, but I'm not sure how one might go about getting a book published... --Commander Zulu 06:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. I'm not sure, at this point, that anyone really has a publisher lined up; I think the overall plan is to produce something we can present to publishers and then see who wants to take it up. (FWIW, I suspect that much of that aspect of it will be coordinated centrally, rather than by each WikiProject individually.) Kirill Lokshin 13:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there an agreement to go forward with the Punic Wars? I don't know if I can contribute to this in terms of content, but I'm more than happy to do copyediting, etc. in order to help get this off the ground. Carom 00:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, if there are no objections, we can presumably go forward with it. If someone has a better idea down the road, we can always start up another one as well. Kirill Lokshin 00:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

other Wikireaders

There is a French wikireader on Latin American history in creation. If it is finished, I suggest to translate it and add some of our material, so we can copublish with the history project. Wandalstouring 20:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Athens, history of a major power in ancient Greece

My idea is to start another wikireader project on Athens, to be more precise about Athens from the Ionian Revolt until Alexander reestablishes the Macedonian reign over Greece. I suggest is to name it along the lines of "Athens, history of a major power in ancient Greece". There are quite a lot of FAs which do reasonably cover important topics and I consider the teams who created Alcibiades and Pericles among our most capable editors. The problem is whether or not these excellent editors are interested and naturally it would be up to them what exactly the scope of the reader is. If there is need for some guidedance and coordination, I'm willing to help as far as my wikitime (working on Punic Wars) permits. Wandalstouring 09:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a decent idea. Would this focus primarily on the military aspects of it, though, or would it be a broader project? Obviously the history of Athens is not exclusively a military topic. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure. We do have important biographies and battles. Other content can be added in the form of essays or or it can be provided in a cooperative effort with other projects(but we do have the organized manpower, others not). All in all it is only a title to work with and can be altered if necessary. The idea is to keep the project unambitious, but to present an interesting work. Wandalstouring 19:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok; that works for me. Kirill Lokshin 19:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Podcasts

Podcasts do require less work than wikireaders and I initiated a project for a podcast on the Battle of Thermopylae. Wandalstouring 08:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 11:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Have removed myself as a contact in respect of this because of apparent issues over content re-use. I am not prepared to work on a podcast if it can't be used outside of Wikipedia even under GFDL terms. ShakespeareFan00 22:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm? I'm not aware of any issues with content reuse vis-à-vis something like this; provided the GFDL is maintained, you're allowed to do basically whatever you want with Wikipedia materials. Do you have some particular reason to believe otherwise? Kirill Lokshin 22:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

See the emboldened NOT in the past revisions concerning the Battle of Thermopylae entry. That would seem to suggest a desire for non-reuse off Wikipedia. ShakespeareFan00 22:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what it means, quite frankly; there's certainly no legal issue with off-Wikipedia use. (The more likely interpretation is a desire for on-Wikipedia preparation of the podcast, I'm guessing.) It should certainly not deter you from reusing Wikipedia content as you see fit; that's what it's there for, after all. Kirill Lokshin 00:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't object using WP material. The problem is I'm hesitant to help creating something as part of the project or wikipedia if we do have no means of community control. Whatever we created can be used whatever way someone else thinks and because there is no contract, he/she may change his mind. Wandalstouring 11:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The community here WOULD have editorial control in respect of any podcast. Provided it's not controversial (and History wouldn't be in this instance), the only issues WikiCast would have are length, scheduling and licence compatibility (which as explained above shouldn't be an issue).

I am also seriously considering if Over the Wire should be moved here once I have had words with the relevant contributors on the WikiCast wiki. ShakespeareFan00 13:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense; it seems like this was just a misunderstanding. Certainly, I would encourage doing the preparation on Wikipedia directly as much as possible; but I'm guessing we could proceed regardless of where anything in particular occurs. :-) Kirill Lokshin 17:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)