Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2019/Op-ed

Thank you

Thank you Factotem for putting togeather this article and the insight it offers. For the benefit of others, the inclusion of guidance at MilMos was made in consequence discussion at the MilMosTP, which was initiated at the MilHistTP. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:17, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

• By their nature, infoboxes involve simplification. A problem with "decisive" was that there was no agreement on what it meant. Change the course of the campaign or the war? End the war? Sudden reversals of fortune often occurred in ancient and medieval times, but were harder to achieve in the modern period. Paradoxically, the idea of the decisive battle flourished in the 19th century; we take a broader view today. Waterloo was selected by Creasy as one of his 15th decisive battles of history, and the one most familiar to his readers. So it should count if anything does; but while it decided the war, it is easy to see how it can be argued that Napoleon was very unlikely to win the war as opposed to the battle. "Pyrrhic" suffers from the same lack of definition. Pyrrhus lamented that his victories were unsustainable, given how far he was from home and reinforcements. How this can be applied to Crete is beyond me. The very valuable objective was attained, the cost, while high, was not irreplaceable. So clearly anyone describing it as "pyrrhic" is working from a different definition. As you note, popular histories tend to play loose with words, while better ones are likely to provide long but inconclusive arguments. ----
  • Well the Crete thing did more or less spell the end of German airborne operations of the sort, especially after the costly Battle of the Hague. Doesn't necessarily mean that pyrrhic victory should be put in the infobox, but the high casualties of the battle did have some larger implications. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:00, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

This is a very good op ed. Infoboxes work well in the great majority of articles, but can cause significant problems. As well as the problems identified in the article, one of the ones which concerns me is attempts to add too much information to infoboxes, as this means that they don't actually provide a useful summary. The infobox in the American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War article is a good example of this. Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nick-D: That has got to be the gold standard for an overblown infobox. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:07, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

• Nice overview of the problem. I used to be in favor of more flexible infobox alternatives, but clearly its creating too much confusion so things are best kept short and simple. There's also the terriotry= parameter which can helpt explain things plainly without much trouble. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:00, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Indy beetle please see Template:Infobox military operation/doc, which addresses concerns you raised at the recent RfC. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

That's helpful. I believe I've seen that before but I must've forgotten about it. I just changed Operation Rum Punch over to that infobox. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:11, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for writing this op-ed, Factotem, it is thoughtfully written and it is great to see discussion in The Bugle of what has always been a curly issue. Personally I prefer to provide more leeway on infoboxes, but I appreciate the arguments against expansive ones. Often it is better to provide detail on results and consequences in the lead than to try to shoehorn them into a single field of an infobox. Your op-ed has encouraged me to look back through my older articles and examine whether they are presenting this sort of information in the best possible way. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:45, 12 January 2019 (UTC)