Template talk:Campaign

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Template:Campaign is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

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Contents

[edit] Suggest adding

- War (e.g. WW I, Napoleonic Wars)

- Timeframe

- Significance (Critical, sideshow)

- Units involved

- Commanders

- Outcome

Andreas 15:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

That would make it redundant with {{warbox}}, wouldn't it? This is really intended to be a simple list of battles for addition to a larger template. —Kirill Lokshin 15:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Not sure about that Kirill, since a war and a campaign are two different things, even though they may have similar attributes. E.g. you could use the campaign template to break the war of 1812 into its various campaigns, giving more detailed information for each than you could in the {{warbox}}. Just off the top of my head. Andreas 15:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, {{warbox}} is intended for use on anything from wars down to individual battles (don't mind the somewhat misleading name). If you have a separate article on, say, the Niagara campaign, you would have a warbox on that article that discusses only the campaign.
On the other hand, we don't want those details in the main War of 1812 warbox, since it will become absurdly long ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 15:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for setting me right - as you can see, I am a bit new here. In that case I agree. Andreas 15:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
No problem :-) —Kirill Lokshin 15:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Built-in edit button

{{{name}}} edit
{{{battles}}}

Adding a built-in edit button to the campaignbox is quite simple and makes life easier to editors. Of course, some campaignboxes don't get changed once they're made, but if they do this could come in quite handy. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 06:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Argh! The table on the right is blocking my campaignbox. It's to the bottom right. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 06:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Not sure how useful it would be on most of them, since they rarely need editing; and it has the twin problems of (a) breaking the centering of the title and (b) making vandalism easier (almost nobody has the campaignboxes watchlisted). Kirill Lokshin 09:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

This template is protected, but no reason is given. --Oden 07:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe it was protected a while back due to the fact that it's an extremely high-use meta-template, and mucking around with it would tend to have significant effects on the servers. I'm not sure if this is still the case, though. Kirill Lokshin 07:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Requests for unprotection can be made by adding ===={{lt|Campaign}}==== at Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Current_requests_for_unprotection. --Oden 07:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason to unprotect this, though? Kirill Lokshin 07:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Protection is considered harmful. see: m:Protected pages considered harmful. (See also Wikipedia:Protection policy and Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy). This template has neither been subject to a edit war or vandalism, so the only rationale seems to be because it is a highly visible template (see Wikipedia:High-risk templates). However, it would be prudent to justify this on the talk page. (See also log entry: [1]).
It would also be prudent to add protection template (e.g. {{protected}} or {{vprotected}} for vandalism) to the top of the temporarily protected page. When protecting a template, you place the notice inside <noinclude></noinclude> tags so that it does not show up when the template is transcluded. Alternatively, the tag can go on the template's talk page. --Oden 08:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
If you feel it should be unprotected, you already know where to ask. I don't believe there's any reason to do so, considering how high-visibility this is; hence, I'm not going to unprotect it myself. (I would also point out that the ever-so-slightly condescending tone of your remarks isn't a particularly good thing.) Kirill Lokshin 16:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

My intention in raising this subject is to guard against arbitrary use by administrators. My tone is dispassionate in order to adhere to the subject at hand and to avoid any unnecessary discussions (in addition my tone is not causal to the subject at hand, please adhere to the subject).

Furthermore, while I may know where to ask there are those who do not, hence the need for a template. Since I am not an administrator I have had to place it on this talk page, instead of on the template page where it belongs (see Category:Protection templates). --Oden 09:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Your tone is insulting rather than dispassionate, frankly. Kirill Lokshin 14:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
A quick glance at Special:Contributions suggests the work of a serious and dedicated editor, but also stands in contrast to the comments made above. A prolonged discussion on proper etiquette would, in my opinion, serve no purpose (especially since the subject already has been extensively covered).
I am also pleased to note that my suggestions were implented, to the benefit of all. --Oden 15:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mini-navbar

Is there anyway we can add the {{Tnavbar-mini}} template (or a modification of) to our general campaign box template in a way that allows users to edit/discuss the child templates easily? Oberiko 20:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Not without editing every box individually, unfortunately. The obvious trick—using something like PAGENAME to get to the child template—won't work when they're actually in articles; the only option would be to code the template's name manually in each.
(Having said that, I'm not sure if such a change would necessarily be beneficial. Given that few campaignboxes seem to be watchlisted, we could be asking for a major surge in vandalism problems.) Kirill Lokshin 20:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Error in The Philippine-American War Campaign Box

The Pulang Lupa link reads 'Pulang Lupal'. I request an administrator to fix it. Kguirnela 06:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for catching that! Kirill Lokshin 13:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the fix and you are welcome! =) Kguirnela 04:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Text size

The recent reduction in font size is a good thing on large templates with ten battles or more, but it makes some templates look ridiculous. For example, Template:Campaignbox Third Crusade and even Template:Campaignbox Frankish Civil War (715-718), where the title is too large comparatively. Srnec 16:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, the change ocurred because the base template is now derived from {{navbox generic}}, as part of the effort to standardize navigation template layouts. Admittedly the smallest cases look a bit strange, but they're pretty much the exception rather than the rule; with our lax standards on article inclusion, even the smallest battles are winding up with articles to be linked, which is causing the vast majority of campaignboxes to grow to a reasonable size. Kirill 17:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collapsible option

There needs to be {{{state|}}} after the |state= parameter to force a default uncollapsed state and to allow people to choose what state they want each transcluded campaignbox to be. Centy – reply• contribs – 15:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you mean here. The template doesn't export a state; it just autocollapses whenever two or more templates are on the same page, as most navigation templates do. Are you looking to change that on a per-template level, or a per-article one? Kirill 16:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Basically if you just put |state= into this template, all campaignboxes will have the default state attribute automatically given to them. But putting |state={{{state|}}}, you basically pass on the determination of the state attribute to the actual campaignbox. So you can set the collapsible state for every individual campaignbox, ie. change it from the default setting if you wish, instead of forcing all campaignboxes to have the default setting. Centy – reply• contribs – 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok; so you want each individual campaignbox to be able to override the default? Easy enough to do. Kirill 23:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

How do i create a campaignbox that is not default autocollapsed? XavierGreen —Preceding comment was added at 21:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] bg:

{{editprotected}} Could you please add bg:Шаблон:Кампания?Thank you.--Desertus Sagittarius 14:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill 15:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text flow issues

The campaign box seems to be causing text flow issues eg on Second Battle of Ypres and Battle of the Somme, the text does not flow from the top of the article but only from the joint of the campaign box and infobox. Can't see the cause myself, anyone up to determining and correctingGraemeLeggett 21:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warbox

You may want to clarify in the article, whether we are using the "Warbox" or "Campaignbox" for military articles. In addition, an explanation of the differences between each of them. It is rather confusing. Battlefield 10:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple campaign boxes

Can one article include more than one campaignbox, or a single battle be listed on multiple campaigns? Ideally, obviously, that wouldn't happen. But there's a couple of situations where it might happen:

  • Firstly, many of the current campaignboxes are actually wars, not campaigns. Some of those wars contain only one campaign; others don't. As we build out the articles on those wars we're bound to have an intermediary stage when some battles are listed under both the overall war and the specific campaign.
  • Secondly, what a 'campaign' is partly depends on the perspective. Take the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781. Is it part of Washington's Yorktown campaign (from the American and French perspective), part of the British southern campaign (from the British perspective), part of the campaign to control American waters or part of the wider naval campaign between Britain and France in the Western hemisphere (after all, the fleets of De Grasse and Hood had fought before in April 1781 off Martinique, sailed north to the Chesapeake a few days apart and would fight again in January 1782 off St. Kitts)? Arguably, it's any one or all four.

Obviously we don't want multiple campaignboxes on a single article, but perhaps we need to evolve some guidelines to establish what the appropriate campaign is and whether occasional exceptions are acceptable. JimmyTheOne 23:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

My view on this:
  • DWikipedia talk:WikiProject Military historyouble listing as an intermediary stage is fine, of course, since the idea is to eventually remove it.
  • More generally, the purpose of the campaignbox is not necessarily to represent a canonical "campaign" in the military sense; but to provide a convenient way for navigating related battles. Thus, a more "accurate" division is not always better. Not all campaigns need have their own campaignboxes—for many wars, in fact, a single campaignbox is sufficient. In the example you gave, for instance, I would prefer the latter options, as they allow more battles per campaignbox (campaignboxes with only one or two battles are not particularly useful).
  • Occasional exceptions are acceptable, as they are to almost all rules. We don't want to encourage having multiple campaignboxes, though.
I agree, however, that we should have some better guidelines for how to divide larger wars into campaigns. It may be worthwhile to continue that discussion on the project page, where it's likely to get more input. Kirill Lokshin 23:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I just looked over on the above linked Project page and didn't see any discussion of this over there. I'm starting to get into this aspect through the Korean War, where currently the campaignbox is more geared towards (some of) the battles of the Korean War, instead of the various campaigns themselves. I'm thinking that (maybe for larger wars, like Korea), it be broken out as like a "warbox" which would list the various campaigns of the war, with associated campaignboxes which would include the various battles of that campaign. So, the Korean War would be broken out with the initial campaignbox in the upper right titled "Korean War" and then list the various campaigns (five of them). Then, say the article on Battle of Heartbreak Ridge would also have an additional campaignbox for the "Outpost Battles (July 1951- July 1953)", which would then list the articles that fall into that campaign.
I think the biggest drawback at this time though may be that most of the major battles currently documented here, fall into the "Outpost Battles (July 1951- July 1953)" campaign, and the other four campaigns will probably only have one battle currently on here, though they should be expanded eventually. The "Chinese Intervention (3 November 1950-24 January 1951)" campaign should also include (besides just the Battle of Chosin Reservoir) Task Force Faith, and Task Force Drysdale may qualify as an article in it's own right with a little more research.
Ideas/opinions? Am I wrong (Which I very well could be, as new as I am). wbfergus 14:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
It may be doable, although I would suggest keeping things in a single campaignbox until there are enough articles (or clearly defined links to future articles) to make a set of split boxes worthwhile. This is a typical approach for larger wars (see, for example, the multitude of campaignboxes for WWI and WWII, and how multiple ones are applied to particular battles); the real question is whether there are enough battles that a single box is unwieldy. Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay Kirill, I'll take your advice and leave them as they are for now, though I'll add more battles to them. At what point is there to many battle listings for one campaignbox? Is there a number of battles, or does it depend more on how many lines the box takes up? I need to go through some of the Korean War articles and see that they all have the proper categories assigned and then see which 'battles' are missing from the campaignbox. wbfergus 17:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
There's no hard rule, I think; but, for comparison, something like {{Campaignbox Thirty Years' War}} is probably near the limit of what's doable with a single template. Kirill Lokshin 17:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization in campaign box headers

Does the wacky Wikipedia capitalization standard apply to headers in campaign boxes? Editors seem to be divided, so we get things like, in the titles of Thirty Years' War campaign boxes: "Swedish intervention" (correct by Wikipedia standards) versus "Danish Intervention" (a capitalization standard for titles and headers used about everywhere except for Wikipedia). Like the Thirty Years' War boxes, other campaign boxes seem to be capitalized at random, so perhaps one standard ought to be applied. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Most campaignboxes use proper nouns as headers, so it shouldn't be a very widespread issue. As far as I can tell, though, normal capitalization rules don't seem to be consistent within templates anyways; I would try to move towards Wikipedia-style capitalization when necessary, but I don't think it's a big deal at this point. —Kirill Lokshin 15:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Not that it's a big deal, but it's more widespread than you suggest. Most of the zillion American Civil War boxes seem to use non-Wikipedia style capitalization; all of the American Revolutionary War boxes did too, until I changed a couple. I think most Mexican-American War and Seven Years' War boxes use non-standard capitalization. Mind you, I don't really don't care and won't go changing any headers (except boxes I edit for other reasons). Just pointing out that there's no standard, even for boxes within a single war, and that it's something people might want to think about when editing the boxes. --Kevin
I'll admit that I had entirely forgotten just how many Civil War campaignboxes we had ;-)
In any case, we'll probably do another review of campaignboxes at some point (in a few months?), which would be a good time to take a look at this issue again. For the time being, casual cleanup by people editing the boxes for other reasons should be sufficient. —Kirill Lokshin 16:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Axis-Soviet War Campaignbox

Template:Campaignbox_Axis-Soviet_War is currently subject of an edit conflict between me and Ghirlandajo. This is because of the unresolved issue of what size battles/operations should be added. I have made a proposal on the talk page of the campaign box, but this was never discussed to any conclusion. As a result it now appears to me that Ghirlandjo simply reverts any additions to the box, regardless of the size of the battle they refer to. This is not logical, since it leaves the box containing some smaller actions simply because they were added earlier. I would appreciate comments and suggestions. Andreas 15:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I'm not surprised. This seems to be his typical behaviour. Albrecht 16:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sub-set campaigns

I have a quick question on a somewhat unconventional situation.

In World War II, there was a series of battles in North Africa referred to as the Western Desert Campaign. The American's joined relatively late and, in their naming scheme, called the actions of their forces the Egypt-Libya Campaign.

Now, it is my opinion that the ELC is contained entirely within the WDC. Do I add ELC to the WDC campaign box, and, if so, do I need to somehow differentiate it from other entires (which are operations and battles)? Oberiko 20:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, based on your brief description (and I know next to nothing on this topic, so this idea may be utter nonsense), I would suggest two things:
  1. Merge the two campaign articles, as this seems like a classic case of alternate names. I can't really see what the benefit of duplicating information about the (presumably same?) actual engagements across two articles is; the (new) single article would give an explanation of the different naming schemes and what each name is considered to encompass, but the overall narrative would be combined.
  2. As a consequence, omit the alternate name from the campaignbox and just list the actual engagements.
I think that, in general, there doesn't need to be a separate article on every single named "campaign" of the war if it is more natural to combine several of them in a single article. Clearer narrative structure should, in my opinion, take precedence. Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I have run into a similar problem first with the Mongol Invasions and then with the Muslim expansion, which are part of a larger series of campaings not even necessarily in the same theater of war. I am attempting a method with the Template:Campaignbox Early Muslim Expansions and can use some input in sorting out the kinks which I then hope to move onto Seljuks, Khwarezmians, Ghaznevid and the Mongols. Maybe that is too ambitious but I can start or create a ton of stubs!--Tigeroo 10:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Looks fine so far. :-) Kirill Lokshin 10:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vietnam

Is a Vietnam campaignbox necessary? --Brand спойт 10:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

One for the Vietnam War? It would certainly be a good idea; there's a large number of existing articles that would need to be put in chronological order to create it, though. Kirill Lokshin 11:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgian Civil War

Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on moving the Georgian-Ossetian conflict and the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict out of the Template:Campaignbox Post-Soviet Conflicts in the Caucasus and into an infobox for the Georgian Civil War. It appears that these conflicts are more related to Georgia than to the other conflicts such as Chechnya, etc. Publicus 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason we can't have both, of course; there are numerous other cases where a particular battle/war/etc. is listed on mutliple campaignboxes. Kirill Lokshin 15:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russo-Turkish Wars

Are all those Russo-Turkish Wars in the right place? Should they not come under the 18th and 19th centuries rather than 15th-17th century? Thanks Raymond Palmer 19:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

They're under the 17th century because that's when the "Russo-Turkish Wars" began; all of the series of wars listed here go by the overall start of the conflict. (I've added the overview campaignbox for the entire conflict, which might make things a bit clearer. It was actually supposed to be added a while ago, but we never got around to it, for some reason.) Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I see. What about adding Queen Anne's War as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. Also, the Dutch War (Franco-Dutch War) is not part of the Anglo-Dutch Wars. More accuratley, I think, to describe the Third Anglo-Dutch war as part of the Franco-Dutch War. I hope that makes sense? Raymond Palmer 20:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, if there are any actual campaignboxes that need to be moved, please feel free to move them; but some of these wars don't actually have templates. Kirill Lokshin 20:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, I just realised there is no campaignbox for QA war. Raymond Palmer 20:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italics in campaignboxen

Is there any standard guideline on whether operation names should be in italics in campaignboxen? AFAIK, the definitive guideline for names in article text is just WP:MOS, WP:ITALICS and WP:MOS-T, which don't include military operations as things you should italicise. I would guess this is the same for the boxes as well, but you never know.... -- Hongooi 10:40, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a long-standing—but never consistently applied—convention of italicizing operational names as a mnemonic device to distinguish them from place names (e.g. Normandy versus Neptune). We've never had a very strict rule on this point, though.
(The MOS really covers only article text; visual design elements like templates will almost always have formatting that violates some provision of it.) Kirill 14:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. The MOS guideline for article text is still no italics though, correct? (Ie, as opposed to having no guideline one way or the other, which is what the absence of a positive rule could be interpreted to mean.) -- Hongooi 15:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's correct. Kirill 16:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] v.d.e Problems

Just like to give a head up that at the moment the campaign box is sometimes too small to fit in the header a 'hide' button, the v.d.e links and the name of the war. An example is Template:Campaignbox War of the Austrian Succession. The box looks ugly with the v.d.e and ugly without (when the text is aligned off center). Something needs to be done - maybe make the font smaller? Centy – reply• contribs – 12:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a known issue; see WP:MILHIST#NAVPROBLEMS for the needed fix. Kirill 13:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footer / notes section

Would it be possible to include a footer / notes section, similar to the "below" section on our military navigation template? I wouldn't mind using it for brief notes and annotation explanations.

For example, in the Battle of the Mediterranean, roughly half of the activities / operations were supply convoys, while the others indicate prominant engagements. I'd like to keep them in chronological order while still clearly differentiating them. Oberiko (talk) 15:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, it'd be pretty trivial to add another field—this template is merely a special case of {{military navigation}} to begin with—but how do you want it to be formatted? The actual "below" field in the navigation template displays in a rather dark gray, which might be too jarring here given that we don't have the gray bars on the left. Alternately, we could use the second group field, which would have a much lighter background. Kirill 02:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I trust your aesthetics judgement far more then my own Kirill, but I think the exsiting "below" (as seen on Template:Navbox) would work well, and keep our colors fairly standardized. Oberiko (talk) 14:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've tentatively added a "notes=" parameter; please test it out and let me know whether it'll work for what we need here. Kirill 02:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
v • d • e
Battle of the Mediterranean
Espero¹² – Mers-el-Kébir – Calabria¹² – Spada – Cape Passero¹ – Taranto – Spartivento¹ – Excess¹ – Abstention – Matapan – Tarigo² – Crete – Substance¹ – Halberd¹ – Duisburg² – Bon² – 1st Sirte¹² – Alexandria raid – 2nd Sirte¹ – Harpoon¹ – Vigorous¹ – Pedestal¹ – Agreement – Torch – Stone Age¹ – Toulon – Skerki² – Cigno² – Sicily – Sinking of Roma
¹ - Involved an Allied convoy • ² - Involved an Axis convoy
I've put it in the Battle of the Mediterranean box and it looks pretty good. Thanks Kirill. Oberiko (talk) 17:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)