Talk:Gettysburg Battlefield

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[edit] My photo

I won't fight too hard for this- I'm no Civil War authority and am new to this section of Wikipedia -but here's why I like the photo that I'm replacing: It's a fairly dingy shot of a large but otherwise nondescript field. When I went to the other parts of the battlefield park, I was a bit turned off by the "monument every 50 feet" feel of it. I looked around and wondered what the place really looked like, and what glorious place it was that all those men fought and died to attack and defend.

Seeing the undeveloped section of the park made me realize- it's just a dingy field. There was nothing glorious or glamorous about this place- no monuments, no nothing. Just a really big field where a lot of people killed a lot of people. This was the emotional impact of visiting Gettysburg for me, and I think that the picture captures something of that feeling.

I do agree that the caption is lame- I really couldn't think of anything better. If nothing else, this is probably an example of the "ongoing program to restore portions of the battlefield to their historical non-wooded conditions" that the article mentions. --Staecker 02:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The appropriate term would be "preserved", not "undeveloped". I think as a minimum, a bland landscape shot like this should tell what you are looking at and from where. I presume this was from Confederate Ave and it shows the Round Tops and the Slyder Farm, right? If you had used a decent caption, I would have assumed you were not in the category of "vacationers at Gettysburg who want to display their snapshots", people who do lurk here from time to time. Hal Jespersen 15:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm certainly not a professional photographer... Anyways I was standing on top of the giant PA monument, shooting in the only direction where I didn't see hundreds of statues. Maybe you can improve my caption- I don't know the names of things well enough to describe exactly where that is. Staecker 16:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
lurk, lurk. replace the caption, but the lighting is moody and appropriate. [one fish's opinion] Carptrash 16:07, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, Mr Fish, all opinions are welcome, but mine is that the battle was fought on three sunny, hot days in July, which had significant effects on the soldiers' performance, so something brighter would be more appropriate if the theme of preserving the battlefield is on the table. An analogy is whether you'd prefer to see a photo of Valley Forge in the summer or winter. Hal Jespersen 16:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Good point. hmmm, though all my" tourist" shots of the sculpture [the only place that I know of that actually lists [ well . . . "listed"] the sculptors involved, which is what art historian are interested in - but I digress] were taken on a hot July day - but I guess the issue is whether a documentry type photo of the field on a hot summer's day is better than one that captures the feeling of a field full of dead folks. i defer to yout judgement in this case. Carptrash 17:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
PS all the Valley Forge photos on wikipedia WERE taken in the summer. Guess we can kiss them bye-bye. Carptrash 17:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
[Hee-hee]. I had my fingers crossed when I wrote that because I've never looked at the Valley Forge page. (One war's enough for me!) Hal Jespersen 18:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, one is enough, in fact, more than enough. Life is good. Carptrash 04:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Last few lines

As they are now, they say "The National Park Service has an ongoing program to restore portions of the battlefield to their historical non-wooded conditions, but this is a politically delicate process for reasons that are easy to imagine. There are also considerably more roads and facilities for the benefit of tourists visiting the battlefield park."

I don't like the non-specificness of "reasons that are easy to imagine." I can imagine reasons, but I don't know if they're the actual reasons. If someone knows more about this, can it be changed to say "but this is a politically delicate process for reasons SUCH AS..."?

Well, you're probably right, but I will bet that you really can imagine the reasons, which I omitted to avoid offending anyone. I'll reword. Hal Jespersen 02:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image gallery

How would people feel about adding an image gallery of some of the monuments? There's already a couple images uploaded that we could use. I'm making this suggestion knowing that there's no way we'd be able to (or any reason we'd want to) include images of every single monument on the battlefield. It might be a bit distracting to the article, and once we start we might get deluged with more and more uploads. Any thoughts? --Midnightdreary 00:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend that we not do that because of the reason you imply: proliferation of images. There are many amateur photographers who have spent a lot of time at Gettysburg. Perhaps it would be more useful to establish a new article called Gettysburg battlefield monuments and start it off with a format that includes a photograph and description (location, sculptor, date of dedication, etc.) that is more detailed than simply a caption in an image gallery. The only reason I would do that is to placate the amateur photographers who would otherwise upload a number of mediocre images into this article; there are already a few very good sites with excellent photography of all the monuments in Gettysburg and they are appropriate external links that don't really need to be duplicated. Hal Jespersen 14:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. But would Gettysburg Battlefield monuments be a better title (with the capital M)? I'll get a list of the images already uploaded to Wikipedia / Commons. Would you be able to put in significant text? I'd be limited on what I can say myself. --Midnightdreary 15:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I wrote the article Gettysburg Battlefield before the Wikipedia guys went crazy with lowercase letters in titles and headers. I probably should have named it "Gettysburg battlefield" because it is not representing an official name (which is really Gettysburg National Military Park) and the article describes more than the national park anyway. So, with redirects allowing multiple choices in case, the exact name does not really matter much. I have a lot of information about the monuments in the form of this book:
* Hawthorne, Frederick W., Gettysburg: Stories of Men and Monuments, Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides, 1988, ISBN 0-9657444-0-X.
I am not all that enthusiastic about prioritizing my time to transcribe this type of information. If you would like to pick three or four monuments to start, I could donate that text, in the hopes that others would maintain that level of documentation and not simply shovel in their own amateur photographs en masse. Hal Jespersen 19:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If you don't like the current page name, it can easily be moved to either correct capitalization or to the official name you suggest. I think several editors would argue with your statement "the exact name does not really matter much;" I've seen some heavy disputes over article names. Also, I'd suggest not being so critical or judgmental of "amateur" photography. Wikipedia really is, ultimately, an "amateur" project. I do see your point, but the use of the word amateur is a strange choice. But, anyway, back on topic... I'd love to hear what other opinions people might have about starting an article on Gettysburg monuments. Neither one of us are the be-all, end-all authority on the idea. Anyone out there? --Midnightdreary 03:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I am aware of how to rename pages, but I am unmotivated to do so. That is because when I say "it doesn't really matter much" I really should have appended "to me." Perhaps I should not have said amateur photography because all photographs included in Wikipedia are de facto nonprofessional (no one is getting paid for including them), but my opinion has been colored by some truly mediocre battlefield photographs that have been submitted for Gettysburg and other sites. There is such a rich collection of professional photography available to document these battlefields that the comparison is often pretty stark. Hal Jespersen 14:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation towers

I undid a large block of unsourced text on observation towers diff, but there is some useful information in there that should be added back to the article. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 18:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)