You don't have to join our project to work on military history articles. We welcome everyone who wants to help improve these topics, and encourage you—project member or not—to participate in all of our activities and take complete advantage of the support we offer.
Ourlist of open tasks contains thousands of articles that need different types of improvement. Article reviews and other discussions can be found on ourlist of article alerts (watch). Please feel free to select something that interests you and start editing!
If you would like to advertise your participation, you can formally join the project byadding your name to thelist of members, or by adding one of ouruserboxes to your user page. Whether or not you join the project, you can sign up to receive our monthly newsletter,The Bugle, by adding your user name tothis list.
What topics do we cover?
We generally considerany article related to historical or modern-day warfare or military affairs to be within our scope.[Note 1]
Military personnel, including both leaders and common soldiers, as well as other people involved in military affairs.[Note 3]
Military units and formations, ranging from small units to national armed forces.
Military equipment and technology, weapons, armour, and vehicles.
Military facilities and structures, such as fortifications, bases, test sites, and memorials.
Military historiography, publications, and historians.
Types and periods of warfare, the military histories of particular nations and groups, and general military science and doctrine.
Depictions of military history in all media, such as video games, painting, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and prose.[Note 4]
Notes
^The American usage of "military" is applicable here; in other words, the project concerns itself with anyarmed forces rather than only with land armies.
^Other than a requirement for military orparamilitary involvement, we do not limit the events to which terms such as "war" or "battle" are applied; it is generally enough for the term to be used by reliable sources. Editors should beware, however, of interpreting such usage too literally; the popular media often uses them to describe civil law enforcement matters such as "gang wars" or "street battles", which are not typically within our scope.
^Military service does not in and of itself place an individual within the scope of the project—particularly in the case of service in modern militaries. To qualify them, an individual's military service must have been somehow noteworthy or have contributed—directly or indirectly—to their notability.
^We generally cover only those depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented depictions of fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of actual military history would no longer be relevant to them—such as futuristic warfare inStar Wars or fantasy battles inLord of the Rings—are not considered to be within the project's scope. However, songs and music with long military associations—for example,It's a long way to Tipperary andLili Marleen—are within our scope.
What advice can we offer?
We maintain advice pages oncontent andnotability related to military history articles, and there is a formal style guideline as well:
Thecontent guide provides advice on article content and structure.
Thenotability guide provides advice on the notability of topics.
Themilitary history style guideline covers naming conventions, usage and style, sourcing and citation, templates, and categories.
In addition, ourAcademy offers training and instruction on a wide range of subjects related to military history and Wikipedia.
Who coordinates our project?
Theproject coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers.
A group of project members are currently undertaking a special project calledOperationMajestic Titan which aims to create the largest featured topic on Wikipedia, covering every modern battleship ever planned or built.
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