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Forums: Index > Wiki discussion > Military conflict policy brainstorming
 
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As some of you may be aware after my last forum: Forum:Military conflict pages, do we need them?, an absence of any policy for the creation/existence for military conflict pages sets the dangerous precedence where a conflict page can be made for just about anything and/or everything.

To solve this, I wish to begin brainstorming a policy that details what a conflict page should be about so the creation of new conflict pages and the fine-tuning of the ones we do have can be well understood and agreed upon for the betterment of our information organization.

Prototypes

Here are some prototypes for the policy wording that I've brainstormed recently.

Conflicts

"Conflicts are events mentioned/referenced throughout the Fallout franchise that detail armed aggression between two or more parties of larger-than-individual size that occurred at some point in the timeline and had a canonical result. Conflicts often describe or create factions and should be used to better organize the information but linked as a "main article" under a subheader on the individual faction's page and followed by a brief summary."

Current Conflict Page Status

Reliable fact Many of the aftermath sections will need to be removed if they suggest possible post-endings involving the Courier/Lone Wanderer's actions later down the line. The conflicts listed above in green are all acceptable by the definition and in accordance with what I know about each of them and their outcomes -before- the Courier gets involved.

Uncorroborrated fact Passable if revised as suggested.

Unreliable or incorrect statement Unacceptable as it is with no perceivable revision in sight.

Wars

"Wars are overviews of several conflicts or quests that are in some way connected or associated with an event, element, or the factions involved. War pages are better places to organize conflicts than overview pages of the aforementioned events, elements, or factions involved but should be posted as a "main article" under a subheader on those aforementioned overview pages and followed by a brief summary."

Current War Page Status

Reliable fact Since they're reclassified as overview pages in this prototype, many don't need much revision as the aftermath segments are somewhat appropriate in how they mention the war is inconclusive and/or ongoing. May need standardization nonetheless though.

Uncorroborrated fact Passable if revised as suggested.

Unique outliers

  1. Commonwealth android abolitionism: This one may be a war OR a conflict from what we know about the Commonwealth, the Institute, and The Railroad. And until we know more about it, I think it's best left as a simple description of the affairs on the respective pages of those involved or perhaps a whole other classification entirely.
  2. Racket: If its name can be sourced, then this particular conflict is unique in that it, despite lacking a canonical end, summarizes the event leading up to all of the possible angles to the quest, How Little We Know. A quest which is, in itself, quite dense in subject material and integral to the game's progression/completion.
  3. Second Battle of Hoover Dam: Same case as Operation:Racket.


Some of you may have also noticed that the conflict pages made for battles and events in Fallout 3 were put in the Unreliable or incorrect statement category. This is because I feel that despite the game's linear progression of events, nothing is canon quite yet and we should wait for Fallout 4 to come out and confirm particular events just in case Bethesda decides to retcon certain details, regardless of how unlikely it may seem.

Comments

I could use any and all help generating a better wording and a location for this policy in our wiki-navigation. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 19:55, March 10, 2014 (UTC)

Further discussion on subject-notability

Feedback regarding personal thoughts/feelings/experience with the conflict pages' notability/relevance/redundancy are welcome but better left under this subheader. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 19:55, March 10, 2014 (UTC)

I feel if the content described on a military-conflicts page is already present in a quest, location, or other established page, it'd be redundant to include a military-conflicts page; this accounts to most military-conflicts pages I've seen thus far. 69.l25 (talk) 21:50, March 11, 2014 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree but a few of the quest pages have had outcomes established as canon, like the Destruction of Control Station ENCLAVE or the various war pages and I feel that deserves its own page entirely.
Originally I was going to go with a policy/project guideline very similar to yours, with the wording of, "Mentioned-only conflicts get pages". Overtime, I figured a compromise was more appropriate as I find many of the pages helpful but at the same time I find many to be redundant or just outright speculation. Like the various conflict pages for the events of Broken Steel and the main questline for Fallout: 3.
And after some thinking, I figured the conflict pages for canonical quest endings would look perfectly acceptable if they were cited properly. That's something I can do but will only start doing once I get an agreed upon policy/project guideline. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 22:18, March 11, 2014 (UTC)
Hell, the thought just occurred to me that my prototype establishes almost exactly the same standard set by conflict pages being about conflicts that are, "Mentioned only" with the only sole difference that it can be about a quest too so long as the outcome is mentioned. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 22:23, March 11, 2014 (UTC)

Just to note, when I created the military conflicts project, making new articles was not in its scope. This is not to say that I don't appreciate the initiative being made or anything. As for notability, new articles should always have enough independent information that couldn't be justly added in another article. A case-by-case examination for notability upon a challenge should suffice. --Skire (talk) 22:51, March 15, 2014 (UTC)

Ordinarily that would work but
  1. I'm the sort of guy who likes to have a guideline to follow to remain consistent with his work.
  2. Some people are also like this and I feel making a guideline to appease them now would be better than working an unwritten one out with them later.
That, and I've been encountering some setbacks lately in regards to collaboration on edits and page creation/naming. So you'll have to forgive my pessimism about ironing out pages on a case-by-case basis. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 21:37, March 16, 2014 (UTC)
I understand that perfectly, but I prefer more flexibility and less bureaucracy whenever possible. Perhaps we could set up an ad hoc committee (like the referencing one you proposed) to go through the pages in question and determine their fate. 173.48.187.140 22:57, March 16, 2014 (UTC)
One committee at a time :p and technically it was Chad's idea. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 00:34, March 17, 2014 (UTC)

A Follower's Views

It's time for me to once again (reluctantly) pull out the "I'm a military historian" card and put in my two cents about how we should treat these pages (at least in a professional and academic sense).

Let's first look at how military historians classify each of these 'types' of pages. I notice we have several pages that include 'conflict' within their names. Conflict is an extremely broad term, and generally serves as an all-encompassing term. Wars, battles, uprisings, rebellions, massacres, riots, etc. are all different types of conflicts. Thus, it is my opinion that we should never use 'conflict' to name a page, as it is far to vague of a description. It could mean anything from a global war to a simple skirmish between tribes.

Let's take a look at war pages. For all intents and purposes, war pages should only be an overview page detailing the overall nature of the conflict, who was involved from start to finish, what battles and operations took place (a de facto simple Order of Battle, if you will), what the final result was and whether or not it led in to further wars or other types of conflicts. These pages should not go in to detail of each operation or battle, nor should they deal with leadership of each faction (with the exception of extremely notable individuals, such as Stalin and Roosevelt, or in our case, House and Caesar). Leadership should be detailed (when applicable) on separate pages and linked to the main 'war page'. Details of battles should be left to their respective pages. I maintain that, encyclopedically, these should only be overview pages, and if there is not sufficient quantity of information as listed above, then that page should not exist. I point specifically to the Brotherhood-Attis War of a page that, without extreme overhaul, does not belong as a war page. I should also point out that wars which are ongoing should only detail as much information as is available at the start of a canon game, and that any war with variable outcomes should only be detailed to the point where the variation could occur - in essence, as long as an established and accurate order of battle can be detailed.

Now, let's look at battles. Battles are generally one-off events. They can last theoretically indefinitely, but they always have a beginning and an end, at least historically. Battles are often periods of warfare segregated by historians for study and thus (generally) have a fixed time period which is decided by historical consensus. This again makes open and variable ending battles pretty much undocumentable, as they would not be segregated from a larger conflict until after the fact. In the case of defined-ending battles, they should be more detailed than the war pages from which they are segregated. They should include leaders of the battle, forces involved, approximate numbers, a detailed order of battle, causes, effects, and the outcome.

Operations follow the same rules as above, generally, except that operations often exist before the battle commences. Because of this, planned and ongoing operations can be detailed, as long as the order of battle is detailed accurately as recently as possible. Rebellions and uprisings are the same as battles. They can only be detailed up until the most current established canon information. Possible outcomes and open-ended possibilities should be left off.

In conclusion, my opinion on how we treat these pages is this: War pages should be overviews of large scaled and detailed conflicts. Battle pages should be subset pages of the war to which they belong, providing more detail than their respective war pages. Operations and uprisings/rebellions follow a similar rule. Most importantly, all pages should never include details on variable endings. This will ensure canonicity and accuracy above all else.

Now, on to what has already been done. Ever, you have made a fantastic list of the pages and I agree with pretty much every one of your judgments except on the war pages - some of them (NCR-Fiends, Brotherhood-Attis) don't have enough sub-content to be war pages proper, if 'wars' at all. If they can't be made to be overview pages, they should go. And, for the record, Commonwealth android abolitionism should not be a page, conflict or not. It's pretty much 100% speculative, and the non-speculative information is repeated and not summarized. Not enough details are known as of yet, so I don't think we should factor it in.

Anyways, that's my spiel, if anyone has questions feel free to ask. This was written pretty rushed so I may contradict myself a bit. If I can clarify anything, let me know. FollowersApocalypseLogo.png A Follower  Talk  04:27, March 18, 2014 (UTC)

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