World War I Editathon/etherpad

Strategy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Mine_Barrage might be expanded to include post-war civilian losses

more general discussion of long-term civilian aftermath hazards? Is there an article on things like abandoned minefields? this would fit nicely with "impact", in a way

"abandoned minefields" would make a good article - long list though... - Unexploded ordnance sort of covers it

I believe there was substantial effort at minefield cleanup

is there an article on rebuilding the frontline areas? this must have been a major infrastructure issue - lots of work, lots of inward investment by France and Belgium (and elsewhere)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_railways mentions postwar use of the equipment for cleanup and economical transportation. Rebuilding might be covered as a History subsection of location articles.

Medicine

1. overview article, Medicine in World War I?
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine#World_Wars is sparse
3. Expand and rework Combat Stress Reaction

Global impact

• "WWI by country" - Senegal, Morocco... Wales? There is no India in World War I, but there is one for World War II - extensive coverage in British Raj, though
  • Ditto region - no overview article for the Middle East

see Middle Eastern theatre of World War 1 article for an overview of Middle East

• Need to cover *domestic* impact in various countries rather than just military participation - Ireland in World War I mostly omits political contexts, for example.
• Direct impact of the war (bombing etc) on distant "home" civilian populations. Naval mines drifted ashore in Norway. US and Canada had major casualties at ammunition manufacturing and loading facilities like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion. Incidents like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanceboro_international_bridge_bombing caused less direct damage, but required security effort..

Have just been re editing the Ottoman sections of the WW1 article. It was all bunched up in the first section so have created two new sections for 1917 and 1918.

Topics that might interest someone

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demobilisation (I think we're going to draft something on this)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet covers a similar WW2 operation. I understand there was significant unrest among US troops about the delay in getting home. It has been mentioned as a factor in formation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legion and caused some http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare concern among government circles.

Topics Edited

- list here what you're working on!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Mine_Barrage Looking for references about postwar civilian incidents
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_railways Looking for references about earliest internal combustion tractors.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.276_Enfield Looking for references about Canadian wartime use of the cartridge and Pattern 13 Enfield rifles.
• Cleaning up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_in_literature, which lists 'Motorhead' next to classic 1916 poetry
• Andy Mabbett has been talking about open licensing etc with the commonwealth war graves. Has also been editing about war graves etc in Belgium, France etc. Created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vailly_British_Cemetery (picture needed!); created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guards%27_Grave (ditto)
• All of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Pgogy
• Charles Matthews has been helping Pat Lockley from OUCS correct basic mistakes on wikipedia
• Carcharoth has been looking at the article on Shell shock with Simon Wessley - everything about shell shock we have currently in Wikipedia (which isn't much) is wrong
• Pierre Purseigle has edited Wikipedia for the first time, adding to French Army Mutinies (1917)
• There hasn't been enough time to restructure the Literature in the First World War page, and it will require further thought: specifically, about how the information was organised. Although it's been difficult to create content j However, the discussions today have given me inspiration to think further about what kinds of research and thinking goes into making Wikipedia pages. I've had interesting discussions about other pages too: one on the Muse at Arms; one on a play by Somerset Maugham.
• Andrew Gray been talking about indian military history during ww1, and the ways that the article clashes with indian political history in ww1
• working on a structure for a new History of India during World War I to tie both issues together, and bring in other aspects, such as literary responses &c.
• Surplus women - has been worked on by ErrantX, trying to include both military and social aspects of the discussion.
• HJ Mitchell has been working with Catriona Pennell looking at History of the United Kingdom during World War One & Ireland and Word War I
• adding links to Sinai and Palestine Campaign from Military history of India article
• AG has identified academics who may be willing to provide support for reviewing and assessing these.
• Displayed Paths of Glory (game) and reviewed related content on Wikipedia such as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paths_of_Glory_%28board_game%29

• Whiteghost.ink has been developing the stub article on Anna Airy and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_Lion
• Tim Riley has been working (in sandbox so far) on George Butterworth - Leading British composer killed in the trenches in 1916
• Miyagawa created a stub list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kil_class_sloop
• Started an article about the centenary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_War_centenary The huge contribution of India needs lots of work so that it can be properly recognised and links made to all the battles they were involved in

http://www.ghi-dc.org/ghidigital/ - German Historical Institute; may have open-licensed media

Themes from Edward Madigan's talk (post lunch)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ieper#Menin_Gate
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_Cot_Cemetery
• Bailleumont Communal Cemetery (no article?)
• Equality of the commemorative monuments.
• The resistance at the time of uniformity of war graves from the families of the fallen.
• Over 50% of Western Front have personalized inscriptions on war graves.
• Kipling became the spokesman for the War Graves Commission
• George V and Edmund Blunded key quotations in reaction to monuments, contrast with the anger of Siegfried Sassoon "On Passing the New Menin Gate".
• Further contrasts with the strong views of modern writers such as Mark Steel and George Monbiot demonstrating continuing emotional resonance.
• CWGC policy on language, content and tone in First World War material (2011) - avoiding 'heroic', 'brave', 'catastrophe'
• a neutral tone?
  • the tone of revisionist military history is cantankerous, saying that what the public believes is rubbish
  • Wikipedians and historians alike should accept that war poets and people who produced elegant literature are more likely to impact on public perceptions than people who write dense peer-reviewed articles
  • Wikipedians couldn't work in a more public space - a privilege to

Wikipedia is an opportunity to publish reader level information on the various campaigns. Its a place for interested researchers to start, like encyclopedias used to be.

ACTIONS from the day?

• where next?
  • researchers feel overwhelmed a little bit - only small changes made, it takes time to edit. Catriona Pennell asking for a feedback/editing session with students, with help from Wikipedians. Might be part of an 'education program'-style event, where articles are written by students as part of a course. This could be part of the next module, running in autumn.
  • question: who is writing the archive of the work we're doing for the centenary? who is documenting what we're doing? this is important for future historians. It's important to have a central point of record for this.
  • does anyone have any views on using wikipedia as a ttrusted source? Edward says "no" - wikipedia will not be cited in the same way as abooks, etc. But this is because wikipedia is an introduction, a resource: but not a secondary source. Andy Mabbett described wikipedia as "the gateway drug to learning".
  • how many women edit wikipedia? Andrew Gray answered: 10-15%. There was an in depth discussion of gender issues on wikipedia. ErrantX then showed us the work he had done on the article Surplus women, and gave a talk on the problems with finding sources for this. We may well have a DYK with this article.
  • Andrew Gray is running a series of workshops for academics and postgrads about WIkipedia. Interested persons should drop him an email.
  • Discussed Wikipedians in Residence - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence

Some sources for images

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Europeana_1914-1918