Hello everyone! On the Wookieepedia Discord server, there was a recent discussion regarding the possible implementation of a "units" section to the {{Battle}} and, potentially, the {{Mission}} infoboxes. At the moment these infoboxes include involved military units within the section for the forces involved in the engagements, such as B1-series battle droids and All Terrain Tactical Enforcers, which should be placed there. However, while there are existing battle status articles that sufficiently document the involved military units, there are inconsistencies between some of these status articles, such as Battle of the Kaliida Nebula/Legends and Battle of Ession, the latter which lists and links subjects multiple times within the same field.
As such, in a similar fashion to how Wikipedia organizes their battle infoboxes, I believe we should separate all the military units from the "strength" sections in order to allow the section to focus on involved trooper classes, individuals and starships/starfighters, whereas a "units" section would focus on, as stated previously, the involved military units, such as legions and fleets, like the 501st Legion and Open Circle Fleet. For a summary on the potential changes, please take a look at User:Erebus Chronus/IDK to see how it would look with the "units" section, as well as the sample template, User:Erebus Chronus/Whatever, which includes the coding for the proposed section. Furthermore, while the field is currently placed below the "strength" section as a default, I ask for opinions on where it would be placed within the infobox.
From my perspective, separating the "strength" field, coupled with a lack of consistency between status articles as examples, would be beneficial in creating consistent documentation around the entire site, as well as reducing the use for scroll boxes within infoboxes, such as on Battle of Jakku, which lists multiple New Republic starfighter squadrons multiple times, as opposed to just being listed once as preferred. Moreover, these changes would also be beneficial for our readers, as infoboxes are a first-hand piece of information on a vast majority of our articles, so it would reduce a large amount of clutter in larger infoboxes, like with the previous example, as well as other articles. Erebus Chronus (Talk) 15:11, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
- I guess I can see benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. If your proposed way gets adopted, though, I believe it should be Units and then Strength, since that way the information would flow from—from an organization point of view—high-level to low-level. Imperators II(Talk) 15:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- I can move to wherever it's suitable, since I think above Strength would be better. Erebus Chronus (Talk) 15:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- Also, even if we do not adopt the Units section, battle infoboxes should definitely not do it like the Jakku one ("part of Alphabet Squadron" etc.) but rather like the Ession one. Also, scrollboxes in infoboxes ewww. Imperators II(Talk) 15:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree, units above strengths. And just a small plural-related suggestion, perhaps unit1/unit2 should be units1/units2, to be consistant with commanders1/forces1. Plume Tray (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I realized it should be pluralized like the others. Thanks for reviewing! Erebus Chronus (Talk) 17:17, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for taking over this initiative, Erebus, I feel like this will really clean everything up and this is exactly what I envisioned in the past so I'm very happy to see this. Honestly, the only thing would be what Imperators and Plume said, which is to move units above strength, but besides that it's perfect. Great work, and I'm excited to see this hopefully pass!! --Vitus InfinitusTalk 21:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
- Although I like a good fictional battle description, let's be real here: few Star Wars battles have specific units listed and we shouldn't put too much thought into a complex infobox. It's supposed to be brief and precise. The battle infobox is already quite sizeable and most parameters are redundant. Also I can see some issues rising from its application. If the strength of a unit is referred to, where does it belong? Strength or units? Do we repeat it? More so, most battle infoboxes would continue to be small and the main battles such as the ones appearing in the films would still have huge infoboxes. I think we always preferred to be more descriptive in the article's body than in the infobox.
Winterz (talk) 11:46, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
- If it's described of a battalion of the 501st and a battalion of the 7th, I think we can just put 2 battalions in the strength section of the infobox, while detailing the specifics in the article body. I don't think this proposal is really to shorten infoboxes, but rather to organize them in a potentially better way. I say we can look into what goes in an infobox to shorten it, like avoiding more specific items like "*3 Jedi **Obi-Wan Kenobi **Mace Windu **Yoda" to simply "*3 Jedi." Same can go for other items like specific clone troopers and even specific vehicles. So rather than detailing Star Destroyers and then Venator Star Destroyers and then Venator I Star Destroyers and then Resolute and Defender for example, we can just have Venator Star Destroyers and likely just Resolute and Defender. I think that can be looked into further in a different proposal, but I definitely see where you're coming from and I think that we can shorten what goes in an infobox, just how we removed the members field of the organization infobox --Vitus InfinitusTalk 15:19, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
- Not sure why you think that adding a Units section to help make the Strength section cleaner would be complex. There are numerous battles in SW that don't even have civilian casualties, so that's a field that doesn't find common use. I also stated in the proposal that military forces, like B1 battle droids and tanks, would go in Strength, not Units, if that's what you were referring to. Erebus Chronus (Talk) 15:43, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
- At the end of the day, I'll take any solution that helps fix this atrocity: Battle of Gazzari. :P Imperators II(Talk) 15:24, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
- Any additional feedback would be appreciated before this is closed due to inactivity. Erebus Chronus (Talk) 04:42, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- Battles often do have 'units', so to what everyone else has said it would be nice to add it; I agree there. I'm not as sure about it's relevance to the mission template though. I mean a handful of the very largest missions would obviously find use for it, but the amount of smaller ones where a units input would make the information unnecessarily chopped up comes to mind.—spookywillowwtalk 20:39, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
