Adding Army Information to Wikipedia

Yesterday I went to a monthly open workshop on how to contribute to Wikipedia.  The organizer of the workshop is Mary Mark Ockerbloom, the Wikipedian-In-Residence at Chemical Heritage Foundation, the place where I used to work.

This month, with Mary's help, I contributed to three Army-related pages.  My first question was whether I could add all the information I compiled in spreadsheet about all the tanks in service around the world.  I got the info from a Wikipedia page, my spreadsheet just made it possible to sort it and get totals.  As it turns out, it is not possible to add spreadsheets to a Wikipedia page, but I could add a one-paragraph summary of the data with a link to my blog post offering the spreadsheet to anyone who wants it.

And I did just that.  Here's the page listing all of the main battle tanks by country.  Scroll to the end of table and just after tanks in the Army of Zimbabwe is the paragraph summary I added.

By the way, I just love the data on that page.  Particularly that Mali has just one tank, a 50-year-old Soviet-built T-55 tank.  Imagine the pressure on the guy in charge of that one tank.

Mary also helped me to add the video I did comparing C-Rations and MREs to the Wikipedia pages on C-Rations and MREs.

I'll be going back next month to learn more about adding photos to the Wiki Commons.

Wikipedia Loves Weapons, Not Soldiers

This week I had a meeting with a "Wikipedian in Residence" at a history of science museum.  I was asking her about how to put people on Wikipedia.  Specifically, I wanted to write about National Guard First Sergeants and Sergeant's Majors and I thought it would be possible to create Wikipedia pages about some of the top sergeants I would write about.

Not possible.

My friend the Wikipedian went through the rules for creating a page about a person, and it is not possible to create a page about an enlisted soldier, or any soldier below the rank of Major General unless they have received the Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Service Cross.

I understand they have to have rules, but there is no weapon or vehicle that does not have a page. Also, in the context of the entire world of who gets on Wikipedia, it is very clear soldiers are not all Heroes.

Because the real heroes of our culture can and do have Wikipedia pages:

• Every professional athlete in any sport
• Every actor who has ever appeared in a movie
• Every porn star
• Every televangelist
• Every serial killer

The culture may use the word "hero" to refer to the guy who lives down the street and goes to war every few years, but our real heroes get fame and money.  A first sergeant who spends a year in the desert making sure his men are ready to fight and hopefully get home, that guy does not does not meet the athlete/movie star/porn star/televangelist/serial killer threshold required to be the subject of a Wikipedia page.