Aligning ANZAC Categories with Military and War Standards

Question

It is a known issue for Australian WW1 veterans that use of the "unit" parameter with the {{The Great War}} sticker references undefined categories, and not using it adds profiles directly to mid-level "Category: Australian Army, World War I".

An example is a profile in progress for Walter Charles Josephs (Josephs-184), whom I have manually added to "Category: AIF, 43rd Australian Infantry Battalion" and using {{The Great War |branch=Australian Army |units=43rd Infantry Battalion }} has been added to "Category: Australian Army, World War I".

(Edited to remove suggestion to use branch "Australian Imperial Force" instead of "Australian Army" )

Suggest that battalion level categories renamed to match Military and War category docs, for example rename "Category: AIF, 43rd Australian Infantry Battalion" to “Category: 43rd Infantry Battalion, Australian Army, World War I" (which is sub-category of "Category: Australian Imperial Force, World War I" etc)

Then using {{The Great War |branch=Australian Army |unit=43rd Infantry Battalion }} would assign to correct category 

Answer 1

Wally, as you say, the Great War Sticker you use inappropriately adds the profile to the mid level Australian Army, World War I. For this reason I do not use it. The AIF, unit Categories are designed to add the profile directly to their unit. I prefer to use {{Veteran Recognition|badge-image = Military_Badges_and_Insignia-23.png|nationality =Second Australian|branch =Imperial Force|start-year =1940|end-year =1945|text =2/1^st Australian Infantry Battalion}}. It can easily adjust for other wars and services and any wording you want can be added in the text. I also prefer that it uses the service logo rather than the Australian Flag.

You do need to amend the dates of service on your sticker from 2016-2018 to 1916-1918. Regards, Ken

Comments

I don’t think the sticker is fundamentally broken - seems like many other countries have setup category names to align:

* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:New_Zealand_Army%2C_World_War_I

* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Canadian_Expeditionary_Force%2C_World_War_I

* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:American_Expeditionary_Force_%28AEF%29_Battalions%2C_World_War_I

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The reason that the stickers for The Great War (and World War II) will incorrectly assign Australian profiles is due to how the majority of Australian World War I and World War II categories are set up. Most other countries when setting up their war categories follow the format Unit, War whereas the Australian World War I and World War II categories seen to follow the format AIF, Unit and 2AIF, Unit. As an outsider looking in that isn't ideal as the current categories are

1. Using an Acronym which could be misinterpreted
2. Doesn't specify the war involved (For people unfamiliar with what the AIF stands for)
3. Doesn't follow the standard of other countries in the specific war thus creating miscategorization and sticker problems

In my opinion there needs to be a rethink on how the War categories are set up for Australia involving people from the Australia Project, The Categorization Project, The Military and War project (and any other effected projects) to decided whether to keep the categories as is or to rename as per the other countries related war categories. 

There isn't a problem with the Stickers but in how some Australian War categories have been set up that doesn't work with the Sticker parameters. Granted it is likely the categories were created before the Stickers hence the discrepancy. 

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@Troy and @Darren, actually the sticker came first, and worked with the Australian Army categories as they were, (the same format as the other countries), until a few years ago, maybe 2 or 3, when all the Australian ones where changed, from that standard format, and no longer worked with the sticker. As both the sticker and the categories are managed by the Military & War Project, any proposal put to the Categorization project to amend the sticker and rename the categories I think would need to originate from M&W.

@Troy, have you considered contacting and/or joining M&W Project to follow up the issue?

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Thanks Margaret, it was not clear which project managed the battalion/regiment level categories as the couple that checked did not have project boxes (but lots of great info that categorisation project would presumably prefer to have moved to free space pages etc)

I have requested to join the Anzacs project too.

PS: the couple I checked were created or renamed early 2019

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Troy, that sounds right, checking my grandfather's profile, I added the GW sticker in 2018, it was working fine with the then existing category, 2019 was when that changed.

Definitely M&W that manages all military stickers/categories.

Answer 2

I should remind that the Sticker being discussed (there is another that recognises Veterans) uses the term 'Australian Army' rather than 'Australian Imperial Force' because there was more than just the AIF during the War.  There was also the Australian New Guinea Expeditionary Force and the Militia, which only served within Australia and was correctly the Commonwealth Military Force.  The AIF was initially known as the Australian Expeditionary Force. Please don't complicate what needs to be simple.

Comments

Thanks Kenneth, I did not properly understand the military hierarchy that the Australian Army is made up of multiple armies!

therefore, it seems that the correct approach would be to rename "Category: AIF, 43rd Australian Infantry Battalion" to “Category: 43rd Infantry Battalion, Australian Army, World War I" which itself would be a sub-category of “Category: Australian Imperial Force, World War I" and any other appropriate groupings.

This would allow use of:

{{The Great War |branch=Australian Army |unit=43rd Infantry Battalion }}

Plus avoid profiles being added to mid-level category.