Sticker proposal/request: Mort pour la France

Question

Hello everyone!

Recently, Natalie & Isabelle have done a lot of work to categorise profiles of French soldiers who died in WWI. I've done what I could to help.

In France, we have a specific legal status called "Mort pour la France" (literally "died for France"; see Wikipedia article about it.) It applies to soldiers who died in action but also who died later from complications of wounds they sustained on the battlefield, or even from diseases they contracted in the trenches.

We have a WikiTree category for it, which is divided into 3 subcategories: WWI, WWII & the Algerian War of Independence.

In this Remembrance Day, I would like to propose a sticker for it. I would have liked to use the Roll of Honor Sticker, but it automatically puts English in it (with the use of "was") and it looks very weird with a French name & a French status, so I think it needs its own sticker.

This is my first time making such a proposal, and I'm not entirely comfortable yet with the use of stickers in general, so I hope I'm doing things correctly.

Here what I envisioned:

- picture: I was thinking something like this (French flag with black ribbon), but I'm not very talented at graphic design so if someone has a better suggestion it could be nice!

- text: "(name) est Mort pour la France"

- additional parameters: choose a category from the 3 Morts pour la France subcategories, add a year or a full date maybe? not sure

Please let me know what you think of this idea!

Comments

I do not like stickers that offer category creation at this point. I know they are convenient for users, and that users who KNOW how to use it would love this feature. The reality in WikiTree is that many users do not bother to learn about sticker parameters and how to use them. Every day I see red category links caused by improper entering of a sticker parameter and I must edit the profile to correct it. Isabelle also knows this to be true. But I would like to see this as a sticker, whether or not the categories are included.

And your design is great!

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If there should only be the three possible options for the categories, that is very easy to do and we can force it to use one of those categories or noting at all. It removes all possibility of errors.

We will also need an image uploaded to WikiTree. Once that is done, I can work on the sticker.

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If neither Natalie nor Isabelle like the idea of the sticker adding a category I think we should go with them because they're the ones who worked on those profiles the most!

Steven, where/how do I upload the image please?

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Don't worry about the categories - I can hard code them and they will not cause errors.

You can upload an image like normal to WikiTree. Maybe a free-space page like this one: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Repository_for_Stickers

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YAY STEVE. That would be a good alternative for France Project, I think.

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@Léa, Nat uploaed the image so we can see how it looks on the sticker. Here is the preview: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Mort_pour_la_France

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That looks good to me! Is there a reason why the text it highlighted in different colours in the examples?

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@Léa can you clarify? There is no text highlighting.

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Ok I reopened the page again, there was no highlight for a couple of seconds then it appeared. I think it must be because one of my (numerous!) extensions haha

I'm happy with the sticker if Natalie and Isabelle are too! Thank you, and thanks Natalie for uploading the image

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Yes, looks good.

Just one thing, Steve - be prepared to add more categories  in the future as there will almost certainly be more (the First Indochina War - under its French name - is probably next in line, but there are more, for instance, even civilians victims of terrorism get Mort pour la France status nowadays).

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Should be good! As long as we keep them with parameters to define the category, nothing can be generated incorrectly :)

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Hello again Steven! Do I need to do anything to make the sticker go from "under development" to good and running? I think it's perfect the way it is!

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I was just waiting on final approval - you are good to go now.

Answer 1

Being a late graphic designer () I like your idea for the image. My only suggestion would be to make the ribbon a little bigger as the image will be much smaller when used.

I second the use of a sticker.... I have a veteran lined up!

Answer 2

I like the idea, and you've already exceeded my graphic design talents!

Answer 3

The mention "Mort pour la France" is granted by the ministry of Defense, according to certain conditions, following articles L488 à L492bis of the "code des pensions militaires d’invalidité et des victimes de la guerre".

Concerning WWI more than 1.3 milion soldiers got that mention. Some 95000 others did not get that mention, most of them because their case had not been instructed.

We should consider either to take into account the official mention, which continues to be granted up till now, or to make a different category as "dead in the French army" eventually mentionning in which conflict.

I prefer the first option, and the text should be "Mort pour la France" without any other mention as (name) is mort pour la France or categories.

I do not think Wikitree should interfeer with a legal mention.

Comments

I'm aware of that, I'm talking about people who actually got that mention legally, which is why I used the word "legal status" in my post... that's already what is applied for the categories.

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Then I totlly agree and thank you for the proposal.

Answer 4

Yes please. We tried using the standard RoH sticker on my great-grandfather's profile and the result is ridiculous (see Lucien Fonteyne). Although not a fan of using a lot of stickers, I am rather annoyed at this state of things, it looks like only Anglo-saxon soldiers are entitled to the Roll of Honor.

Two details on the proposal:

- I prefer stickers not to add a category (add the category manually instead)

- use an additional (optional) free text if the user wants more detail on the sticker ?

Comments

What problems do you encounter with stickers adding categories?

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Back when I worked on category maintenance (I have since given up), stickers and templates (such as "Unsourced") were the main cause of wanted categories. There is no warning if they call a category that doesn't exist, unlike when you hard-include a category at the top of the biography.

Also, when categories are renamed, EditBot is unable to move profiles where the category is called by a sticker and template, so they have to be moved manually. And that can't be done when the profiles are private, resulting in renames and deletes being stuck in EditBot with one or two profiles preventing the action from being finalized, sometimes for months.

In short: categories in stickers cause maintenance issues.

Answer 5

Llewellyn Miller (Penny) Pennie - WikiTree Profile   should qualify he was in Canadian Cycle Corp and was killed in action in France.  He is buried in Llewellyn Miller Pennie - The Canadian Virtual War Memorial - Veterans Affairs Canada

Comments

Oh yeah I didn't list profiles that qualify because the matching category has hundreds of them

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If he was serving for Canada, he wouldn't qualify as Mort pour la France, no matter where he died. Mort pour la France is only for French Army soldiers.

As an example, there is a soldier on my village's War Memorial, born in France, lived all his life in France, French mother, French wife, but since he automatically got his father's nationality he was Belgian, served in the Belgian Army, "died for Belgium" and was never Mort pour la France.

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ok thanks, /i misunderstood.  Yes he was Canadian but died fighting in france in WWI