User talk:Sarahb

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I have added (British) to your edit of "Category:Indian Army" to distinguish it from Indian Army 1858-95 and the post-Independence Indian Army both of which you find if you Google "Indian Army". I also found the informative Wikipedia page "Indian Army 1895-1947" which I have added to external links. Hope you approve.--Sy 05:21, 24 March 2009 (PDT)

Indian Army

It's all beinning to look a lot more coherent.--Sy 02:10, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

Skinner's Horse

Naively I thought that if it is in Google Books we are in the clear! However we come back to that old problem of the difference between copyright in USA and UK. Dictionary of Indian Biography is a snippet when viewed here. It may or may not be in full view in the US. Phyllis Danko who has been part of the Battles research has sent me PDFs available as downloads from Google Books which are full view for her in New Hampshire but a snipppet for me. Here's the conundrum: if SHE edits the FIBIwiki, can she use material that is copyright for her but not for UK? If I edit the FIBIwiki using the pdf, am I breaking copyright? Would it make any difference if FIBIS were American based? Globalisation brings such problems. But we need to have the answer.--Sy 02:10, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

Leave it to me Guv. I'll do it today.--Sy 03:36, 28 March 2009 (PDT)

BACSA link on RRL Cemeteries ...

Hi Sarah Sorry, but I am not happy about you forcing people to do a two-step to get to the BACSA website. The internal link adds no real value. It is far better for folk who are interested to be able to go straight to the horse's mouth. Note that the link should be to the BACSA mainpage and not to their publications page. The point of the link is to provide info on BACSA; I've listed the publications. Their list of transcription titles was produced by a not very good scan and at the moment contains a number of typos. So the question is: will you restore the external link or may I? Regards EleanorNeil 09:16, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

Thanks for reverting the BACSA link Sarah.

I have no connection with BACSA but I do know that John Kendall, who is our FIBIS database person, was doing a search facility for BACSA. I think that what you have found is the prototype (his company is Frontis). I would think that it would be sensible to wait until it is properly tied in to the main BACSA site before we made any links. There are a couple of fellow-FIBIS trustees who are also BACSA folk and I could make enquiries if you wish.

Would you also revert the info and link for the BACSA archival files at the British Library. The reason it appeared so clumsily setup was out of necessity. The link you set up was session dependent, so if you try it now it will not work. Sadly there appears to be no way around this, which is why I opted for my method. Regards EleanorNeil 13:02, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

Sarah I appreciate your interest. I am an old-fashioned librarian and thus slightly obsessive about detail, but mistakes still happen so it is nice to know that someone is keeping a watchful eye on my work. EleanorNeil 10:33, 27 March 2009 (PDT)

Page title/web search

Following our earlier discussion on the best title to encourage hits on the web I have been looking at the Regiment titles. The most obvious search term being the shortest, people are likely to look for say "61st Bengal Infantry" or "69th Punjabis". A large number of our titles have Regiment e.g. "38th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry". I don't think we need 'Regiment of' in the title except perhaps for the Britsh Army Infantry but even 2nd Regiment of Foot is likely to be entered as 2nd Foot. There is a mixed approach here. What do you think is the best course?--Sy 10:02, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

And another point. Many titles have extra detail in brackets such as (Hodson's Horse) or (Seaforth Highlanders). Should we be shortening these?--Sy 10:10, 25 March 2009 (PDT)

Church Details

This from today's India List. http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/10/stories/2009031052220200.htm Can we nick it for FIBIWIKI?--Sy 05:58, 26 March 2009 (PDT)

Thanks for doing this. I hope you don't mind me leaving these things to you. I don't feel confident enough to put stuff in the right place.--Sy 03:35, 28 March 2009 (PDT)

19th Regiment of Foot

Wanting to add Chronology to this page I found a long article derived from Cathy Day's Website. In order to separate the article from the other content I have done some recasting . I have also removed the request to contact the author (it doesn't seem appropriate for the Fibiwiki). I hope this is not going to upset anyone.
One thing I couldn't do. The heading "Known as Green Howards" should be under the title and not part of the contents box. How do you do that?--Sy 10:30, 26 March 2009 (PDT)

Thanks for looking this over.--Sy 03:33, 28 March 2009 (PDT)

Belwar Fort

There is a page for Belwar in Locations as well as Belwar Fort. Should they be linked/amalgamated?--Sy 04:23, 28 March 2009 (PDT)

Madras Infantry Regiments

I am trying to get a grip on the chronology of the Punjabi Regiments and this has led me to the antecedents of some who were the Madras Infantry. I have created two Articles: Madras European Infantry and Madras Native Infantry which I have put in a category of Madras Infantry which is a subcategory of Madras Infantry Regiments. I have now had doubts about the hierarchy. Should the order be Madras Infantry with subcategories European and Native with articles for the regiments? Please advise and recast as you think fit.--Sy 08:30, 29 March 2009 (PDT)

30 March

• Belwar & Belwar (Fort)

My page for Battle of Belwar Fort now has the link to the gazetteer entry describing Belwar/Bilwa as 20 miles southeast of Gorakhpur in 1857. Whether it exists as a place now I don't know. Meanwhile separate articles is fine by me.

• Madras infantry matters

It is all very confusing because the names of regiments changed so often. If you have a look at 7th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry you will see that they were once 7th Regiment of Madras Infantry. Both names appear in the various infantry regiment lists and as they refer to the same unit I have put a redirect for 7th Regiment of Madras Infantry.

European regiments were amalgamated with the British Army in 1860. 'Native' regiments continued until the abolition of the Presidency Armies in the 1890s. So I think the logical approach is to put the full chronology under the Presidency Army and, where the regiment survived the Mutiny, put the later title under the Indian Army with a redirection. Therefore the 7th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry is listed under Madras Infantry Regiments and the 7th Regiment of Madras Infantry is listed under the Indian Army Infantry Regiments. Do you think that is OK?

The same thing will apply to the European regiments. 1st Madras (European) Fusiliers will appear under Madras Infantry Regiments and its later incarnation the 102nd (Royal Madras Fusiliers) Regiment should be listed under Indian Army Infantry Regiments.

I have got Peter's book and it has some useful detail about the structure of the armies but of course doesn't address these issues of cataloguing.

Thanks for sorting my muddle over where to put the two articles on Madras Infantry. I have only just realised how you format titles so they are at the top of the list and not buried alphabetically/numerically.

• Wars/battles dates in categories

I do like the idea of chronological lists. Is there an easy way we can set this up so it can be done as we edit each event rather than going laboriously back through the whole list?

• Recent edits

I see you have been changing my ==== Known as 22nd Punjabis ==== to Known as 22nd Punjabis. I assume this is because of the problem I had earlier with the title appearing in the index box. Ideally I was hoping to have the title a bit bigger than you get using the Bold tool. Any suggestions?
--Sy 01:42, 30 March 2009 (PDT)

Bilwa

Thanks for the link to the newspaper article. I have cut and pasted it onto the Belwar page as an image. Ideally it should be a bit smaller. Can this be done in the Fibiwiki (other than the thumb option)?--Sy 10:54, 1 April 2009 (PDT)

Well done for finding it on the map. Must be the place as it checks with the coordinates in the Gazetteer. I have corrested the coordinates, mounted a map extract and added the external link to your account of the Naval Brigade.--Sy 10:41, 2 April 2009 (PDT)

Chronological Lists

Picking out points in the order of your comments:

• Yes there are lots of battles that don't form part of campaigns but generally during the Mutiny. If I knew more I might be able to identify all the campaigns in the mutiny but I am not sure whether they would still include all the battles. Many of the battles could be grouped where they were actions by a particular army unit such as the Sarun Field Force or the Central Indian Field Force. I just don't know enough.
• The page looks fine. What category will it be under? Are we going to mix up campaigns and battles or have separate lists? What happens when a war spans two of your double decades?
• Do we now need to go through the wars and campaigns and remove the dates in the title? This is laborious because you can't change the title of a category by moving it as you can with an article. As far as I know we will have to go through and change the internal links in all the battles associated with the particular campaign.
  --Sy 10:59, 2 April 2009 (PDT)

In reply to your reply.

I think we should not muddle up Campaigns and Battles on the same list. Let's just get on with the Campaigns chronological list and see how we feel later.

I suggest for the few campaigns that overlap two double decades we put them in the section in which they started.

I'll have ago at adding to the page and see how much of a mess I make.

--Sy 00:56, 4 April 2009 (PDT)

H M Regiments

I know it's picky but I don't like the title H.M.'s Regiments. Convention says we leave out the apostrophe as in H.M. Government. It is a clumsy looking beast. Also I have been corrected before by other editors for putting stops after initials (as in J. K. Rowling). Should we leave them out as well? What do you think?--Sy 01:02, 4 April 2009 (PDT)

80th Regiment of Foot

I have recently come across several pages with imported text from Cathy Day's website. I have edited them using your amendments of the 19th Regiment of Foot as a model. Would you mind looking over them? They are so far 80th, 81st, 82nd and 84th Regts. Thanks--Sy 07:13, 9 April 2009 (PDT)

Thanks for reviewing these pages Sarah. As usual your editing was accurate and succinct. It would be great to have articles as full as 84th Foot and I always have to stop myself being dragged off on interesting lines of enquiry which pop up on the net. I guess the priority is to get the general framework developed and hope others will fill in over time.--Sy 01:24, 15 April 2009 (PDT)

4th Gurkha Rifles

Sorry Sarah. Clearly a temporary loss of grip. I should have realised there was already a page. I'll qualify to fly solo one day.--Sy 00:48, 6 May 2009 (PDT)

33rd Punjabis

I see you prefer a redirection here. I thought about it but on balance took the other view. The question is: do we include any title variation on the basis that someone may use that term in a search? If we do, there is no limit to the number of mistaken or ill-judged titles we admit. In this case I believe the proper title for the regiment was 33rd Punjab Regiment of Infantry. They were commonly called 33rd Punjabis and I have mentioned that on the page. I have never seen them (or any of the other Punjab Infantry) referred to as 33rd Punjabi Infantry. I therefore decided that title was better removed. However it's no big deal in the great scheme of things.--Sy 08:52, 6 May 2009 (PDT)

Chronological list of wars and campaigns

I have just had a look at this and must say you have done a great job. It gives a really clear picture of the order of events. I know you suggested that I help with the construction, but in view of my recent ragged editing, it is probably just as well I didn't. Are we now going to take the dates off the War titles as Valmay would prefer? Did you get anywhere with a method for this or will it be a tedious process? Do you think it would be a good idea to do a similar list for the NWF Campaigns? I am willing to lend a hand if you wish.--Sy 00:44, 8 May 2009 (PDT)