Talk:Civil Air Patrol/Archive 4

Latest comment: 6 years ago by InternetArchiveBot in topic External links modified

'The' Civil Air Patrol should be Civil Air Patrol

When Civil Air Patrol is used as a proper noun, it is to be written without the definitive article 'the' before it, as per Section A 2.b of CAPR 900-2. Can we edit the sub pages in this category to reflect that?

Thanks

Cullub (talk) 20:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Cullub, Wikipedia has its own manual of style, and in this situation "the" is generally prescribed. Huntster (t @ c) 01:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Huntster, Oh, thanks for pointing that out. I'm new here, and I didn't know that Wikipedia had a MoS. I just looked up the relevant info (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:THEMUSIC) about definite articles, and since Civil Air Patrol says in the above cited regulation how the name is to be used, I still think that this should be edited. --Cullub (talk) 17:14, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Note that "MOS:THEMUSIC" is something specifically adopted by the Music project, and wouldn't affect the rest of the site. I'm mostly of the opinion that dropping "the" makes references to CAP read very awkwardly in most cases, and that traditionally Wikipedia does not allow outside style guides dictate our internal style. (I mean, heck, we created our own citation style because we didn't like the existing ones!) Huntster (t @ c) 21:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Cullub, I definitely appreciate that you're new to the site, and I'm extremely happy to see a new face working on the CAP articles! However, please understand that when you make a WP:BOLD edit and someone objects or reverts you, please don't immediately go ahead with those same edits. It's called the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle (WP:BRD, which generally means that if others disagree with an edit, you need to find consensus going forward. To gather more opinions, I'm going to move this discussion to Talk:Civil Air Patrol, since relatively few eyes ever watch Category pages. Huntster (t @ c) 21:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
The neat thing about Wikipedia is that it doesn't fall under Civil Air Patrol regulations and can adopt any Manual of Style that the editors can agree on. I agree with Huntster that leaving the "the" definitive article out of most instances on the CAP article makes for some awkward reading. For instance, the beginning sentence in the article: "The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) is a congressionally chartered, federally supported non-profit corporation that serves as the official civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force (USAF)." Without the "the" definitive article, it reads very stilted. Other instances aren't as awkward: 'Civil Air Patrol operations include search and rescue'. A "the" ahead of that sentence would make the sentence somewhat awkward. I am of the opinion that the primary purpose of any article is to communicate an idea and that the writing style of the article should be used that helps not hinders that concept. Check the article on the United States Army, the United States Air Force and almost any other organization with an article included in Wikipedia and you will find the definitive article "the" used where appropriate for the communication of the article subject matter. The Civil Air Patrol article is listed as a Good Article by Wikipedia standards and that means that many people looked at the article with critical eyes. The average reader does not know about, nor do they care about any Civil Air Patrol regulations about writing style.
I was a former Civil Air Patrol Cadet many, many years ago and the training I received as a Cadet helped me get an excellent start to my military career. I want this article to be clear and concise using the best, clearest language possible so that the reader will be able to learn about the history, operations, and traditions of the Civil Air Patrol. Cuprum17 (talk) 01:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Huntster, Thanks. How do I find out if someone rejected/reverted my edit? I haven't gotten any notifications, but it seems that you're implying that I was doing that. Anyway, I guess I would tend to disagree that having the definitive article makes for biased reading, but again, that's probably just cause I'm so used to it. I didn't realize that that MOS page was music specific (I guess that's why it says music in the link, duh :P). Anyway, I'll stop removing those definitive articles until further notice :) Thanks again! Cullub (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Excuse my ignorance but could somebody explain what this discussion is about as far as I can see the article is "Civil Air Patrol" not "The Civil Air Patrol", thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 20:41, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Cullub is objecting to the use of "the" in the Lead and elsewhere, as in, "The Civil Air Patrol is ...", etc. A parallel is "The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's aerial warfare force." Obviously, "the" isn't part of the RAF's name, but is needed grammatically in most sentences. - BilCat (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Understood but we cant really change standard english usage it just will look odd and make no sense to the reader. MilborneOne (talk) 13:39, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Misleading section titles/organization

The current page on CAP is, for me at least, a little confusing when it comes to organizing its content. Specifically, the membership section seems to contain too much information that is not relevant to what the section title is suggesting. For example, cadet activities is a subgroup of this section, even though it really is so expansive it deserves its own section or even possibly article. Also, the membership section starts off by explaining the types of members and their roles, as well as providing statistics for the current member count. I do not see how this information is connected to cadet activities like encampment, since it is something that the organization does rather than the demographics and systems of the organization itself. I do not know if this is what the word membership is encompassing/means, but given the context and the potential size of a cadet activities section, it would appear to be unrelated to certain things contained within it. If someone else has noticed this issue, I think we should try reorganizing the article, or perhaps add a new separate section to make it easier for the reader to determine what content about CAP is in which section. If I am mistaken, please clarify to me why cadet activities and other programs are included in the membership section. BecauseLogic (talk) 02:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Also if you want me to clarify what I'm saying, feel free to ask. Sometimes I don't make sense. BecauseLogic (talk) 02:06, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@BecauseLogic: I reverted two of your edits to this article because the information you added did not have a citation or if the statement was already cited the information you added was not supported by the citation. This article is a "Good article" that has been carefully referenced and adding material that does not have a citation or the support of a citation damages the credibility of the article. I do not have a problem with you re-organizing the article, but it must be done in such a manner as to not remove or change the referencing. Please keep this in mind while you are editing. Cuprum17 (talk) 14:19, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
I see. But the edits are not my main concern, the organization is. I just wanted to know how others might think the best way to reorganize the article might be. I'm just looking for suggestions from more experienced members on how to reorganize it best. My thoughts are to create a new section on specifically cadet activities/programs separate from the membership section, since they are two distinct areas, or to move the current sections to another already existing section in the article to make it easier to find the information. I don't know if this would cause any issues with others or the article itself so, just wanted to be sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BecauseLogic (talkcontribs) 14:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
@BecauseLogic: I don't see a problem with sorting out the membership information from the activities information as long as you are careful with keeping cited material with its corresponding citation. Since I believe that you are new to editing on Wikipedia, I will follow your edits and if you are making inappropriate changes, I will notify you on your talk page and make suggestions as to how the changes should probably be handled. Good luck. Cuprum17 (talk) 15:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Civil Air Patrol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:33, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Civil Air Patrol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:23, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 13 external links on Civil Air Patrol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)