Talk:Other ranks (UK)

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Necrothesp in topic Relationship to enlisted

Out of date edit

'ORs' is no longer used. When describing a body of military men, it was: 'Officers and "Other Ranks" ', as the article suggests. Nowadays the term is: 'Officers and soldiers '.
I would change the article to reflect this, but I don't know when the term changed. I do know the newer expression was in use in the 1970s.
RASAM (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

The big table edit

Seems to make no sense whatsoever. Huw Powell (talk) 04:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

Conductor edit

It seems odd to me that conductor is listed as a rank - surely it's an appointment like RSM or CSM? Jellyfish dave (talk) 11:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

Exactly...why list RLC Conductors and leave out Master Gunner, GSM, AcSM etc.? It is an appointment, not a rank. --Nozzer71 08:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Panzer71 (talkcontribs)

Move? edit

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Other ranks (UK). A merge may be appropriate at some point; if someone wants to merge the two, feel free.(non-admin closure) Red Slash 02:11, 9 August 2013 (UTC)Reply


I think the question is, given WP:MILTERMS, why wouldn't you move it? Is it a proper noun? If not, lower case it is.Shem (talk) 23:18, 1 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
  1. "Other ranks" is a good example of a common noun. According to WP:MILTERMS "wherever a military term is an accepted proper noun, as indicated by consistent capitalization in sources, it should be capitalized". There is no prospect of "other ranks" ever being accepted as a proper noun, any more than another group of workers (eg bankers, sheet metal workers, farmers or policemen) would.
  2. Even if you were to propose that "other ranks" could ever be a proper noun (it makes me shudder to suggest this - apologies to any grammarians reading this), there is plainly no consistent capitalisation in the outside world, although The Daily Telegraph for one uses lower case. [1]
  3. Sources are for facts, not style. Wikipedia has its own house style, which is laid out at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters, of which WP:MILTERMS is a subset. See Wikipedia:Specialist style fallacy for a discussion of why you cannot rely on sources (particularly specialist sources) for style.
  4. According to WP:MILTERMS, "military ranks follow the same capitalization guidelines as given under Titles of people". This states "offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, pope, bishop, abbot, executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically". It then goes on to explain when they would be capitalised, and clearly none of those apply to "other ranks".
In short, Wikipedia's house guide in entirely clear on this issue - and sources are irrelevant to the discussion. Shem (talk) 07:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
"Other ranks (UK)" is acceptable to me. Though we should have a redirect for British other ranks -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Support move to [[Other ranks (UK)] per the various comments above. Other ranks should be a dab page or an introduction to the concept. If the latter then calling this article List of other ranks (UK) or similar would also be possible. Whatever name is chosen, redirects from other capitalisations should be created. Thryduulf (talk) 15:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Merge Other ranks, Denmark into this article and rename to Other ranks. No need for two separate articles, particularly since the Danish article is just a list of ranks. And is the Danish term actually "other ranks" at all? There's no interwiki to an article on Danish Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:32, 5 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

New set of ranks to be announced edit

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/britains-parallel-army-of-cyberwarriors/news-story/3b4bbf421c1bd481e175b4c7bf4dd8f4

"New military cyber-ranks are to be created to lure digital gurus from the technology sector into uniform in Britain.

The creation of a parallel career structure for part-time cyberwarriors is just one of the defence modernisation initiatives that General Sir Nick Carter, head of the British armed forces, is pioneering.

In his first major interview since he was appointed chief of the defence staff last year, he says that rapid technological advances mean that the services are “increasingly going to have to accommodate far more specialists”."

BlueD954 (talk) 07:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Relationship to enlisted edit

This article should explain the extent to which its subject differs from what are called "enlisted" soldiers in the US military. Jess_Riedel (talk) 09:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

It doesn't. Simply different terminology. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)Reply