Close the Non-Specific Category?

[+iconions]

I was informed that plaques that mention WWII and other wars will be accepted into the WWII category. With that being the case, the multi-war Non Specific section of the category is now moot. A consistent policy needs to be decided between all of the war memorial categories.

 

Just to be clear - none of these war categories are consistent with the description as to whether they allow the listing of "multi-war" plaques. WWII does not allow currently, but WWI and Korea does. American Civil War and Revolutionary Wars are silent, but I have had Civil War Monuments denied in the past because the WRC added Spanish-American War information to their original Civil War monument.

 

The main issue is that we cannot go back to the creator of the categories and go, "Huh? Let's have some consistency here." This Elvis has left the building and we have other people running the show for him. My goal is to get a meeting of the minds and get the descriptions for all of these war memorial categories consistent and see if we have to eliminate the "multi-war" portion of the nonspecific as moot.

 

Thanks for letting me vent.

Edited July 22, 2014 by iconions

[GT.US]

I agree, I am a reviewer on some of these cats and I always have to go back and look to see if war memeorials that are part of multi war memorials are acceptable for that category.

 

Personally, though it seems like duplication, I feel Memorials that are part of Multi-war memorial should always be allowed for their specific war also.

 

The reason for this is that there are actually people out there doing research on specific war memorials. If the guy that really cares about Viet Nam memorials has to go through each multi war to see if Viet Nam is mentioned it reduces the value of our site and out work.

[+silverquill]

Boy, you bring up an issue that is a thorn for us all, I think. As long as I've been doing this, I still can't remember which categories allow waymarks if they are part of a memorial that mentions other wars! Now we have a catch-all category for all other wars that don't have a specific category, but ONLY if they are not part of a multi-war monument. Definitions are also vague because there may be individual memorials that are in close proximity so some may view them as one memorial.

 

I am in favor of allowing a waymark for a specific war even if it is part of a multi-war memorial. GT.US gives us one good reason for doing so. This also highlights wars that are often overlooked. Allowing individual waymarks allows us to focus on that particular war. So, that's the way I wrote the Korean War Memorial category. It highlights this war and the vets who served, and anyone who is interested in that war has a place to go for information. Otherwise, many of these would be buried in the non-specific category where the Korean War may have only a passing mention, or maybe none at all.

 

Still, I would not be in favor of eliminating the non-specific category. Here the entire monument or memorial can be highlighted and described with its various elements, etc. It can also be a starting point for research, and gives that valuable overview.

 

I wish I knew of a way making them all uniform, but, as you point out, that is difficult. We could continue this discussion, and that may be helpful, but in the end, only the category officers can make the change. And, things do change, and opinion's change, so it might be worthwhile for a group to get together and come up with some suggestions, and propose some changes to the category management groups. Beyond that, I think we are stuck with what we are stuck.