Soft launch: Soldier biographies and research notes vary in completeness. Prefer class-roster, NARA, newspapers, and other cited sources for contested facts — treat Research notes as leads, not settled history. Anyone can correct a page; contact us with questions.
Contribute
This wiki is meant to be edited. Change a soldier page the same way you would edit Wikipedia: the infobox holds the structured facts, and the rest of the article is freeform. You do not need an account.
Class-roster terms, National Archives digitization limits, and Camp Ritchie Museum reproduction rules are on Disclaimer. Research notes on soldier pages may be unverified; replace a bad note with a sourced sentence, or explain the change on the talk page. See also About the data.
Editing
- Anyone can edit or create articles, including while logged out. Use the Edit tab.
- Every revision is kept. Bad changes are rolled back from Special:RecentChanges.
- An account is optional. It is only needed if you want to upload a photograph.
What to add
- Biographies, family recollections, and unit stories, with sources when you have them
- Photographs (see below)
- Corrections to name, ASN, class, dates, or death year
- External links to NARA, Find a Grave, newspapers, or published histories
Photographs and documents
Create an account, then use Special:Upload.
Profile photos (infobox portrait)
- Name the file
Firstname surname.jpg(for exampleKurt kugelmann.jpg). - On the upload form, confirm the guessed Soldier page and leave Use as profile photo checked.
- Matching filenames also appear in the infobox automatically even without
|photo=.
Other files (PDFs, letters, scans)
- PDF, Word, plain text, and TIFF uploads are allowed.
- On the upload form, enter the soldier page and leave Add to Gallery checked (this is the default for documents).
- The file is listed under that soldier's Gallery section, not in the infobox.
For any upload, state the source and copyright in the upload summary. Deleting a file requires an administrator account.
Do not upload images or documents you do not have permission to share.
New topic pages
If you add a page that is not a soldier biography (history, interviews, FAQ, and similar), put [[Category:Ritchie Boys Wiki]] at the bottom. It will then appear under Contents. Soldier pages are indexed A–Z from the infobox and do not need that category.
Infobox fields
Each soldier page is laid out like a Wikipedia biography: a short opening paragraph on the left and a right-hand infobox (portrait, personal details, military service). The opening paragraph is generated from the infobox, so correcting those fields updates the lead.
Edit the {{Soldier}} template call at the top of the page. Class numbers for men who attended more than one class are separated by a semicolon, for example 5;11. That keeps Category:Class 5 and similar roster pages in sync.
If you change class or nativity, the categories on that page update from the infobox the next time the page is saved. Add a longer narrative under Life.
Talk pages
Use the article's Talk page when two sources disagree, or when a match looks wrong. Do not silently delete a baseline field unless you have a source; strike or note the old value on Talk.
What not to publish
- Social Security numbers or other modern identity numbers
- Private contact information for living relatives
- Unsourced claims that a living person committed a crime
Some men born in the 1920s may still be living. Keep those articles factual and modest. Family members who want a page trimmed should contact an administrator.
For administrators
Patrol Special:RecentChanges. Rollback obvious vandalism, block repeat spammers, and protect a page only if it is under sustained attack.