Ritchie Boys Wiki

Site changelog

Revision as of 03:35, 26 August 2026 by Admin (talk | contribs) (Note Featured Ritchie Boys on Main Page)

This page records site-level changes: new features, layout and tooling, directory structure, and major content systems. It is not a log of edits to individual soldier biographies (use Special:RecentChanges for those).

Newest entries first. When we change how the wiki works, add a dated bullet here.

How to update this page

  • Add a new dated heading (or bullets under today’s date) at the top of the changelog list below.
  • Describe the feature or site change in plain language — not a file-by-file diff.
  • Skip one-off soldier page corrections and routine data fixes unless they introduce a new site capability.
  • Agents and maintainers: after a site feature ships to the live wiki, append it here in the same edit session when practical.

Changelog

25 August 2026

  • Navigation and discovery — Sidebar Reading is a shorter start-here list with Camp Ritchie added; secondary topic pages stay on Contents / Site pages. About is labeled “About this project” next to About the data. Special:Search reorders hits so title matches and site pages rise above research-notes noise. Main Page Featured Ritchie Boys links three fuller soldier profiles (Guy Stern, Ralph Baer, Eric Waldman) with equal-sized portrait thumbs.
  • About (tone) — Rewrote About in a calmer wiki voice (dropped the ALL-CAPS work-in-progress banner); clarified how it differs from About the data.
  • Main Page polish — Find-a-soldier moved under the lead (TOC hidden); Secret Heroes tagline links to Introduction; quick links live inside the Find box (no separate Explore/Gold Medal blocks); Reading shortened to a start-here list.
  • Camp Ritchie overview — Expanded Camp Ritchie with who trained there (including WACs and language selection), Camp Sharpe, Europe and Pacific/Nisei notes (with a link to Kazuo E. Yamane), Fort Ritchie closure and museum, plus light cross-links from FAQ, Secret Heroes/Battle of the Bulge, and The Stories/Camp Ritchie Background.
  • Page consolidation — Merged duplicate Camp Ritchie Background into The Stories/Camp Ritchie Background (both photos kept); folded Disclaimer into About the data; moved FAQ Camp Ritchie / military-records detail onto Camp Ritchie and Contact Us so FAQ points there without dropping wording.
  • About — Added About (project background, Dan Gross legacy, ownership note, and copyright / museum disclaimer from theritchieboys.com).
  • FAQ — Added FAQ (who the Ritchie Boys were, what Camp Ritchie was, and how to seek military records, with National Archives and Wikipedia links).
  • Dan Gross Memorial — Added Dan Gross Memorial (tribute page for Daniel Gross, with portrait and biography from theritchieboys.com).
  • Contact Us — Added Contact Us with the military-records note (National Archives link) and the embedded Google contact form from theritchieboys.com.
  • Contributors — Added Contributors (Dan Gross’s project team bios and portraits, with soldier links for Guy Stern, Walter Lubran, and Kurt Kugelmann).
  • Attribution notes — Removed redundant “adapted from theritchieboys.com” style wording from topic-page leads; kept real source cites (spreadsheets, Google Slides, authors).
  • Photos — Added Photos with the National Archives / Signal Corps disclaimer, an embedded Google Drive grid album (Stephen Goodell collection), and the featured four-photo gallery with captions.
  • Documentaries/Movies and Books — Added Documentaries/Movies (Bauer and Karras films with free-watch links) and Books (notable titles with Amazon links and covers).

24 August 2026

  • Ritchie Boy Programs — Added Ritchie Boy Programs (talks and museum programs, with soldier links where matched).
  • Ritchie Boy Interviews/Testimonies — Added Ritchie Boy Interviews (video interview list, with soldier links where matched).
  • Symposium Presentation — Added Symposium Presentation from Dan Gross’s 2012 Camp Ritchie Symposium deck (documentary stars, select notables, WAC note, closing slides; 2012 class-count slide kept as historical presentation figures only).
  • Reading order — Main Page Reading list and sidebar Reading links follow a consistent reading order (existing wiki pages plus coming-soon / external links for pages not imported yet). Notable Ritchie Boys sits under Directory with the roster.
  • By The Numbers — Hub (By The Numbers) with By The Numbers/Student Numbers - All Classes, By The Numbers/Eight Week Classes - Dates & Graduation Numbers, By The Numbers/Eight Week Class Content, By The Numbers/Eight Week Courses by Specialties, and By The Numbers/Awards (Eddy tables/notes with copyright notices). Class 1–31 pages and soldier Camp Ritchie rows show eight-week class date ranges; matched award recipients get ribbon + awards-grid sections.
  • Sidebar sections — Split the left nav into Navigation, Reading, Directory, and Participate portals (was one long list). Sidebar slightly widened so Congressional Gold Medal shows its full title.
  • Notable Ritchie Boys gallery — Added Notable Ritchie Boys, a single page of portrait+blurb cards from both Notable Ritchie Boys Google Slides decks (linked to soldier pages when matched).
  • Site changelog — Added this page so feature work on the wiki has a chronological home (Site changelog); linked from the sidebar and related help pages.
  • Awards and honors (Wikipedia-style) — Soldier pages can show a ribbon rack plus a labeled awards grid (multi-line cells, content-sized columns, short rows spanning full width, tiny gaps between ribbons), with extra award notes as bullets.
  • Wikipedia notables import — Pipeline to enrich existing soldier profiles from English Wikipedia (infobox fields, biography sections, Commons portraits, ribbon uploads) without inventing new soldier pages.
  • Contents directory layout — Classes, Teams, and Site pages lists on Contents use a compact three-column layout (same idea as category pages). Any page that embeds a category tree gets that layout from site CSS.
  • Soldier page chrome — Awards block sits in the main column after Biography (not crushed in the infobox); table of contents stays near the top after the lead.

21 August 2026

20 August 2026

  • Introduction — Introduction (Dan Gross).
  • Secret Heroes / First Class — Secret Heroes/First Class page with photo and roster links.
  • Find a soldier — Main Page search by name or ASN.
  • Patrol — Patrol guide for watching Special:RecentChanges.
  • Contribute / Patrol links — Sidebar links for editors.
  • Draft opening summary — Optional tool to draft a short lead from personal details and the Life biography for review before saving.

19 August 2026

  • Edit soldier facts — Form on soldier pages to edit structured infobox fields (including specialty) without raw wikitext.

18 August 2026

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