Talk:Military impostor

"Notable" individuals

I wanted to head off a potential problem regarding the list of "notables." There is a potential for violation of WP:BLP and various policies on libel if names are added to this without caution. Hence I have suggested that only persons who are both notable to have articles about them, and have confessed or been convicted by a court of law should be included. The following individuals, while certainly military imposters, are not included both due to the lack of confessions or convictions, and due to them being otherwise completely unremarkable individuals that, from my understanding of WP:NOTEBIO, should never have had articles in the first place:

• Alan Mcilwraith
• Joseph A. Cafasso
• James Shortt

As noted by WP:PERP and WP:PERSISTENCE, being an imposter in and of itself is not grounds for being considered notable, even if there is a fair bit of contemporary news converge.Legitimus (talk) 18:57, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

List class

Should this article be a list class article? It does have a section listing individuals who are known to have pretended to be be serving or former military personnel. However, the bulk of it is describing the phenomenon, the psychological motivations for doing it, possible legal consequences and so on. It just seems to be a regular article.Catsmeat (talk) 10:57, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's list class. Is it classified as such somewhere?Legitimus (talk) 13:51, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

When I look at it, the article is headed with A list-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I'm not sure how to change that.Catsmeat (talk) 19:12, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I do not see this heading in main article or the talk page. Perhaps it's some kind of setting you have on?Legitimus (talk) 19:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I fixed it. Auntieruth55 marked it as list-class last year. What's odd is that it didn't say list class on the talk page for me, it said start. What Catsmeat is referring to is a gadget (found under the preferences menu) where you can see the assessment on the article page, versus looking at the talk page. I've rated the article at "C" because it doesn't yet meet "B" criteria. (MILHIST doesn't use the C-class so it shows "Start" instead.) The reason why is that I think more coverage of the history of this practice should be included compared with the GWOT era examples. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

There's a few from WWII and Vietnam in the notables list, but I will do my best to go back farther and find what I can. Right now, it seems it's just me working on this, and I freely admit I'm a non-vet trying to cover a vet topic (my involvement comes from the mental health and sociological aspects), so please elaborate on anything you would like to be added.Legitimus (talk) 21:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

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Jonathan Carley

This highly notable case in the UK has made front page national news on the BBC. He has been spotted attending various Remembrance Services posing as a Rear Admiral - the third highest rank in the Royal Navy. He was also carrying a sword and wearing incorrect medals. He was fined £500 after admitting to wearing a uniform or dress bearing the mark of His Majesty's Forces.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c17x92nzgyzo

While a military imposter, he is not otherwise notable under Wikipedia's guidelines, and so would be not appropriate for this article. The goal of this article was to use examples of people who achieved some level of fame to the point they have their own articles. The intention is not to catalog every single military imposter; that would be almost impossible to fit in an article and there already numerous other website for that.Legitimus (talk) 18:22, 9 January 2026 (UTC)