The result was keep. Mark Arsten ( talk) 15:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Appears to be completely original research. To state that a decoration is "authorized" by military regulations yet "unofficial" is a contradiction in terms. The article is full of inaccuracies. For example, The Antarctic Expedtion Medals are clearly in older precedence charts, and removing them would leave the article almost bare. To refer to the Chaplain's Medal for Heroism as "unofficial" is questionable at best and nonsense at worst. It is also by no means clear that the NC-4 Medal was never authorized for wear, in fact it almost certainly was (note added: it was). The rationale behind calling the National Guard Cold War Victory Medal unofficial escapes me, but then again the rationale of the entire article escapes me. Call the medal what it is, a National Guard medal.
There is an article, Unofficial badges of the United States military which at least makes some sense at it states in the introduction, "Unofficial badges of the United States military are those badges or emblems which do not appear in United States military regulations but are worn or displayed by many individuals serving in the United States military" (emphasis mine). But in this article, it states "Unofficial decorations of the United States military are those awards and decorations that were authorized under military regulations, but never appeared on official precedence charts." How can one prove that an award or decoration was never in a precedence chart unless it was never authorized for wear in the first instance? For example a medal may become obsolete (which is a legitimate category) and not show up on current charts. That doesn't mean it was NEVER authorized for wear. The Antarctic medals are a good example.
The information in articles on the listed Civil War era medals is either unsourced, contradictory, or both. There may have been medals that were privately issued by local commanders. But to title them "Unoffical decorations of the United States Military" can be misleading. To explain the circumstances of the medal in an individual article is fine, but a category "Unoffical Decorations of The United States Military" has resulted in contradiction and error. For example,
The article on the Walter Reed Medal states it was an official United States Army award, but the medal was never designed to be worn on a military uniform and did not appear on any military precedence charts. This doesn't make it an "unofficial" decoration. It makes it a medal that was not designed to be worn. In fact, the statute that authorized the medal authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to create and issue the award. It may not be an Army award at all. It may not even be a decoration, but a non portable "table" medal. (note added: I have since edited the Walter Reed Medal article. If interested, see its talk page).
Furthermore, the article states "Unofficial military awards were fairly common in the early 20th century" yet it provides little or no evidence of this.
Bottom line, the information contained in the article is misleading, wrong, and deserving of deletion. It's not as if the awards contained in the article will be assigned to oblivion. They have articles of their own or are mentioned in other articles. Nyctc7 ( talk) 06:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC) reply