Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships

Is USS prefix ok for army ships that were never in the navy?

There are a few Army civil war gunboat and transport articles that are named with the USS prefix. For example USS Switzerland (1854) was always operated by the Union Army. I know for some of the salty old dogs in the audience this is kind of like calling a marine a soldier. It just isn't done if you value your extremities. There isn't any standard prefix that I know of for these gunboats, like USAT for army transports. The history.navy.mil site declines to use the USS prefix with these and instead refers to these with other prefixes such as "U.S. ram", eg: U.S. ram Switzerland. In google searches, many Civil war sites refer to USS Switzerland or USS Queen of the West, but oftentimes they have all sorts of other information wildly wrong.

The commander of one of these, USS Era No. 5 (1860) referred to his vessel as "United States Steamer ERA no. 5" Military report, Col. Ellet commanding [1], so as an abbreviation for United States Steamer, is USS ok?

What to do with these articles

1. Leave them be (don't move)?
2. US ram prefix for the rams, following history.navy.mil lead?
3. Some other prefix?

Thanks, -J JMesserly (talk) 23:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Good question. Not sure if there is an easy answer that applies to all of these US Army vessels. Some were commissioned in the Navy, in those cases we look towards which service it spent the majority of its time in and name it accordingly. As for the Switzerland, a new prefix might be more appropriate, I'm just not sure which one should apply, perhaps USAS, or USAV, or maybe "US ram". Not sure if we want to rely solely on the Navy's terminology. Not sure how helpful I can be in this topic, but you've piqued my curiosity in the matter. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 03:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. No big rush- I have indicated in the cats and in the articles their status as Army ships. These are the ones I know about:

• Rams (all Ellet's)
  • USS Queen of the West (1854)
  • USS Switzerland (1854)
  • USS Monarch (1862)
  • USS Lancaster (1855)
  • USS Lioness
  • USS Mingo (1862)
• USAT service with Ellet's Ram Fleet
  • USS Samson (USS ok-xfered to navy 1862)
  • USS Fulton (1862)
  • USS T. D. Horner (1859)
  • USS Era No. 5 (1860)

-J JMesserly (talk) 06:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely the most appropriate name would be US Steamer ERA no. 5 or US Ram Switzerland. USS is misleading.--Toddy1 (talk) 05:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

USS is only misleading if it is taken to exclusively mean "United States Ship". If it is understood that USS can mean something else too then the title is not misleading. Mjroots (talk) 06:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

This has been brought up before without any resolution. This is a difficult problem because any ship of that era did not use a prefix. The USS prefix only came into modern use after 1900 or so and is very solidly associated with United States Ship and its relation to commissioned ships in the US Navy. WP shouldn't invent prefixes that were never used but it's difficult trying to figure out what to use. I think United States Army Ram xxx or United States Army ram xxx would have to be used. That way it denotes country of origin, branch of service and type of ship without inventing a prefix. --Brad (talk) 07:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm with Brad on this one. The designation USS is commonly understood to be reserved for Naval vessels, so I think Brad's proposed solution is probably the best one. Gatoclass (talk) 07:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of ship prefixes, is STV normally understood to mean "Sail Training Vessel" or "Steam Turbine Vessel"? my move of STV Royston Grange to SS Royston Grange was quickly reverted yesterday. Mjroots (talk) 10:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how he can assert the ship was commonly known as "STV" when the article doesn't have a single reference! I have checked google and I got only 18 hits for STV and 19 for SS. However, there was another SS Royston Grange which was sunk in WWII.

One of the few reliable-ish sources I found was from the UK Hansard, which calls the ship "SS", see here. Gatoclass (talk) 12:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

[this picture of a memorial] has "STV" but it doesn't mean that STV is a ship prefix, it could just be the ship description abbreviated - STV could mean "steam transport vessel". There appear to have been 3 or more SS Royston Granges including one around in 1908, the renamed Fort Ash and the Sapperton Grove so SS Royston Grove prob ought to be a ship index page. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

← So, my understanding is that renaming is a good idea, and example changes would be to United States Army ram USS Queen of the West (1854) and United States Army auxilliary Era No. 5 (1860). Can everyone go along with that? -J JMesserly (talk) 17:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

No, because your first example still has "USS" in the middle and for another thing, you only need launch dates to disambig ship articles which would otherwise have the same title. Gatoclass (talk) 17:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Umm no. Remove USS and if you're absolutely sure that a particular ship did not have any service with the US Navy it won't be necessary to disambiguate by year. So United States Army ram Queen of the West would be what we want. What makes Era no. 5 and auxiliary as opposed to a ram? I think we should still wait for some further comments before proceeding. --Brad (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ummm blush. Sorry, of course the inclusion of USS as inadvertent. So the changes would be:

<edit> see current amended list below <end edit>

Unless I hear differently, those will be the moves. Thanks for the advice.-J JMesserly (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Kind of weighing in late here, but are/were any of these actually called these specific names? Taking a look at Queen of the West, DANFS refers to it as just "Queen of the West ", while elsewhere at the Navy Historical Center website they call it that and "U.S. Ram Queen of the West". I'd suggest the latter style (without the periods, per WP:NC-SHIPS), to come up with US Ram Queen of the West, and use that pattern for all of the ram ships. Absent any examples for the Army auxiliaries, I recommend using just the name (plus disambiguation for Fulton) for the article title. — Bellhalla (talk) 02:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sp: 'auxiliary' not "auxilliary". But wouldn't 'ship' or 'vessel' be better?

—WWoods (talk) 03:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No big rush, these vessels have waited well over a century to get proper encyclopedic treatment chronicling their roles, so I figure they can wait a few more days or weeks to see if we get at least their names and designations right.

Re: Auxiliary- all of them are vessels, so that doesn't differentiate them much from the others in the army fleet. I gathered that auxiliary was the proper designation for largely non combatant vessels that performed more than a single task (eg Fulton and all others proposed as auxiliaries did both transport as well as dispatch, and all has some armament and at least cottoncladding). OTOH, auxiliary especially out of the context of navy ships doesn't have much meaning to a lay audience.

Re:US versus United States- I am a big fan of brevity. I really would like to do US ram if permissible

Re: initial cap Ram vs "ram". Practice seems to be to put ship type in lower case, eg. German cruiser Blücher. -J JMesserly (talk) 03:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed name changes

←The amended list follows. The historical documents do not refer to auxiliary, but do refer to "U. S. Steamship"[2], so I am guessing Bellhalla's pov would be to use "steamship" rather than his earlier suggestion "vessel". I happen to prefer the shorter version, but you guys are the experts on this stuff.

old	Brad-GatoClass scheme	Bellhalla scheme
USS Queen of the West (1854)	United States Army ram Queen of the West	US Ram Queen of the West
USS Switzerland (1854)	United States Army ram Switzerland	US Ram Switzerland
USS Monarch (1862)	United States Army ram Monarch	US Ram Monarch
USS Lancaster (1855)	United States Army ram Lancaster	US Ram Lancaster
USS Lioness (1857)	United States Army ram Lioness	US Ram Lioness
USS Mingo (1862)	United States Army ram Mingo	US Ram Mingo
USS Samson (1860)	no change -xfered to navy 1862
USS Fulton (1862)	United States Army auxiliary Fulton	US steamship Fulton (1862) Fulton (ship)
USS T. D. Horner (1859)	United States Army auxiliary T. D. Horner	US steamship T. D. Horner T. D. Horner
USS Era No. 5 (1860)	United States Army auxiliary Era No. 5	US steamship Era No. 5 Era No. 5

People who haven't indicated preference please do so. I propose we regard majority opinion as consensus since no one appears to feel extremely strongly either way. If no one expresses any opinion, I will go with Brad-Gatoclass scheme since there are two votes for that, and only one for Bellhalla proposal. Bellhalla- please change the table if I got your scheme wrong. -J JMesserly (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion for the ram ships was to follow the capitalization scheme used by the NHC: "US Ram" (as capitalized there) vs. "US ram". (That naming/capitalization style seems to be the way the ships are introduced in the lead of several of the articles, FWIW.) Also, I'm sorry if my suggestions for the others weren't clear enough, but I've amended the table to show what I was suggesting, since the NHC didn't seem to use a prefix for those. (I've created redirects for all of these names that should be in place regardless of where they eventually end up.)

Also, as you said we should be in no rush and take the time to get the names as best as they can be. I think using a name used by a reliable source is better than using a name that has been artificially constructed. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts on including "Army" in the title was to make clear who operated them. They were military ships but dropping out the military designation from the article title seems to go against how WP likes articles titles to be as descriptive as possible. US Ram leaves one to suspect that it was a Navy operated ship which I think is important to point out that it wasn't. --Brad (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

We should be descriptive, no prescriptive. If a source calls something by one name, then it follows we should use that name. If we explain that it was operated by the United States Army in the lead, I think we've got it covered. — Bellhalla (talk) 03:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel that strongly about the issue but your solution works just as well. --Brad (talk) 05:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

←OK. I will proceed then with the moves, using Bellhalla's scheme exactly as listed above. Era No. 5 was first. Any last words, please speak up otherwise I will push the rest over this evening. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful advice. -J JMesserly (talk) 20:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• FYI: A similar class of articles that I worked on was light ship articles, like United States lightship LV-58. There. we chose to use the convention of spelling out "United States", then the ship type, then the designation. That would be more like the first proposal and not the third. I can't find that discussion now, but this standard might be relevant to this discussion. JRP (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, I know that everyone here is aware of the convention of spelling out United States in place of US. If you feel strongly enough about it, please post again and we'll hammer it out. I will hold off until tomorrow evening to allow sufficient time for such notice. -J JMesserly (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, ship names are tricky and I've been involved with a few naming questions. For example, we exclusively use the description "CSS" for Confederate States Ship even though some ships used "CSS" to mean "Coast Survey Ship". (And we cheat a bit and use "UCS&GS" as the prefix, even though it is an anachronism.) I happen to like "United States ram Switzerland" with the lower-case ship type and the spelled out country because that seems to best match established names for US non-navy ships. That said, we already have USAHS and USAT for "US Army Transport" and "US Army Hospital Ship". If "USAR" isn't a prefix that was ever used, then I suspect that we should spell it out.

All that aside, I'm jumping in late and if we have consensus already, I don't want to interrupt that. I just stumbled on this today. JRP (talk) 23:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you don't feel strongly about it, I'll just go ahead with Bellhalla's scheme as planned. They are more accurate than the current names. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Er. The more I look at this, the more we should be at least expanding out the "US" to "United States" per MOS:ABBR. Probably okay for now, but I can easily see some editor in the future proposing that change. JRP (talk) 03:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Bellhalla? WP:NC-SHIPS only allows abbreviations for standard ship prefixes, which we don't have here, so MOS:ABBR has the authority, right? What's the point in doing this only to have the ABBR naming convention police changing these in some piecemeal ad hoc fashion later? It seems like Brad/GatoClass/JRP have it right. You ok with that? -J JMesserly (talk) 03:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Unlike USAHS and USAT, which I have seen in use in multiple references, the only reference to these ships that I, personally, have examined is at the Navy Historical Center website, where they use specifically "U.S. Ram Foo" (which, as pointed out above, would translate via WP:NC-SHIPS into "US Ram Foo") and not, I point out, "US ram Foo" or "United States Ram Foo" or "United States Army of the United States of America Ram Foo". If there are other sources that use a different prefix, then by all means let's use that one. But, what we have is a reliable, if not authoritative, source using this specific prefix for a relatively obscure grouping of ships. Is that not an established usage? Should we not use what is used in sources? — Bellhalla (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we necessarily have to follow a convention used by the NHC. After all, in a lot of articles they just refer to a ship by its name only and don't even bother to use "USS", let alone the hull ID in brackets as we do. We have our own naming conventions here on Wikipedia. Gatoclass (talk) 09:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:40, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Eyes requested on a controversial ship class article

I've had a request on my talk page to get more eyes on an article about a ship class which has been controversial in the past and I imagine will stay controversial throughout its career: Hyūga class helicopter destroyer. The wish of Sdsds (talk · contribs) is to have more editors looking at the article to be able to develop a consensus of what should and should not be presented. -MBK₀₀₄ 17:32, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

To be frank, the controversy was limited to a single editor deliberately disrupting the consensus on the article's wording and refusing to state what their actual concern was. Nick-D (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

All photos found on the Naval History & Heritage Command website are PD

Please see this for more. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm careful about this. I went through a similar thing a while back over images of the Bismarck, several of which are in the Imperial War Museum and other British military archives, like those of other German ships, as the photographs were taken as war booty after the fall of the Nazi government. They are considered PD in Britain, the US, and possibly elsewhere and are released as such, but they were not, it turned out, considered PD in Germany (the recent Bundesarchive donation may have altered that somewhat). Some German contributors were at pains to point out that the 'life plus 70' rule still applied on the Nazi-era photographs of warships, and although British and American archives were claiming they were PD, they were not actually entitled to do so. The upshot was that since the claim that they were not PD in their country of origin seemed valid, they could not be hosted on commons, though they could probably be hosted on en.wiki as PD in America. This was just how things stood over a year ago or so, things may have changed since then. But has the argument that while the NHHC website may claim that they're PD, the German government considers them still under copyright been settled? Benea (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(copy-pasted, sorry for not noticing your reply before, Benea) - all images can be uploaded here, but not to Commons; evidently the images are only public domain in the United States. So, if there is any question of possible copyrighting issues for other countries (i.e. it doesn't say "official U.S. Navy photograph"), upload to here with {{PD-US}} and {{Do not move to Commons}}. I will also have an OTRS ticket to double-confirm this. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ship class infobox caption

This is something that has been bugging me for a while. While the ship infobox image caption text for individual ships is left-justifed, the text for class infoboxes is centre-justified, leading to some pretty awkward-looking results. Is there some way this can be fixed? Gatoclass (talk) 06:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Or are they both centre-justified? I'm not sure, but they should be left justified. Gatoclass (talk) 08:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Both the individual ship and ship class infoboxes use the same image-"sub-box" don't they? So the justification is the same (center) in both. Which IMO looks better than left-justification and is better in keeping with the justification of image captions in other infoboxes. — Kjet (talk · contribs) 15:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at the output on, say, Amphitrite class monitor. There the caption ends up being an inverted pyramid of text and it looks very untidy. Centre justification works fine if the caption is shorter than the width of the the infobox - if it's longer, you end up with a mess.

The ideal solution would be able to set whether the infobox uses left or centre justification, but I don't know how to do that. Gatoclass (talk) 06:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Amphitrite class monitor displays perfectly nicely for me, with just two lines of text in the caption (undoubtedly due to my screen settings). Personally I think it would be better to have one standard for displaying of text in the infoboxes, but that's just me. — Kjet (talk · contribs) 12:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it could be centre justified by default, so that you had to enter an extra field to get left justification. That should be enough to prevent people from left justifying in inappropriate circumstances. Gatoclass (talk) 12:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Links to ship index pages

Is there a preferred method of linking to ship index pages for ships that share the same name? The hatlink created with the otherships template is the method I prefer, but I find many Ship articles with "See also" sections i.e. USS Abarenda (AC-13). I can't find any guidance in the style guide. - Canglesea (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The 'see also' method has been superseded by the 'otherships' template as far as I'm aware, at least in practical if not official terms. The only time it tends to be seen is on ship articles that were created a while back, and haven't been edited much since. I assume it's an anachronism like the old ship infoboxes that are steadily being replaced over time. Benea (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

And actually our example guide to writing an article specifically suggests the use of the 'otherships' template at the top. Benea (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Move proposal

There is a proposal to move the article SS St. Louis to MS St. Louis. All editors are welcome to comment on the move proposal at the article's talk page. — Bellhalla (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Moltke class battlecruiser now open

The A-Class review for Moltke class battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 15:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

FV Monte Galineiro nominated for deletion

An article within the scope of the project, FV Monte Galineiro, has been nominated for deletion. Project members may wish to comment at the discussion, here. Benea (talk) 22:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

And another

• 26 Mar 2009 – MV Princess of Acadia (talk) nominated for deletion by Staffwaterboy; see discussion. --Brad (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Category:Ships by IMO number nominated for deletion

Is the category Category:Ships by IMO number a useful category? The question is raised after that 1364 ships are categorised that way and a user wants this category to be deleted. For the discussion please come to the Deletion request page--Stunteltje (talk) 10:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to deprecate "Tons Burthen" in infobox and hunt down metric convertions of Tonnage

Burthen is Tonnage. We don't need both "Tonnage" and "Tons Burthen". Burthen is synonymous with "Builders Measure" or "Builder's Old Measurement" abbreviated to BM or BOM depending on the source. Better to use Tonnage and follow with the scheme in brackets pipelinked to the term eg. "Tonnage: 428 tons (Builders Measure)" which I just put in USS Jeannette (1878).

Doing a search on ("tons burthen" LT) gives 1418 results such as HMS Assistance (1650) where the value is given a metric convertion eg. Tons burthen: 521 long tons (529.4 t). Metric convertion is right for displacement but absurd for tonnage which is a notional value not a physical value. Often there is a fractional component in 94ths eg HMS Bounty has 'Tons burthen: 220 ²⁶/₉₄ tons'

The form "Tons burthen x tons" is also seems to me to an example of mangled syntax. Oringinal sources use the form "x tons burthen" or "burthen x tons".

If we just use Tonnage we can forget the trailing "tons" giving: "Tonnage: 220 ²⁶/₉₄ (Builders Measure)" Alternatively, if we lose the "Tons" of the front of "Tons Burthen" we could have "Burthen: 220 ²⁶/₉₄ tons(BM)"

Some sources give both burthen and register values for a ship eg. from this sources Marco Polo (ship) could have a line like this;

Tonnage: 1625(GRT), 2500(BM)

It's also easy to find articles where tonnage and displacement are confused but that's another rant.

What are your thoughts on this? Petecarney (talk) 15:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

There have been a number of articles created which use tons burthen rather than tonnage. Gross tonnage and tons burthen are not the same, and displacement is neither. Most warship infoboxes for pre-1873 RN vessels use displacement; they should be using tons burthen. See the definition of Tonnage in Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.; scroll on GoogleBooks to page ix. Tons burthen may have been an attempt to approximate displacement, but really is a rough measure of capacity.

It seems we should be using tons burthen for all older vessels, and for new vessels either displacement for naval ships and the appropriate tonnage measures for merchant ships, but should not be using tons burthen for ships which do not use BOM. I agree with using burthen where appropriate rather than tons burthen; I imagine the infobox would have to be changed. And having corrected displacement figures in hundreds of articles where tonnage is meant, I'll agree in advance with any rant you choose to post. Kablammo (talk) 15:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

And on the conversion issue: we need not only to extirpate conversions of tonnage to metric measurements of mass, we also need to get rid of the "long" in tonnage measurements. Kablammo (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure we need to get rid of the Long in tonnage measurements. Long Tons are fine for those ships built in countries that used the imperial system. Much of Europe has used the metric system for centuries, and their ships would be measured in tonnes. Mjroots (talk) 18:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I did not make myself clear. Tonnage is not a unit of mass (weight), but is rather a measure of volume. Gross tonnage and gross register tonnage therefore measure the volume of the enclosed spaces of a vessel. Therefore we do not convert these tonnage figures to long tons or other units of mass. It makes no sense to covert gross tons to long tons, tonnes, or short tons, as they measure different things. We can convert displacement; we cannot convert tonnage in the nautical sense of that term. Kablammo (talk) 18:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

From J. J. Colledge 1969:

TONNAGE
Up to the year 1873, the tonnage is the builder's measurement (bm), a capacity measurement arrived at from, perhaps, the 15th century, by calculating the number of tuns (casks) of wine that the ship could carry. After 1873 displacement tonnage is used, changed in 1926 to standard displacement. The tonnage given for hired yachts in Volume II is Thames measurement'.

Which suggests that "Tonnage" can validly refer to Displacement for warships after 1873, although for our purposes it's much better to use separate titles. Cargo vessels certainly need both terms to distinguish the mass of the ship from the size of it's cargo space.

From Colledge, above, and this link for grt it looks like the abbreviations bm and grt should be lowercase.

So:

Burthen: x tons (bm) or Tonnage: x tons (bm)

If we have more than one value available, as in the case of Marco Polo, above, then I would suggest it would be better to use:

Tonnage: x tons (grt), y tons(bm)

instead of separate lines:

Tonnage: x tons (grt)

Burthen: y tons (bm)

Burthen should only be used with bm, Tonnage can be used with all cargo measures.

As for long tons, I think it's an ugly term and often anachronistic term. Use of British or US units is obvious from context. The convertion template needs a tweak to allow us to display the value to just as tons:

Displacement x tons, (y tonnes) instead of Displacement x long tons, (y tonnes) Petecarney (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree we could lose the recitation of "long" tons for displacement. By definition (e.g., the Washington Naval Treaty) that's how displacement was measured. Kablammo (talk) 19:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the point raised above about conversions of the GT or GRT volume measurements into any variety of tons of mass: that sort of conversion should be removed, just as converting inches to kilograms should be. I disagree, however, on removing the long from any use of "long tons". Ton by itself is an ambiguous measure with long tons, short tons, and (in the US at least) metric tons (otherwise known as tonnes). Not everyone who reads a ship article is familiar with the context of the Washington Naval Treaty and what ships did or didn't fall under its rules. Nor, I would venture, are all who read ship articles aware that there are even differing measures of tons. So, where the specific variety of tons is known, I think it should be unambiguously listed so as to be understandable to the widest general audience. — Bellhalla (talk) 01:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

As an FYI, the templates {{GT}}, {{GRT}}, and {{DWT}} are of great use in standardizing the appearance of tonnage measures. — Bellhalla (talk) 01:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That raises another point: In addition to gt or grt being placed in the displacement field, there are articles with dwt there also. As stated in Deadweight tonnage, dwt is not displacement. A possible means of handling it: burthen belongs in its own field, displacement (and only displacement) in its own field, and other measures should go in tonnage, with the measure specified. A consistent policy is needed; new articles continue to be created with measures other than total ship displacement being placed in the displacement field. Kablammo (talk) 02:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

{{DWT}} would be useful if it displayed the result as DWT. Mjroots (talk) 08:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Template:DWT was coded in response to a discussion at MOS:NUM in April 2008. The problem with DWT is that it can mean "deadweight", "deadweight long ton", or "deadweight tonne/metric ton". The consensus seems to have been "define it and use it": spell out what type of deadweight tonnage it is, and only then use DWT. (And the all capital use of DWT is preferable to avoid ambiguity; the abbreviation for the pennyweight is the lowercase dwt.)
• As far as abbreviations, I personally always use the capitalized forms (GT, GRT) because they are initialisms and not abbreviations, but I see no problem with using lowercase versions as long as each article is internally consistent (i.e. don't use "grt" and "GRT" in the same article.)
• Kablammo, the ideas of tonnage and displacement are confusing even to some of us who work primarily with ship articles. Part of the problem with new articles can come from editors not as fluent in these ideas. But, another part can come from sources themselves. In working on an article on a passenger ship recently, a source I was using gave the ship's "displacement" even though other sources gave the same figure as gross register tonnage. I knew better than to put the figure in the displacement field, but other editors might not.
• To summarize:
  • The "tons burthen" field should only have builders measure figures in it and not displacement figures, or tonnage figures like GT, GRT, NT, NRT, DWT, etc.
  • The "displacement" field should only have a value in tons, ideally specified as to whether "long tons" or "metric tons"/"tonnes", and not have GT, GRT or builders measure figures displayed in it.
  • The "tonnage" field is the place for GT, GRT, NT, NRT, DWT, BRT, etc.
• — Bellhalla (talk) 12:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

After Bellhalla's summary, wouldn't the simplest thing be to put a hidden comment in the template where most editors copy from to create a new infobox? That should reduce the number of new articles with the wrong field at least What do others think? Mjroots (talk) 13:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(Reply to Bellhalla) Basically, I agree. I'm inclined just to wikilink to the appropriate "ton", but that may be a matter of personal preference. (To me it is as unneccessary to specify "long ton" for displacement as it is to use "statute mile" for a distance on land. But wikilinking should mitigate any confusion.) Displacement and tonnage are confused in many sources accepted as reliable (or at least relied on) here. A rule of thumb I try to follow: never uncritically accept as reliable a "displacement" figure for a merchant vessel unless "tonnage" is separately expressed; look further. Displacement is rarely relevant for merchant vessels anyway. Kablammo (talk) 13:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(Reply to Mjroots) I agree that hidden comments would be helpful. Kablammo (talk) 13:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

To expand and apply the principles above: Not only are there to be no conversions in the tonnage field (although I have seen conversions of volume measures of tonnage to metric equivalent measures of volume), we have to eliminate conversions in the burthen field. I just took a look at some of the participants in the Battle of Trafalgar and there is work to be done on their articles. Kablammo (talk) 13:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think perhaps that I'm the chief offender on this one! Oops! I think the proposals sound good... as an additional idea, is it possible to make (bm) appear automatically in the burthen field? So you would just enter the value, and anyone who wasn't familiar with how it should be might realise that something they've done isn't quite right... Martocticvs (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Martocticvs, don't worry about it. I know I've done some wrong, too. It's especially hard when sources have it wrong. Rather than have an automatic "bm" appear, a template would be ideal, so that infoboxes that currently have a link or something in them would not be affected. Unfortunately, the ideal name, Template:BM, is currently a redirect to the banner template for Wikipedia:WikiProject Black Metal (which I think should really be at Template:WPBM, but that's already taken, too). If anyone can suggest an appropriate name for the template, I'll be happy to code it. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the summary above (I'll call them Bellhalla's Protocols) should be placed on the project page or template page. This edit concerns me; I have invited the editor to comment here. We need to make sure we have it right. Kablammo (talk) 17:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The author of the article on BOM has responded to my inquiry on his talk page. His reply is instructive, and it bears looking at. See User_talk:Tvbanfield#Tons_burthen It looks like we are on the right track. Kablammo (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

the great ocean liner

I noticed that http://www.greatoceanliners.net/ had totally changed. This website is also still used as a citation for many article. However, I found out that the former The Great Ocean liner that is about history had its named changed to http://www.thegreatoceanliners.com/. Therefore, if you see any The Great Ocean Liner citations, please changed them them. Aquitania (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

April Fools Day DYKs

We've got quite a few articles lined up (at least 7 I think). One pair of articles needs the hook to be chosen. Input welcome at Wikipedia:April_Fool's_Main_Page/Did_You_Know Mjroots (talk) 09:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hook has now been chosen. Expect a few raised eyebrows when it hits the main page. Mjroots (talk) 08:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Project scope

I think it's time we assembled a more detailed project scope and the type of articles that fall under it. Don't confuse this with Notability. There have been conversations on this subject in the past but they were never brought together. I see the most confusion with fictional ships, anything called a Yacht or ferry and biography articles. Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be noting things that are not in the project scope. --Brad (talk) 10:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The biography thing is certainly confusing. Personally, I think anyone involved in the building of ships belongs on this wikiproject. For example, shipbuilders, marine and naval architects should be included. Naval officers should not be included because they are not about ships as such, but about military operations. Gatoclass (talk) 16:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Does that include/exclude naval officers who were directly involved in ship design and building, like Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher or the holders of the post of Director of Naval Construction?GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for Gatoclass, but in those cases, Graeme, I think involvement in shipbuilding should be the criterion rather than military service. I agree with Gato that individual shipbuilders have a place in the project, even if at Low-importance. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I was just clarifying that point; as written, the suggestion came across to me that (all) naval officers should be covered elsewhere. I felt sure this wasn't the case. As I mentioned him, does anyone consider Fisher a ship designer for the purposes of WP:SHIPS or not?GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Directors of Naval Construction would qualify. Individuals like Fisher with no formal qualifications are a little more tricky, but there are always borderline cases in any system of categorization and I think he'd probably squeak in.

In regards to importance ratings, I would see shipyards and marine engine builders as "High" importance and shipbuilders, naval architects and other individuals involved in shipbuilding as "Mid". Gatoclass (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Seems reasonable thus far. A naval architect would have some bearing on this project. Andrew Higgins would fall under our scope but a shipping company owner (think Disney Cruise Line) would not. Military naval officers would be covered by WPBIO and Milhist which is enough there. --Brad (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't thought about shipping lines and owners. My first impulse would be to include them - the shipping lines, at least. Owners are basically businesspeople, so we could probably exclude them. Gatoclass (talk) 02:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Outside the scope of the Project

Suggestions by Mjroots (talk)

• Pleasure craft, with the possible exception of survivors of the Dunkirk Evacuation and large motor yachts (multi-millionaires private yachts etc, on account of size).

• Builders of pleasure craft. A shipyard must have built vessels at least as large as a tug or coaster to be considered part of the Project.

Not the Riva Aquarama then? or the Ferretti Group? GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Riva Aquarama no, Feretti Group yes = 120m yacht is over 400ft, a similar length to many merchant vessels in the Second World War. WP:Business is a better venue for yacht and pleasure craft builders. Mjroots (talk) 11:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The trouble I see with excluding ships by length is that many WWI US Navy ships were converted pleasure yachts most of which were 100ft or less. Though I have recently marked some pleasure craft builders with our banner I can see the reasoning behind excluding them. --Brad (talk) 18:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Commissioned naval vessels are definately within the scope of this Project. Mjroots (talk) 18:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How exactly do we decide whether an individual vessel qualifies for its own article? Perhaps the way forward is to work out whether or not a company is building vessels that would qualify for their own articles, and if not, they are not part of wikiships. Gatoclass (talk) 03:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Gatoclass, some of us have tried to establish a set of notability guidelines for ships to do just that. So far, proposals have been discussed, but there are still a few hurdles to overcome. Generally, WP:V and WP:RS establish WP:N as has been proved by various ship articles AfD debates - SS John Stagg being a good example. My personal opinion is that we should cover sea-going commercial cargo ships down to coasters, Thames Barges etc. Not sure about fishing vessels, maybe a size/tonnage limit here? For ships used on inland waters (Great Lakes, Scottish Lochs, Lake District, Swiss Lakes etc) I'd say that a size/weight threshold should exist. Mjroots (talk) 06:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think the basic criteria is still whether or not a vessel meets wp:note, ie substantial coverage in reliable sources. As I said at the discussion you mention, trying to do it any other way, ie by tonnage etc., tends to be a bit arbitrary. Gatoclass (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Some consensus

We seem to have solved the following:

• Biographies included: shipbuilders Andrew Higgins, marine and naval architects Joshua Humphreys regardless of military service.
• Biographies excluded: Military personnel Chester W. Nimitz, shipping company owners Aristotle Onassis.
• Ships excluded: Pleasure craft Bass boat, pleasure craft builders Sea Ray.
• Question: Battles involving ships: Battle of Hampton Roads or Capture of USS Chesapeake?

Where to go from here? --Brad (talk) 17:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If military personnel are not included, I can't see why we'd want to include battles. Gatoclass (talk) 08:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Lack of input; I figure that with no input it's hardly worth coming up with a scope that only 3 people agree on. I'll consider this proposal dead for the time being. --Brad (talk) 21:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Air draught

Is there something in the ship infobox to show the air draught (height) of a ship? Mjroots (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a height field in the full code. Kablammo (talk) 19:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, have found it. Mjroots (talk) 19:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Silent Service

There is currently a short DAB list at Silent Service which is pretending to be a stub, while we also have Silent Service (disambiguation). Given that the main titled has exisred for several years with no substantial change, I doubt it will ever be more than what it is now. I think it would be best to merge Silent Service (disambiguation) to Silent Service, and have it be the sole DAB page for the topic. Thoughts? - BillCJ (talk) 21:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Shipwrecks

Can someone please confirm for me whether or not this category is meant to include only ships whose wrecks have been located, or is it for any ship that has been shipwrecked, whether or not its wreck has been located or still exists? Gatoclass (talk) 03:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

My understanding was that it was the former, but now I think about it I've seen it applied much more widely - in practice, at least, it seems to be the second. Shimgray | talk | 10:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the category itself is ambiguous, because shipwreck means two different things, (a) the verb "shipwrecked", ie something that happens to a ship and (b) the noun "shipwreck" ie, the physical wreck of a ship. Do we need to more clearly define this cat perhaps? Gatoclass (talk) 13:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've always applied it to where a ship sank, regardless of whether located, salvaged, raised, scrapped, refloated, blown up, or whatever. To work on refining the scope of the category, discussion with WP:SHIPWRECK (don't know how/if active) seems appropriate. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone considered that WP:SHIPWRECK might be a good candidate to merge into this project? Maybe as a task force? Seems to me that the two subjects are closely related enough. --Brad (talk) 17:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That would seem to make sense. Gatoclass (talk) 07:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll

The Poll on date autoformatting and linking is now open. All users are invited to participate. Lightmouse (talk) 15:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's a poll, not a vote, as indicated by the unpiped link: Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I regard 'poll' and 'vote' as synonyms with the former sounding a little less accessible to me. In response to your comment, I have replaced the word 'vote' with 'poll'. Lightmouse (talk) 15:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

MV Princess of Acadia

I started adding some info to this article when I saw it was nominated for deletion. Then I realized it includes info from two different ships with the same name. Most articles linking to it will be looking for the current vessel, the first only sailed a few years. Should I create a new article for the first ship, I think her original name was Princess Nanaimo (sp?) Is it ok for this article to be MV Princess of Acadia, when it's the second ship with that name, or should we rename it MV Princess of Acadia (1971)? I copied all the infobox data right off the Cert of Registry while onboard. Orniphobe (talk) 01:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The article should be changed to a disambiguation page linking to articles about each ship with explanation if needed. So, MV Princess of Acadia (1951) and MV Princess of Acadia (1971). --Brad (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Year-based categories for ships/classes?

Hi, all. At the Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nassau class battleship, User:Piotrus brought up the fact that there aren't categories for ships that are the equivalent of Category:Establishments by year, i.e., something along that lines of Category:Ships launched in 1900. Does this sound like something that would be useful for the project (or perhaps does it already exist in some form that I don't know about)? Parsecboy (talk) 02:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Commons uses decade categories—like Category:1910s ships, for example—which I've always thought was a better idea than artificial era-like categories like Category:Victorian era battleships of Russia. (What exactly is Victorian in relationship to Russian vessels?) I wouldn't be opposed to year categories, per se, but worry that we might end up with excessive categories on pages like Category:Ships launched in 1900, Category:Ships commissioned in 1901, Category:Ships decommissioned in 1920, Category:Ships stricken in 1920, Category:Ships scrapped in 1921, etc. — Bellhalla (talk) 03:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm in a similar mind to Belhalla here. I'm neutral on the issue of year- or decade-based categories (but agree they would be better than the awkward and sometimes irrelevant "era-based" categories). However, I'm of the opinion that many ship articles are already quite category-heavy and that these categories are awkward and share significand overlap/redundancy: adding all of Belhalla's 'suggestions' (which you'll have to end up doing to keep everyone happy) plus the inevitable nation/navy/company/etc subdivisions, then the recommissionings/re-decommissionings/transfers of ownership/etc is going to make the categorisation of ship articles even more awkward.

Another way of doing this might be to consider the various "List of ship launches/commissionings/decommissionings/shipwrecks in year" out there... to me information like this would be better suited to a list that a category, because of the added data that can be availabel (exact date/builder/owner/operator/type/etc). -- saberwyn 06:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that that year based categories for ships would be of much use, and they don't seem consistent with Wikipedia:Categorization as these aren't defining characteristics which group ships together. Nick-D (talk) 07:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I quite like the idea of categorizing ships by year of launch, though I'm not keen on any of the other similar cats suggested by Belhalla. I also like the existing "era" categories. Where they are well developed, as in Category:Ships of the United States, I think they are reasonably useful.

I do agree though that the ships categorization tree is a horrendous mess. TomTheHand seemed to be able to make sense out of it, but I think he was one of the few :) Gatoclass (talk) 07:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The point I was trying to make there is that if you add a "Launched in foo", pretty soon there will be demands for more categories along the lines of those mentioned by Belhalla. -- saberwyn 07:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If necessary, we can always add something to the guidelines to prevent that. Gatoclass (talk) 07:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• @Nick: The original suggestion was to parallel categories like Category:Companies established in 1986 (which, in my opinion, suffers from the same lack of defining characteristics you mention) but has a de facto consensus behind it. So if we were to go by year or decade, I think precedent would be on our side. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• @Gato: The current era-style categories are logically inconsistent: some categorized by an actual era, like Category:Victorian era battleships of the United Kingdom, and some defined by a conflict, like Category:World War I battleships of the United Kingdom. I think the conflict-related categories are certainly defining and should remain, no matter what, but I think if we were to implement some form of this suggestion, that the other non-conflict groupings should be eliminated. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Perhaps if we move forward on this, one way to avoid problems for ships where a year "built" is known (but not a launch), would be to name the categories like Category:1912 ships. Then we can define the category to be year of launch (when known) or other year (when launch is not known, where a ship was not traditionally or technically launched). In either case, the category year should be the same as the disambiguation year whenever that's present. Also, if an exact year isn't known, it can be included in decade or century parent categories. A sample category tree:

  • Category:20th-century ships
    • Category:1900s ships
      • Category:1900 ships
      • Category:1901 ships
      • Category:1902 ships
      • etc.
    • Category:1910s ships
    • etc.

This would also have the advantage of mirroring the setup at commons on the decade and century level. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Notice of this discussion posted at WP:MARITIME. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I like Bellhalla's suggestion; it's a clean, useful organization structure, and it doesn't have the possibility of getting bogged down in the types of excessive categories mentioned above. I wonder if we could get a bot to add the categories to articles that have filled-in infoboxes? Parsecboy :  Chat  12:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree; it sounds good to me! — Kralizec! (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too! Mjroots (talk) 15:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

←OK, for a test setup, I've created the following:

• Category:20th-century ships (parent cats: Category:20th century, Category:Ships by century)
  • Category:1980s ships (parent cats: Category:1980s, Category:Ships by decade)
    • Category:1986 ships (parent cats: Category:1986, Category:1980s ships)
      • I populated Category:1986 ships with all of the non-redlinked ships on List of ship launches in 1986.

Before making any more categories I'd like to get some feedback:

• Do any of the new categories need to be categorized further?
• What about the wording on Category:1986 ships? Is it clear enough? Does it need to be stronger?
• Any other suggestions?

Before creating any more of the categories, I'd like to create templates (like {{cathead ship year}}, {{cathead ship decade}}, etc.) to make setup easier and more uniform. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the point in the "Ships by decade" cats. I would like some more time to think about that. And also the setup generally. No need to rush into this, is there? Gatoclass (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

After a moment's reflection, I really can't see the purpose of a "Ships by decade" type cat. When you think about it, there is only 100 years in a century, and 100 entries will easily fit on a single category page, so why add the arbitrary subdivisions, which could create further problems down the track? If we just have ships by century, and then individual years within the centuries, I think that would be enough IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 17:31, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Good point there, generally we will know a year of construction for a ship even if we don't know the exact month / day of launch. Mjroots (talk) 18:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that - Ships by decade seems a bit redundant, especially when there aren't going to be any articles in that particular category, and as Gatoclass says, 100 sub-categories will fit without any trouble on the century category index. Martocticvs (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

By decade has merit. I cannot see a use for ships by year, but I can see a use for ships by decade. With ships by decade, it makes it easy to compare with a selection of ships of different nations of about the same time period. A year is not much use for this.--Toddy1 (talk) 18:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd probably agree with that, too... either way though, I think 3 levels of category is unnecessary. Would work best as Century->Decade, or Century->Year, whichever we go with. Martocticvs (talk) 18:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I set up the sample tree to parallel other other categorization schemes for yearly categories, most of which seem to have decade-level categories (some examples: Category:Decades in film, Category:20th century in music, Category:20th century in sports). It also meshes well with Category:Transport timelines, which has by century and by decade. The by-decade categories can also be useful for ships when a specific year isn't known.

@Gato: Certainly no rush. It's easier (for me, at least) when talking about categories to be able to see and explore. If we opt not to implement these in this form, or at all, it'll be simple enough to CFD just a few categories.

@ Martocticvs: One problem with a Century->Decade system is when you get to the 1910s (World War I) or 1940s (World War II) there were thousands of ships launched, which would overwhelm the categories. Perhaps we can have a modified system where its by Century for arbitrarily old ships, by Century → Decade to some arbitrary date, and Century → Decade → Year after that. I don't see much call for Category:1240s ships or Category:1583 ships, for example. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, there should definitely be some leeway for the categories; as Bellhalla points out, we don't need individual year or even decade subcats, but for some periods, like during WWI and WWII, when there were hundreds and thousands of ships launched, break-downs by year are definitely valuable. Parsecboy :  Chat  19:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. Centuries and decades. If a particular decade (1910s, 1940s) is going to be hugely overpopulated, then years too. Seems a reasonable compromise to me. Mjroots (talk) 20:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a rule of thumb, like if there's more than one screenful in the decade (i.e. more than 200 articles), break it down by individual year? For example, looking only at actual articles (no redlinks) from the 1980s ship launch articles there are just over 200 ships, which would trigger individual years for 1980 to 1989. Does that sound like a reasonable rule? — Bellhalla (talk) 22:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. Parsecboy :  Chat  23:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if we're going to do it this way, I suggest we just leave it up to individual discretion to decide upon whether a century needs decades, or whether a decade needs individual years, because there isn't going to be an effective method of policing it once decade and year cats are out there. In other words, we just add the extra cats as they become necessary. Gatoclass (talk) 05:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

On the subject of centuries, are we going to use 01-00 as the centuries? eg, 1900 = 19th century, 1901 = 20th century. Mjroots (talk) 06:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we would have to use 1900-1999 because the decades are 1900s, 1910s etc. Gatoclass (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I looked at some other categories, and it looks like the system used by Category:Deaths by year is pretty typical. If you look at Category:20th-century deaths, it has Category:1900s deaths (i.e. 1900–1909 deaths) as a subcat, but Category:1900 deaths (year 1900 only) has Category:19th-century deaths as a parent; similarly, Category:2000 deaths has both Category:2000s deaths and Category:20th-century deaths as parents. I think that's a reasonable enough approach. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) In which case, how about splitting by Century > early / mid / late century > year. Early being decades 00s, 10s and 20s; Mid being decades 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s; Late being decades 70s, 80s and 90s. Mjroots (talk) 13:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting thought, but I don't necessarily like the unequal number of years in each group. I haven't come across any other yearly categories that use a similar system, so that might cause problems, too. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, 3 into 10 leaves a remainder 1. Which is why I made the mid century section bigger than the others. Alternatively, if we forget about decades, Early can be 00 - 33, mid can be 34 - 66, and late can be 67 - 99. Mjroots (talk) 13:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, using Early / Mid / Late, we can get the centuries correct too - 01-33, 34-66, 67-00. Mjroots (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Intriguing idea, but perhaps we should stick to the more commonly used century and decade divisions? — Bellhalla (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Per Bellhalla. I really don't see the point in even more subdivisions. Gatoclass (talk) 07:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So, Centuries and years then? Mjroots (talk) 08:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Bellhalla wants decades, so basically it seems to be: centuries, decades and years. But as I said above, I think they should probably be created as necessary, we don't want to create a whole bunch of year cats and then find there are no ships to put in them. Don't ask me how we're going to decide whether to put individual ships in century, decades or year cats though, because I don't know :) Gatoclass (talk) 08:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that an individual ship article should go as far down the chain as possible. Centuries should only have individual ship articles if they are way back in history. Decades not quite so far back, most individual ship articles should be able to be pinned down to a year (launched preferably, otherwise completion). Articles on uncompleted ships possibly categorised under decades. Mjroots (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Uncompleted ships I think we could probably use the laid down date if they don't have a launch date. Otherwise you seem to be saying that only the individual year cats should contain articles. I guess that approach would at least have the virtue of consistency. Gatoclass (talk) 09:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Here's what I see the general consensus to be:

With year known

• Categorize by year if the year category exists; else by decade if the decade category exists; otherwise, by century
• Only create decade categories if a century has more than 200 (i.e. one screenful) of members
• Only create year categories if the decade has more than 200 members

Without specific year known

• Categorize in the most refined category possible

Some examples:

• Golden Hind: Francis Drake's ship was launched in 1588, so it would be categorized in Category:16th-century ships since there are probably not more than 200 ship articles for those built 1601–1700
• USS Maine (ACR-1): The American battleship was launched in 1889, so it would most likely end up in Category:1880s ships, since there are almost assuredly more than 200 articles for ships built 1801–1900.
• USS Missouri (BB-63): The WWII Iowa-class battleship where the Japanese surrender was signed was launched in 1944, so it would go into Category:1944 ships since there are easily more than 200 ship articles for ships launched 1901–2000 and those launched 1940–1949.
• Santa María (ship): There's no year associated with the launching or building of Columbus' flagship, so it should be placed in Category:15th-century ships, the best date known
• Antikythera wreck: Would probably go in Category:1st-century BC ships because the best scholarly guess is that that's the era of the ship

Thoughts? — Bellhalla (talk) 12:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Logically, your scheme makes sense, but I see two problems with it. Firstly, how are you going to stop noobs putting their articles into the wrong cats; and secondly, when you reach the critical "200" number to go down to the next level, it means having to recategorize 200 ship articles, which doesn't sound like much fun. Gatoclass (talk) 12:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if it would work well if we had it along the lines of say, pre-1600 by Century only, 1600-1900 by decade, and 1900 onwards by year? Or is that a bit too arbitrary? It would however mean we could lay down the structure in advance, and then hopefully it will be obvious to new or unfamiliar editors how it works, and remove the need to potentially come along at some point in the future and redo the categories for 200+ ships... alternatively go with Bellhalla's suggestion, and presumably a bot could be made to deal with those categories reasonably easily... thus allowing us the greater flexibility. Martocticvs (talk) 13:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)For Gato's first thought: it would be handled the same way any other "mistake" is made in categorization, by correcting it and helping educate users.

For Gato's second thought: Having to re-categorize 200 articles wouldn't necessarily be much fun, but I really see that issue alleviated by taking some extra time to assess what we already have before we start categorizing. To that end I have an active bot request that should provide a list of ship articles that use {{Infobox Ship Career}} and have a date in the "Ship launched" field. (The bot run won't change any articles or add any categories.) This should give us a good ballpark estimate of ships for each century, decade, year to help see what the setup might look like. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Martocticvs, that seems entirely reasonable and sounds like the way to go unless a bot-generated list has some surprises in it (like 500 ships built in the 1880s, say). — Bellhalla (talk) 14:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) It looks like from the data from the bot run (summary below) shows that Martocticvs' suggestions are very close to what's out there. I'd like to suggest the following modification:

Up to 1599

by century only

1600–1849

by decade only

1850 to present

by year

The only difference from Martocticvs' suggestion being to classify by year from 1850–1900, which seems to be supported for all but the 1870s and 1880s which are below the "one screenful" threshold. The logic of having a specific, round cutoff overrides that, in my view. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot run results

Methodology: All articles that have a year of launch in the field "Ship launch" in {{Infobox Ship Career}}. These results do not cover ship articles that:

• Do not have an infobox
• Have an old table-based infobox
• May have a known or easily inferred year of launch but do not have it listed for some reason

Ship launch dates by century
all ships with launch dates

Century	No. of articles
15th century	1
16th century	19
17th century	223
18th century	622
19th century	1773
20th century	8258
21st century	230

Ship launch dates by decade
from 1600

Decade	No. of articles
1610s	4
1620s	9
1630s	8
1640s	9
1650s	49
1660s	18
1670s	37
1680s	12
1690s	77
1700s	30
1710s	9
1720s	3
1730s	18
1740s	60
1750s	81
1760s	65
1770s	83
1780s	124
1790s	136
1800s	135
1810s	121
1820s	41
1830s	52
1840s	86
1850s	192
1860s	470
1870s	117
1880s	169
1890s	353
1900s	467
1910s	1202
1920s	394
1930s	711
1940s	3514
1950s	435
1960s	478
1970s	334
1980s	403
1990s	344
2000s	249
2010s	7

Raw data from bot run

"Ship launched" (A - H)

"Ship launched" (H - M)

"Ship launched" (M - U)

"Ship launched" (U - U)

"Ship launched" (U - Z)

"Ship laid date" or "Ship commissioned"

Other articles

There are an additional 1,051 articles in Category:Ship articles needing infobox conversion. Mjroots (talk) 20:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

My intent was not necessarily to compile an exhaustive list of ships with launch dates, but to have a good-sized sample to help answer some of the questions about the setup. But it's nice to know that the list of articles needing new infoboxes seems to have been whittled down a bit. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Might have been an idea to run the bot to cover articles which have either the "ship launched" or the "ship completed" date, since quite a few articles have one but not the other. Gatoclass (talk) 02:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the existing data though, it looks to me as though it would be, list ships by century only for the 16th century and earlier, and by both decade and year for 17th century on. That would give us a nice consistent rule of thumb, the only downside being that one would end up with a lot of ships in a couple of cats, namely the 1910s and 1940s, but then having too many entries in one or two cats isn't really that big a deal. Gatoclass (talk) 02:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

On second thoughts - maybe we should only list ships by year, regardless of what century or decade they appear in. That would keep the higher cats clear, and give us a nice consistent approach right across the spectrum. If we have different rules for different centuries or decades it's just going to be too complicated. Gatoclass (talk) 02:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe what we really need is a bot to manage the whole thing for us :) Gatoclass (talk) 02:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How about we start small, and let it grow. Suggest we tackle the 21st Century ships first. Create the cats and add the articles. Once we see how/if it's going to work, then go back and do the previous century. Once that's done, go back and do the one before etc etc. Mjroots (talk) 04:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure we can start small, but we are still going to need a plan before we can start implementing it. Gatoclass (talk) 04:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Bellhalla is categorizing them already, so I guess he's figured out a system he's happy with. Gatoclass (talk) 06:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Update

I have put in a bot request (which has now been approved), so Sambot will be populating the categories based on the year of launch (or year of completion if launch is missing) in {{Infobox Ship Career}}. It will place articles in the most refined category possible based on the year. To summarize the initial setup, ships launched:

• up to 1599 will be categorized by century, [[Category:Nth-century ships]]
• 1600 to 1849, by decade, [[Category:NNNNs ships]]
• 1850 to 2009, by year, [[Category:NNNN ships]]
• 2010 and up, placed in Category:Proposed ships

If the infobox has a valid year in the launch field, the bot should eventually get to it. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

What about the lists of ship launches, shouldn't those receive the new category as well, for instance List of ship launches in 2009 would have Category:2009 ships added to the categories already on the list? I was about to go through each individually with HotCat, but if the bot can do this if desired that would be even easier. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be a good idea. Since the bot has already been approved, I'm not sure if it can be added on this run. I'll ask the bot owner and see what he would recommend. — Bellhalla (talk) 02:46, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I decided to expand the scope of the request a little bit and made a separate request at the bot request page. In addition to placing the yearly ship launch lists into the appropriate category (as you suggested), I thought it would be a good time to replace the various "Shipevents" templates ({{shipevents1860}}, {{shipevents1870}}, … {{shipevents2000}}) with a single {{Shipevents|[Year]}} in those articles, as well as all of the articles in Category:Lists of ship commissionings, Category:Lists of ship decommissionings, and Category:Lists of shipwrecks by year, too. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:41, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The bot request to perform this is here. — Bellhalla (talk) 21:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Piotrus

I am glad that my comment at MILHIST review resulted in such a wide discussion. Per categories in architecture, the important date is when the ship was finished, now when it was laid down, although I do think that eventually we may want to have categories for more detailed time events. I do wonder which date is more important: that of the launch, or that of the commission? Also, let's not forget the importantence of the end date - the date of decommission/sinking seems to me more helpful then when the ship was scrapped, but I am far from an expert on this :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Piotrus, for providing the impetus for the implementation of such a system! The reason launch date was selected versus commissioning date or laid-down date is because one of the long-standing consensus method of disambiguating ships is by the ship's year of launch (when known) or year of completion. As far as decommissioning date categories, the consensus above was not to implement that or other any of the other date-related categories (scrapping date, sunk date, stricken date, etc.) for fear of overwhelming ship articles (which tend to be category-heavy already). — Bellhalla (talk) 12:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that the date of the commision is more important than the launch date. just an example Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga was launched in 1921 as battleship (at the time she was probably finished around 65%). Then it was supposed to be scrapped under the Washington Naval Treaty but after Amagi got wrecked in an earthquake in 1923 they decided to convert Kaga into an aircraft carrier. The process was long and finally Kaga was completed and comissioned in 1929. IMO it is more right to put Kaga under 1929 category ships. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loosmark (talk • contribs) 12:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

While a commissioning date is an important milestone in the life of a warship, there are a great many non-military ships that have articles on Wikipedia. Having the category be for commissioning date for military ships and launch date for non-military ships would be messy, not to even mention how ships that were launched as civilian ships but taken over for wartime use would be handled.

If there's support for a separate commissioning date category (which didn't seem to be the case in the above discussion), then it can certainly be added. But, to reiterate one of the arguments above, if we add a commissioning date category, it may lead to the proliferation of a vast number of other year-based categories. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Not keen on commissioning date, too many cats already and lots of ships have multiple commissioning dates. As I think I said earlier, I might support a scrapping date. Gatoclass (talk) 18:54, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Future aircraft carrier category for deletion:

1 Apr 2009 – Category:Future aircraft carriers (talk) nominated for deletion by GW Simulations. There are also a whole slew of other categories not related to this project included into the same nomination. --Brad (talk) 17:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Perhaps this has been resolved since the article alert bot picked it up. No deletion tag seen now. --Brad (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's been speedily closed, since the nomination included far too many templates over far too wide an area. It may of course be renominated in the future. Parsecboy (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Where is the hyphen?

I noticed that in many of the article titles and body text, the name of the class is not hyphenated with the word "class". For example it is listed as "Olympic class" instead of "Olympic-class". In a few places it is shown correctly, sometimes right alongside where it is not. There are very few exceptions when this cannot be done, but generally it is possible. Can we correct this... unless there is a policy to not do so.Gary Joseph (talk) 11:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is the use of the hyphen correct and the absence incorrect? Specifically which grammar rule denotes its use? I've had a look but can't find one yet that matches these cases. I'm presuming the intention is to keep the ship name connected with "class" rather than modifying the following noun. I suppose "Invincible class battleship" could be confused as a "class battleship" that is invincible but not likely is it?GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Elaborating on what GraemeLeggett said, this is already covered by the Ship classes section of the WP:NC-SHIPS naming convention. It states:

“ Uses of the class as a noun are not hyphenated, while adjectival references are hyphenated, as in Ohio-class submarine: if in doubt, do not hyphenate. ”

Hope this helps! — Kralizec! (talk) 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, maybe I am missing something here. So it should be "Olympic-class ocean liner" not "Olympic class ocean liner". Similarly, it should be "the Invincible-class battleships" or "battleships of the Invincible class". This is per the rules for the agreed naming convention. Besides, it is also a convention in English especially since not putting the hyphen in the adjectival form makes the sentence read awkward (just remove any one of the unhyphenated words and read the sentence ). This is not the case in the noun form when removing the proper identifier of the class. Besides, the Navy uses the same convention and books use it too ("The Olympic-class Ships"). There are many places where it is used as a modifier in Wikipedia articles and not hyphenated. That was my only point. I will thus leave this alone. Thanks Kralizec.Gary Joseph (talk) 04:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Requested moves.

• 8 Apr 2009 – Move requested from Ghost ship (talk) to List of ghost ships by 58.8.211.127; see discussion.
• 6 Apr 2009 – Move requested from LCAC (talk) to Landing Craft Air Cushion‎ by BillCJ; see discussion.
• 31 Mar 2009 – Move requested from MS St. Louis (talk) to MS St. Louis by Anthony Appleyard; see discussion.

--Brad (talk) 01:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The last one's been done already... Shimgray | talk | 01:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this part of what article alerts on the project page is for? Mjroots (talk) 06:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

MS Explorer

The report into the sinking of MS Explorer has been released. I'm still working my way through it, but assistance in expanding the article with the new info available would be welcomed. Mjroots (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature for historical ships

Hi everybody :)... I have a question concerning the nomenclature of historical merchant ships (no ships of the British Royal Navy or the US Navy). I came upon the help-page naming conventions for ships, but still I have'nt found the information I was looking for. In case of US Navy or Royal ships I can use a prefix like USS or HMS, or SS for steamships aso. But whats the correct naming of ships when I have the following case:

I have 5 historical merchant sailing vessels (without hull number), bearing the same name. I know the year of launching of each of these ships. So how do I name them? "ship name" (1847), "ship name" (1866) a.s.o., or do I use a prefix? I hope you can help me. With kind regards--Rectilinium'♥' 13:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Numbers would certainly be simplest, I think. Shimgray | talk | 13:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, to disambiguate by year of launch is the accepted method. Mjroots (talk) 16:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Shimgray and hi Mjroots. So, you think I should simply use the name and the year of launching? I actually already published one article about a ship. I named it West Point (sailingship). Then it was renamed into West Point (1847) by a more experienced user (who's a specialist for shipping subjects) and I actually understood this renaming. Now another user (who admits, that he does'nt know much about ship relating issues) moved the article back to West Point (sailing ship) with the following explaination: "The title should give the reader a better idea of the subject; use of the year in this title is extremely ambiguous". I explained him, that there is more than one sailing vessel with the name West Point and that I will add articles about these ships too (f.e. West Point (1841), West Point (1866)). But he told me, that he does not accept the title West Point (1847) as in his eyes this is wrong. Im a Wiki-Newbie... so what shall I do?--Rectilinium'♥' 16:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but he's wrong. West Point (sailing ship) can be turned into a shipindex, and all sailing ships named West Point can be disambiguated there.

Albatros (1899) is a ship article, but the name Albatros(s) has been used for a number of ships, hence the hatnote. Mjroots (talk) 17:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I am the user of whom Rectilinium says that he "admits, that he does'nt know much about ship relating issues". Indeed, I don't. But I need to clafify something here that I think Rectilinium is not fully understanding (perhaps due to a language barrier). By no means am I asserting that this article must remain at West Point (sailing ship). I made the move I did (from West Point (1847) to West Point (sailing ship)) because the former title struck me as highly confusing, given that the term "West Point" has a couple of very clear connotations to most Americans, if not most Anglophones—namely, the United States Military Academy at West Point (for which "West Point" is a synecdoche) or the town near the Academy.

Anyway, I was fully ignorant of the ship naming conventions until Rectilinium brought them to my attention, and they are valuable. The arguement can be made that, strictly adhereing to the ship naming conventions would mean that this should return to West Point (1847). But there is a weakness in the ship naming conventions. At least as far as I can see, the disambiguation policies make reference only to avoiding confusion between ships of the same name. But Wikipedia disambiguation policies are a much bigger thing than this. What happens when the name of the ship is also a common name for something else?

Often times this is not a problem, because most of the most famous ship tend to be military vessels, and therefore they come with a prefix (e.g., USS or HMS) that makes it clear when a ship is being referred to. No one is going to mix up the state of Florida with USS Florida. And so, in this case, it is perfectly fine to refer to USS Florida (1861) and USS Florida (1869). For you see, while it appears that the year is the disambiguator, there is also an unspoken-of disambiguator—the prefix "USS", that keeps it from being mistaken for the state.

But in this case, as I understand it, the ship West Point is a commercial vessel, and therefore has no prefix. Accordingly, it is ripe for confusion with the USMA and the nearby town. So when you have a title of West Point (1847), it is totally unclear that this refers to a ship. And that lack of clarity is something that our disambiguation guidelines strive to avoid. Accordingly, I am suggesting that, in the event of such a situation, that something be added to make it clear that this is a ship. One possibility would be West Point (1847 sailing ship). In some cases, there might be another prefix. Don't fishing ships have a prefix like "F/V" or something like that? I mean, no one ever uses them in conversation, but if you could call this something like F/V West Point (1847), I would be cool with that as well. (Yeah, I know, it's not a fishing ship, I'm just saying as an example.) Anyway, I'm not trying to cause waves. The people who hang out here obviously know far more than I do. But therein lies a danger. When your knowledge in an area is so extensive, you sometimes forget how it comes across to those on the outside. And you are writing this encylopedia for the vast populus, not each other. So please take into consideration my "outsider" comments when making these decisions. Unschool 17:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Unschool. Generally, we do disambiguate ships by year. We also use ship prefixes where appropriate. This gives us West Point, USS West Point, HMS West Point SS West Point and MV (or MS) West Point. All of which could be differen ships. Say there were two or more full rigged ships named West Point, the article title would be e.g. West Point (1874) and West Point (1890). Different types of sailing ships could give us West Point (barque), West Point (schooner), West Point (ketch) etc. We do not use S/S, M/S or M/V as this creates articles which are sub-pages of S and M respectively. Mjroots (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

So Mj, why couldn't this be MV West Point (1847)? Unschool 18:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Because it is a sailing ship, not a motor vessel. Mjroots (talk) 20:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see. For some reason I had thought that MV was "merchant vessel". Okay then, I've looked at the abbreviations list now, and now ask, Mj, why couldn't this be SV West Point (1847)? Unschool 20:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I will preface this by saying I didn't read the section below, but if we know of only one notable sailing ship named West Point, then I'd say Unschool's reasoning (as to potential confusion with West Point, New York, and the United States Military Academy) is spot on and that the article should be at West Point (sailing ship). If there are other, notable sailing ships, then the year of launch disambiguation becomes much more relevant.

The point of disambiguation is to ensure that readers (and to a lesser extent, editors) can be sure they have reached the same article. Having naming conventions for ships helps to ensure that methods of disambiguating are uniform, so you don't end up with things like USS Constellation (the one built around the same time as USS Constitution). But if the naming conventions get in the way of the first point, then it seems a good time to ignore all rules and put the article in a place that will make it easiest for the readers of the encyclopedia to find. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:30, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

A different perspective

(edit conflict) Let's say that WP:FILMS or WP:BOOKS had the same naming conventions as you have at WP:SHIPS. Movie titles and book titles are also often repeated. If there was a book entitled West Point written in 1847, then by these hypothetical book naming conventions, West Point (1847) could just as well refer to a book, couldn't it? Would the WP:BOOK wiki editors be wrong to want their title? I would argue the same thing, that "West Point" already has a disambiguation page, and that we need to pick disambiguators that actually help the reader to quickly grasp what he's looking at.

Look at Macbeth (disambiguation). Notice that the many films made with this title are not called Macbeth (1908), Macbeth (1911), Macbeth (1948), Macbeth (1971), and Macbeth (2006), they are called Macbeth (1908 film), Macbeth (1911 film), Macbeth (1948 film), Macbeth (1971 film), and Macbeth (2006 film), so that reader knows immediately that this article is not about a person named Macbeth born in that year or a band that was formed in that year or a famous stage production of the play that opened that year or even a ship with that name. This is simply a far more useful model to be following.

Note that my proposal does not require that you change what you are doing 99% of the time. It just means recognizing where someone (who doesn't have ships on the mind all the time) might get confused, and keeping it clear. Just like those movie people have done (I really need to go and complement them, but I fear that I would get accused of canvassing.). Okay, that's my 2¢ worth. Unschool 17:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello everybody. Because Unschool started to compare ships with films, because he thinks that the naming conventions of ships should be changed the same way, I'ld like to say, that this discussion has also been held on other Wikipedias (f.e. French and German). I know that there are several differences between the language versions anyway, but in the German and the French Wikipedia the ships are named the same way like here in the English Wikipedia...

This gives us West Point, USS West Point, HMS West Point SS West Point and MV (or MS) West Point. All of which could be differen ships. Say there were two or more full rigged ships named West Point, the article title would be e.g. West Point (1874) and West Point (1890). Different types of sailing ships could give us West Point (barque), West Point (schooner), West Point (ketch) etc. We do not use S/S, M/S or M/V as this creates articles which are sub-pages of S and M respectively.

--Rectilinium'♥' 18:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm still stuck in a conversation that is of so little significance to me (not because it's unimportant, but because this is not my area). But it appears that there may exist a groupthink here that doesn't understand how this looks to someone who does not eat and breathe ship info every time they log on here. (i.e., 99% of Wikipedia's readers) I don't care if you do it the way the movies do it. Before today, I had never even considered how the movies do it. But when I wrote the first paragraph of this subsection I then decided to look and see how other projects do do it, and I found what I found. And yes, to someone who is not an expert on movies, I am grateful that the persons who came up with their naming conventions was thinking about the ordinary Wikipedia reader. But that doesn't mean you have to do it the way they do on the movie project. I'm just asking that you come up with some plan that shows that you are trying to accomodate us outsiders in your naming conventions. It so happens that the movie one does this, and yours doesn't. That doesn't mean you have to do it the way that movies do, it just means that it would be considerate to try and see the perspective of others and come up with something better than what you have now.

Look, this really isn't that big a deal. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this, because this isn't my baby. I'm just an editor with no expertise in this area, but who is a reasonably intelligent editor of good faith who sees a minor weakness in your naming conventions. My ideas may not be workable for reasons that I don't fully understand, and I leave it to you to make that determination. But as for myself, there is nothing that I do in which I am so set in my ways that I won't take the time to involve the thinking of others when making my decisions. I find that I make better decisions when I am less insular. But I also know about groupthink, and hey, more often than not, the "group" is right. So if you have seriously considered my proposals (and not just rejected them out of hand because "that's not how we do it") but see no reason to change, then that's fine, and you have my respect. Even when I disagree with others, I still respect them as long as they actually think rather than just mindlessly rely on tradition. Unschool 18:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Unschool. As you know, I am a new user. I started to write articles, because I was willing to make contributions to (let's say) a "group-project", where many people work together and try to find some common ground on which to base (groupthink?). I learnt very fast, that I need to adhere to many rules and conventions, even if I probably dont agree with them, because a unification is inevitable if we want to avoid a mess. Since you renamed my article, I got the impression, that I actually should observe rules, but that I may break them, if I personally think, that they are illogical? Is it this you want to teach me? You probably remember that I first named my article West Point (ship), because I thought it would be the easiest way to find this article. Then it was renamed because of the existing conventions. To tell the truth, in the first moment I also thought, that my title was better. But I was finally reasonable enough, to understand why it was named West Point (1847). It is interesting, that you say: "Even when I disagree with others, I still respect them as long as they actually think rather than just mindlessly rely on tradition". It is not a sign of respect (of the opinions of other users), if you call them "mindlessly" relied (on tradition or whatever). On your talk page you also wrote: "When someone comes along who knows better than you and I how this should actually be named, I won't resist them in any way". Really?

However my article is named in the future West point (1847), West Point (1847 XYZ) or XYZ West Point (1847) - I will accept it. But it is my opinion, that we should name it in a simplified way, so it cant be confused with other ships of the same name. Finally... if you think, that the existing conventions should be changed, why dont you advance such a proposal on this discussion page? I dont think that such conventions are set in stone. But I think, we should first discuss it and come to a decission, before we start to break rules because of subjective views. If the specialists for shipping subjects come to a new arrangement (and if they decide that the conventions should be changed), I am actually willing to help, if we need to rename the huge amount of ship-articles, that already exists.--Rectilinium'♥' 06:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Rectilinium, my friend, it looks like I'm causing you distress. That is not my intent, and I don't think anyone else here is getting stressed over this either. We are having a discussion. It's how we advance, both in our knowledge and our procedures. Here's what I believe has happened thus far:

• A few editors (led by User:Mjroots) have been patiently explaining to me the reasoning for their practices
• I am coming to understand those practices better.
• I have made some proposals based upon my perception of what would be best.
• Other editors have weighed in on those proposals, and have respectfully explained where they think I have a point to consider and where they think I am wrong.
• At least one person in this discussion (besides myself) thinks that perhaps in this case, strictly following the naming convention may not be in the best interest of the project.

Rectilinium, I don't know why this process appears to be bothering you. I am finding it informative, I think that everyone has been absolutely respectful of one another, and I am confident that we will exit the process with everyone largely satisfied. What on earth is wrong with this?

Are you bothered because the page has not been moved back yet? Look, the fact that it has not been moved back yet is simply a good faith gesture on the part of these other editors. User:Mjroots probably would have liked to have moved this back before we even began talking, but he's demonstrating a respect for the process, and he knows full well that when we're done talking, the article will either stay where it is, be moved back where it was, or will be moved to yet another title. So what's the point in moving it back before the discussion? We haven't yet decided what we want to do.

Are you faulting me for "breaking the rules"? If so, that's not fair; we both know I didn't know the rules when I made my move. I acted in good faith, and continue to do so. And this isn't about me breaking rules when I disagree with them, it's about making sure that we have the most useful and effective rules we can. And you're generally correct about the need for uniformity; I certainly support that. But there are times when breaking the rules is actually the best thing for the encyclopedia. Is this one of those times? Probably not, or at least, I'm not prepared to say so. I don't want to break the rules, I want to discuss the rules, which these other fine editors have been doing with aplomb. Unschool 08:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Honestly... I had the impression that you are stressed, because I didnt simply accept you're renaming, and because I continued to discuss about the naming conventions. But whats wrong about it, if I try to find out, how I shall name an article? Shall I listen to a single person, or shall I adhere to rules, that the community has deployed? Thats all. And as I said before, it was not me, who named the article West Point (1847) - another user named it that way - and if everybody else thinks, that we should change the conventions, and that we should name historical merchant ships differently... I dont mind.

All I ask is... make a clear statement how ships should be named correctly. So that in the future everyone knows whats the right way to name ships. I know that my english is not perfect at all... but is it really so difficult to understand why I ask for some guidelines?? Now you ask me if Im faulting you for breaking the rules. What a question... Im actually a person that loves to break rules. But anyway. I repeat what I said before, because this is the answer on your question: I think, we should first discuss it and come to a decission, before we start to break rules because of subjective views. If the specialists for shipping subjects come to a new arrangement (and if they decide that the conventions should be changed), I am actually willing to help, if we need to rename the huge amount of ship-articles, that already exists. When I wrote "to break rules"... all I wanted to say is: let us first think, talk and then act rather then acting first, and then talking about it. And you really ask me if I am bothered because the article wasn't renamed? No. As you correctly said... we haven't yet decided what we want to do. Probably you remember... I started a discussion on your talk page, because I wanted (and still want) to find a solution (and because I dont like to revert corrections, before I know whats right). As we both were not able to find a satisfying solution, it was again me, that started a discussion here on this talk page, because I actually talk, before I act. Was it wrong that I started this discussion? Did I offend you? You say, you simply want to discuss this subject, which "these other fine editors have been doing with aplomb". Now... probably offence is the best deffence. But I really think, that I didnt jump the gun on this naming-"affair", and I dont think that I insulted you. All I did was to put a question mark over your renaming and I also discussed it with other users. And I even asked you, why you dont advance a proposal to change the naming conventions (I never said, that I would be against it).

So Unschool... once again a proposal: lets stop our "little war". I dont want to have a row with you. Probably you dont believe me, but I actually appreciate persons like you, that are able to argue and that are persisten, because it is a sign of a strong mind. And I have seen, how much you have done for Wikipedia until now. I would prefer, if I could see you as a friend, who I may ask for help (that I will surely need in the future too). It is up to you. --Rectilinium'♥' 13:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Your characterization of what I regard as simple discussion as being a hostile endeavour leaves me at a loss for words. Unschool 04:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

To chuck in my two decimal units, I believe that in the current situation, the date disambiguator used for West Point is appropriate. If that date overlapped with the aforementioned hypotheical book/film/whatever, then disambiguating as (year ship) would be acceptable. However, I do not think that pre-emptive disambiguation in this manner is necessary. -- saberwyn 07:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

And to add my two decimal units on the subject of the film naming conventions, the example is because the primary disambiguator used by that project would have been "Macbeth (film)", regardless of the year of release. If more than one film is released with the same title, they add the year as a secondary disambiguator. -- saberwyn

As to your first point, saberwyn, I can certainly understand your desire to deprecate pre-emptive disambiguation. Making a rule for such a rare occurence should yes, probably be avoided. However, your final AU2¢ on the point strikes me as very interesting. What you said is certainly true, unless there are two films of the same name, disambiguating by the year is unnecessary and not done. But why do you suppose the primary disambiguator is "film"? I believe it is because it is most helpful to the reader, who is supposed to be our focus. Why not do the same with ships? The meaning of West Point (sailing ship) is much clearer to 99% of the populus than is West Point (1847). Unschool 08:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

In my experience it is far more common to have two ships of the same name (and even the same name and type) than two films of the same name. Disambiguating by type does have application for warships (which is where I usually play), as the hull number or pennant number of the ship (which takes the type of warship into account) is used in favour of the year of launch. However, I don't know how workable disambiguating by type is for ships in general, and non-military ships in particular. -- saberwyn 22:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Question from above

Mj, why couldn't this be MV West Point (1847)? Unschool 18:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Because it is a sailing ship, not a motor vessel. Mjroots (talk) 20:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see. For some reason I had thought that MV was "merchant vessel". Okay then, I've looked at the abbreviations list now, and now ask, Mj, why couldn't this be SV West Point (1847)? Unschool 20:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that refer to it as SV West Point? None of the online sources in the article give a prefix for the ship. -- saberwyn 07:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

No, my question is just an example of my ignorance of the topic. I take it from your question, that such prefixes must be part of the official name of the ship, it's not just something added here? Obviously I wouldn't want to add it if such a prefix had to be included as part of its registration. But when User:Mjroots responded as he did, it gave me the impression that one simply had to pick the correct prefix. Unschool 08:26, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that prefixes are something that have to be associated with the ship in reliable sources...we can't just pick and choose what we feel is appropriate. -- saberwyn 08:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Generally that is correct, but the use of MV or MS is interchangeable AFAIK. Mjroots (talk) 11:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Prefixes are a bit like someone being called "Fred Smith, Jr.". In theory, everyone whose father was Fred Smith could be called that way - and in theory, every ship could have some kind of prefix. But historically, it can get anachronistic very fast; we don't go adding "junior" and "senior" onto the names of people who never used them, because it isn't really part of the name and it doesn't look quite right... Shimgray | talk | 13:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Good analogy, Shimgray. Point taken.

Okay, I've said my piece, I feel like there's been some honest discussion from several parties. I'm going to take my leave now, and leave this one for the experts who normally frequent this page. Good luck deciding how you want to handle this. Unschool 04:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Decision?

Hi everybody. Soon I will add 2 new West Point (sailing ship)-articles and I finally would like to ask once more, how the articles should be called (aswell as the existing West Point (sailing ship)/West Point 1847-article). After reading all the comments Im not sure what I shall do now. --Rectilinium'♥' 19:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

SS Orcades (1948)

SS Orcades (1948) is a redirect to Orcades (1948). Would an admin please reverse the situation? Mjroots (talk) 16:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like there has been a cut and paste page move undertaken there with associated page history on each side. I would have done the move but I am not so familiar with the procedures to repair this. -MBK₀₀₄ 05:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Request made at WP:REPAIR. Mjroots (talk)

This has now been done. Mjroots (talk) 20:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for HM Bark Endeavour now open

The peer review for HM Bark Endeavour is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 00:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Set index cleanup needed

Would someone mind cleaning-up HMS Endeavour to comply with our guidelines for a set index? -MBK₀₀₄ 00:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll ask Benea to take a look at it if someone else hasn't already done it. He's very good with Royal Navy index pages. — Bellhalla (talk) 02:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

On the topic of set index pages, the ARA Independencia and ARA Santiago del Estero pages were tagged this week as "orphan articles" for reasons I do not really understand. Apparently when I was not looking, set index pages were re-defined as articles rather than disambiguation pages. — Kralizec! (talk) 03:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the orphan tags. The shipindex template generates a rationale that says to alter links if they lead to that page, hence there shouln't be lots of links to the page. Mjroots (talk) 05:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Raised at WikiProject Disambiguation. Mjroots (talk) 05:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Article on RN's LCAC(L) needed

Does anyone have any interest in creating an article on the British Royal Navy's Landing Craft Air Cushion (Light) LCAC(L), and/or any material for such an article? There has been some confusion of the LCAC(L) with the US Navy's Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC class}, with some users actually adding the Royal Navy as a user of the USN LCAC! (They were exported to Japan.) A dedicated article would help alleviate this confusion greatly. I can create a stub from the RN's web page, but I'd like to use more sources. However, I've been unable to find any more comprehensive info on freely-availabler internet sites. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• See replies at [[WT:MILHIST#Article on RN's LCAC(L) needed]]. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 13:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Bainbridge CIWS

Maybe someone could look into USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) and confirm or deny that the ship has a CIWS. (Navsource collection of images) I think the answer is pretty clear from photos, at least as of April 2008 and the fact that she is a Flight IIA ship with substantial modifications to accommodate the remote mine-hunting system, but another user prefers to use the ship's info page, which appears to be just a generic description of the Burke class. Thanks for the assistance. --Dual Freq (talk) 13:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that a photo can safely support some general bits of information—like that an ocean liner has three funnels, or a cruiser was painted in a particular style of camouflage at one point. But, using only a photo to support a more esoteric conclusion that there is or isn't a particular kind of system seems tenuous at best and OR at worst. One compromise way to approach this is to say something like:

Ship information provided by the U.S. Navy says that the ship has X, Y, and Z, but photographs of Bainbridge look similar to Othership which has A, B, and C.

This sort of approach keeps our information verifiable, but also lets readers know that the USN info may wrong in a way that avoids synthesis. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments requested on the Future Canadian Amphibious Assault Ship article

There is currently a discussion of the status of the Future Canadian Amphibious Assault Ship project, the ships' characteristics and suitable references. Editors are invited to comment on these issues at Talk:Future Canadian Amphibious Assault Ship. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 05:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Some pairs of same-ship articles

While verifying sort order in some of the yearly ship launch categories, I've come across pairs of articles that describe single ship:

• USS Kangaroo (SP-1284) and USCGC Kangaroo (1917)
• USS Surveyor (1917) and USC&GS Surveyor (1917)

For both of these pairs, the individual ships' careers under each name don't seem especially notable apart from the other, and none of the articles are so long—in my opinion—that it justifies a split for that reason. What do others think: should they be remain split or be merged? — Bellhalla (talk) 16:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say merge them, to the USCGC and USC&GS articles, respectively, since they served far longer in those services than in the US Navy. Parsecboy (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. How about this pair:

• USS Osprey (AM-29) and USC&GS Pioneer (1918). Apparently was last renamed USS Crusader (ARS-2) (which redirects to USS Osprey (AM-29))

Seems like Pioneer was the longest-held name. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Pioneer seems to be the most logical name; the ship had that name for nearly 20 years, which is the majority of its service life. Parsecboy (talk) 17:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Alright, now here are two four more pairs:

• Spanish cruiser Isla de Cuba and USS Isla de Cuba (1886) and later the Venzuelan Mariscal Sucre; Spanish service: ~13 years; US service: ~13 years; Venezuelan service (about which little is known): ~28 years
• Spanish cruiser Isla de Luzon and USS Isla de Luzon (1887); Spanish service: ~12 years; US service: ~21 years
• Spanish cruiser Don Juan de Austria and USS Don Juan de Austria (1887); Spanish service: ~12 years; US service: ~21 years
• Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes and USS Reina Mercedes (IX-25); Spanish service: ~12 years; US service: ~37 years

In most of the pairs, each article seems to cover both careers. I think they should all merge, but to which name? — Bellhalla (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a set I just came across:

HMS Patrician and HMCS Patrician

British service: ~4 years, Canadian service: ~9 years (although the British service was during WWI) Parsecboy (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Article about the shipbuilder Jacob Aaron Westervelt

Hi everybody. A couple of days ago I finished a new article (60 kb - almost 150 hours of work) about the shipbuilder (and Mayor of New York City) Jacob Aaron Westervelt. I dont want to move it to the public space before it was edited by some native english speakers that have a profound knowledge of shipping subjects. Is anybody interested to have a look at it? I hope, someone can help me. With kind regards --Rectilinium'♥' 20:06, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Article Requests

• Viet Nam-Era Monitors (converted Higgins Boats). No specific article exists. You could possible get assistance from Militry History Project.