Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)

Standard ship prefixes

Shouldn't a page be created, listing the standard prefixes? Or at least a listing in an abbreviations page. - Olivier

adjectives precede nouns so we should state that such and such is a Big Ship Class rather than a Big Class Ship Lir 01:01 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

You're misparsing; try (((Los Angeles) class) submarine). --Brion 01:17 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

How about Los Angeles (submarine class)Lir 22:26 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

How about we use the standard that has been in effect for hundreds of years? --the Epopt, who served for many years on Ohio-class submarines

What is the proper punctuation for a ship's name? Is it HMS something or HMS something? -- Zoe

Should be HMS something, though too often people don't bother. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) -- Someone else 03:16 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Since we have an article titled RMS Titanic, should I punctuate it RMS Titanic? -- Zoe

I think properly it would be RMS Titanic or RMS Titanic: i.e., [[RMS Titanic|RMS <i>Titanic</i>]] or [[RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic'']] . --- Someone else 03:28 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Someone else is right: "HMS" or "USS" or whatever prefix is not part of the name of the ship, it simply indicates ownership. The name should be italicized, the prefix left in roman type. Calling something "Royal Mail Ship Titanic ("RMS Titanic" for short) is exactly analogous to calling something "Homer's Odyssey" and should be typeset the same way. --the Epopt

Hyphen between USN hull type and number?

A truly minor issue about ship naming -- Is there a technical reason for a hyphen between the hull type and hull number for US naval ships -- that is not standard US naval usage as shown in the US naval register http://www.nvr.navy.mil User:ClaudeMuncey

(moved from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions)

Disambiguation

While updating USS Maine I noticed that several US ships called Maine were on the same page. This isn't that big of a deal right now but in the future these ships need to be disambiguated from each other. So the question is, how do we disambiguate? I would suggest the most natural way to disambiguate would be to use hull numbers in page titles for those ships and have USS Maine be a disambiguation page. Of course all the links to that page would also have to be corrected. Alternatively, USS Maine can be where the most famous ship by that name resides and a disambiguation block can be at top. I know this wouldn't work for all ship's for all nations, or even all US ships, but it would be a natural way to disambiguate most US Navy ships and others that have hull numbers. What does everyone else think? --mav

Why do you think that "in the future these ships need to be disambiguated from each other"? What's wrong with the page as it is today? --the Epopt

As I said there is nothing wrong with the page yet. But as more and more text is placed in the article it is going to become increasingly difficult for people to find the ship they really want if that ship isn't the first one presented. These are all different ships meaning that each is it's own subject and should at some time in the future each have their own pages. USS Enterprise is probably a much better candidate for breaking up sooner rather than later. My only question was whether or not we should use hull numbers in the form [USS {ship name} ({hull#)]] for the names of the new pages. For example: USS Enterprise (CV-6). --mav

Hull classification symbols would work fine where they are used, but most countries and all early USSs don't use them. How would you disambiguate, e.g., the second and third Enterprise schooners? And for a real disambiguation treat, take a look at HMS Enterprise -- or HMS Antelope. --the Epopt

There's always the ugly trick used for battles, namely to add a date in parens. As far as I know, there are no ships of the same country and the same name launched in the same year. For ships with uncertain dates, a "(1550s)" or even "(1400s)" will suffice to identify uniquely.

Those nice detailed multi-ship-generation articles will need to come apart too - disconcerting to link from Jutland and see a description of a 17th-century ship come up on the screen, I'm sure an unsuspecting reader will be mystified. Also, you'd have to read all the dates for the ships to figure out which one must have been meant. Stan Shebs 19:13 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

Well, never let it be said that I'm an arrogant, inflexible pedant. (Of course it's true. I just don't want it said.) Adding the dates is ugly, but it would work, and until the developers decide to allow markup inside links, we need to pipe-alias every ship link anyway. Writing [[HMS Enterprise (1705)|HMS ''Enterprise'', 24]] is not significantly worse than what we're doing now. However, take a look at the third HMS Enterprise, 8 (1743) and the sixth USS Enterprise (WWI). As soon as we split the big articles up, someone is going to want to know why those little stubs can't be combined into a regular-sized article. --the Epopt

That's easy: They are different subjects. --mav 21:19 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

In practice, I would just separate out the biggest articles as needed (usually modern ships, since we always seem to have more factoids about them :-) ). There seems to be little reader advantage in having n 2-sentence articles for obscure ships when you're going to need the "HMS Foo" article anyway for disambiguation. This also has the advantage of being the lowest-energy approach. :-) Stan Shebs 22:01 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

It was horribly traumatic ;->, but I split the second-largest ship article, USS Thresher, into two unequal parts. Please review and comment, noting that SS-200 still gets the 30k warning. Also please take a look at HMS Astute and related pages -- they are my first attempt to write new articles under the proposed system.

So for disambiguation purposes (when needed) have we standarized on using hull classification symbols when available and launch dates when not available? --mav

Well, Stan and I seem to have agreed on that, together with an index page at "just the ship name."

Good. That was my choice as well. :) --mav

US Naval Historical Center

Note to ship buffs: I've found a great apparently public domain resource that we could use to create starter articles for US Navy ships. I've already adapted some of that free text and images to make USS Langley. Check out the source http://www.history.navy.mil/index.html . --mav

Indeed, the material you're seeing is from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, which is a great source. It's not entirely online, and doesn't list recent ships, so you do have to watch out for silent omissions. Stan 15:32 Feb 28, 2003 (UTC)

Naming of ships from navies that didn't use ship prefixes

User:MyRedDice contradicted the rule I proposed about parenthetical disambiguation -- I favor using German battleship Bismarck, while he favors Bismarck (battleship). Given our diametrically opposite viewpoints, I've deleted both versions of the "rule," so that we can discuss it here before we get dogmatic on in the article itself.

I like the natural phraseology. It's easy to write "The German battleship Bismarck was sunk" -- any newbie can do it. Using parentheses requires knowledge of esoteric Wikisyntax, to wit, the "pipe trick."

--the Epopt

I'm not saying that German battleship Bismarck is better or worse - just that the arguments you gave for it didn't (to me) make sense, because of the pipe trick. Or, equally, if you're going to mention the disadvantage, you should also mention the workaround and link to how to edit a page. Question is, is this the best place to debate natural versus bracketed disambiguation? Martin

Naming of shipwrecks

How about ships that are now wrecks? The SS Yongala is now under Yongala Historic Shipwreck witch I feel is a somewhat wrong title. Anyone with a better suggestion?

Naming of Japanese ships

By the way, can we make an exception for Japanese ships? The title like Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi seems silly because there is no Akagi but AC. -- Taku 01:26 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

You mean to say that all the names are synthetic, and have no other possible meaning? For European and American ships, nearly every ship name has some other possible meaning, either as a name or regular word - off the top of my head, I can only think of "Sovereign of the Seas" as a ship name that doesn't have a non-ship interpretation. Stan 02:26 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Much naval writing does in fact use constructions like IJN Akagi. The prohibition here is in conflict with many well respected naval authors and histories.

Elde 07:52, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Some are but some not. As usual in ordinary wikipedia article, if there is ambiguousness then do disambiguous. -- Taku 02:47 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

And, there is no need to not have articles like Japanese aircarrier Akagi, which redirect to more common name Akagi. -- Taku 02:49 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

My opinion, for what it's worth, is: it depends. Akagi may be unique to the carrier, but others, such as Japanese battleship Yamato, will need to be disambiguated from Yamato, the ancient Japanese nation. And we will need Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi to redirect to Akagi, simply because ignorant gaijin like me will assume we need it -- I wouldn't have known that "Akagi" was unique if you hadn't made me look. ;-> --the Epopt

I thought we were disambiguating only when necessary, not when there is only one subject for a title in the first place. That one wants to add the USS or HMS or something like that, I can understand, that could be considered using the full name, but this "countryname shiptype name" thing goes straight against the usage at the rest of Wikipedia, not to mention that it's cumbersome and not rarely undecidable or ridiculous. I might decide to write an article about the Nansen's ship Fram (also served under Amundsen and Sverdrup) - should that be Norwegian exploration ship Fram, Norwegian icebreaker Fram, Norwegian ship-of-a-unique construction Fram, Norwegian museum ship Fram or simply Norwegian ship Fram? To me, Fram sounds much better, or Fram (ship) if someone comes up with some other Fram to deal with. Thus, I completely agree with Takuya Murata here. Andre Engels 14:08 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

It's extraordinarily common for a ship name to be re-used, more so than most people realize - some countries have even passed laws to the effect that their navy will always have a ship with name X, which virtually guarantees a half-dozen or dozen wildly different ships all with the same name. So we really want to be on top of this problem and pre-disambiguate, just as we do for Quartz Hill, California, even though there seem not to be any other Quartz Hills in the world. If you are knowledgeable enough to say that there is only one Fram and that it won't the pollute the encyclopedia with hundreds of ambiguous references that will need to be cleaned up some day, then I'm OK with that, but we'll get a better product if non-experts adopt the habit of using pre-disambiguated references. Stan 17:56 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

Pre-emptive disambiguation makes sense for US cities/places because the great majority of US city/place names are used in more than one state and since "someplace, somestate" is very often used for city/place names regardless of whether or not the city/place name is unique or otherwise unambiguous. So unless ship names have a similarly bad global ambiguity problem and are often pre-emptively disambiguated regardless of uniqueness, then I say we should only disambiguate when a real ambiguity exists (which is the default disambiguation convention which has a great deal of support - I should know since I tried to extend US-type pre-emptive disambiguation to all cities of the world. Needless to say I failed after about a month of trying). --mav

There seems to have been some question as for the proper abbreviation to use before the name to indicate Japanese naval vessels. [1] gives the rule quite clearly - "HIJMS" (stands for 'His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship') before the end of WWII; thereafter, it is "JDS" ('JMSDF Defense Ship').

If you don't believe me about the HIJMS, take a look at this page [2] which indicated that no less a person that Admiral Togo himself used exactly that notation. I think I may rest my case! :-)

Jnc 02:13, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

globalsecurity.org is usually good but not definitive, and they don't state their authority. Togo's use in a personal note is not definitive, because as the website notes, he was consciously trying to Englishify, and quite possibly just made up the abbreviation on the spur of the moment (and possibly globalsecurity.org is using that note as their authority!). To be definitive you need a document that says "this is the official rule" and can trace a sequence of citations back to an original IJN document. It's not critical to resolve this immediately; we can always change things later if definitive evidence turns up. (It's odd that this has been so elusive; most navies have website pages devoted to listing all past and present abbrevs in excruciating detail.) Stan 04:41, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, I'll let someone else search for the authoritative document, which is no doubt in Japanese anyway, which I can't read! I can cite a use of the term in "Bless Our Ship", by Captain Eric Bush R.N (Allen, Unwin, 1958) who commanded a gunboat on the Yangtze in the 30's, and saw a fair amount of the Japanese during his term there. Not that that's authoritative either, but I doubt he was using a Google search as the source!

Jnc 05:00, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

More naming of Japanese ships

Moved here from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)/Japanese to keep discussion in one place.

The list of Japanese ship names contain some links to Japanese provinces and cities since some of the ships are named after those places. I am wondering if it is appropriate to make all of the links for all of the ships into ex. Akagi (aircraft carrier) since I do not know which ships are named after provinces or cities. In this way there would never be a clash. Similarly, some of the battleships are named in the form Japanese battleship Yamato to avoid this. I would like to rename them to Yamato (battleship). Is this the correct path to take or is there another suggestion? Thanks. Ark30inf 22:57, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Don't count on me much but it seems battle ships are named after old provinces such as yamato or musashi while small ships are named after month names such as yutsuki (notice tsuki means moon and month in Japanese). -- Taku

I am intending on putting in some more ships and would like to see a common format for all the titles. P.S. My intention was to put in the translated names of the ships at some point so English readers can understand what the names actually mean. "Red Castle" is a neat name but most English speakers know it only as Akagi without knowing the meaning.Ark30inf 23:09, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't see any established convention yet. As long as consistent, your proposal should work. Please check if there is a wiki project working on this issue to coordinate with others. Also it would be nice to have a mutual links between places and ships. Good luck! -- Taku

I found a convention. It looks like there is some dispute about what the prefix for Japanese ships is. It is listed as IJNS/IJSDFS some places but this does not follow the convention that the prefix should be the same that the crew used when the ship was in service. So, since there is no settled prefix, the correct titles would have (nationality) (ship type) (name). I wish we had a firmly settled prefix, but will go with the recommended version at this time.Ark30inf 23:35, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships? I must admit that in the only articles I've written, I've named the articles Japanese cruiser Nachi, Japanese cruiser Haguro, and Japanese cruiser Ikazuchi but been inconsistent and named them IJN... within the articles, which really ought to be removed. Arwel 23:57, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think I got the title names straight. Now I want to have a list of the names of the ships translated into English (example: Akagi means "Red Castle"). Would it be best to have a new article like maybe Translations of Japanese ship names or would it be best to just put the translations on the current index page next to the ships? Thanks.Ark30inf 00:53, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I like literal translations belong to each corresponding article because it seems norm here. See other Japanese-related articles. But certainly there is no objection to make such an article Translations of Japanese ship names. -- Taku

I normally agree, but having the real meaning of these names in one place in addition to the article seems useful to me. I am thinking that the ones named after provinces, etc. will get grouped together. The names are particularly beautiful and interesting as far as ship names go. I think I will give it a try, if it doesn't work then it can go to the deletion pile, no harm done.Ark30inf 03:37, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

USN naming practice for ship classes

It should be noted that USN practice uses the forms lead ship name Class and lead ship type hull number Class interchangeably. It's equally correct to refer to the Ohio Class or to the SSBN 726 class.

Elde 07:52, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not knowing a lot about ship names, is there any reason why HMS Royal Oak and HMS Royal Oak (1914) both exist or which is preferred? I know ship names are often re-used, but I haven't seen the year format used on many (any?) other articles. The text in both articles is identical. --Chuq 21:56, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Accident of reorg, probably. There have been seven Royal Oaks, of which the 1914 ship is the seventh, so HMS Royal Oak will get the list of choices when I get around to typing them in from my printed source. There are relatively few capital ships of RN whose name hasn't been re-used, so nearly all such ships will need a year (or pennant, if recent) disambiguator. HMS Victory can be an exception, because it's so much more famous than its couple of predessors. Stan 23:54, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Capital letters or italics?

I was an Admin clerk onboard a ship. The ship was always typed with all capitol letters on all correspondence. My ship was the USS CORAL SEA. I believe all American ships are to have capitol letters?WHEELER 16:51, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The official U.S. Navy Style Guide (http://www.news.navy.mil/tools/view_styleguide.asp?sort=S) states:

ship names - For first reference always include USS, the ship's name and the hull number: USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).

Exceptions: Do not use "USS" for ships before 1909; or if she is not yet in commission; or she has been decommissioned and you are referring to the ship in her present state.

There is no hyphen in the hull number. In All Hands text, the ship name is in italics. On second reference, use only the ship's name. Do not use "the" in front of a ship's name: "USS San Jose," not "the USS San Jose."

Ships are to be referred to as "she" or "her."

Ships' nicknames are placed inside quotation marks on first reference only. USS LaSalle (AGF 3), the "Great White Ghost," sailed into San Diego.

Ship names are not in all caps. Use USS Seattle, not USS SEATTLE.

I note that we are violating some of these standards, but not the last one. --the Epopt 18:43, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

All caps is one of the standard ways to simulate italics on typewriters and plain ASCII, as is underlining. Stan 20:41, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Vessels with number but no name

Could someone clarify the correct naming convention for "unnamed" submarines such as E15 and AE2. My interpretation is that they should be at British submarine E15 (currently at HMS E-15) and Australian submarine AE2 (currently at AE2 via HMAS AE2). In none of the books I've read have I seen them prefixed with HM*S - it just doesn't feel right. Geoff/Gsl 23:20, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think the proper usage is, as with all UK Submarines, HM Submarine (abbreviated HMSm) E15 etc. Submarines are not ships and, after consulting group of serving officers, it transpires that HMS, whilst a common usage, even in official documents, is incorrect for that reason. Similarly there are a number of other exceptions to the HMS rule:

a) HM Motor Survey Launch (HMMSL) Gleaner (1983) - both usages can be seen on its home page

b) HM Yacht (HMY) Britannia (1954)

The usage HMS only evolved over time and the initial usage designated the type of ship, hence His Majesty's Bark Endeavour, also HM Frigate Unicorn. It is only after c. 1815 that the usage 'HMS' for all types of ship became common.

The Endeavour is, btw, a special case in that there was an Endeavour already in service and the Admiralty specifically assigned the name 'Bark Endeavour' to Capt Cooks ship.

The earliest ships didn't use any designator at all, hence it's the 'Mary Rose' not 'HMS Mary Rose' etc. The use of a prefix evolved, as far as I can make out, from 1700 onwards and was far from consistant, for example the same letter might cpatitalise 'His' or 'Ship' in one place and not do so in another. Brooke of the Shannon used 'HBM ship' (meaning 'His Britannic Majesty's ship) at least once.

So, HMSm E15 or, more conventionally, the current HMS E15

Rick

--81.174.205.72 18:56, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You make a good case. However, see http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/5445.html , et. al. -- the Royal Navy seems to disagree with you. --the Epopt 19:05, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for a government agency to throw out old rules and impose new ones retroactively. Continental Navy ships were not designated "USS" at the time, but the modern Navy uses the prefix anyway. Oxford Companion says earliest use of H.M.S. was in 1789, but doesn't mention any other abbrevs. Something to keep in mind is that a random mix of various prefixes and no prefixes would result in chaos. Any non-HMS warship of the RN should have very good documentation, like a record of an Admiralty clerk being flogged for using the wrong term :-), and of course the article itself will need text explaining the situation, so later editors don't come along and try to change it back. MOD web pages are not sufficiently authoritative for this kind of thing, there's not actually a QA team going through pages to check them for accuracy. Stan 19:50, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Gadzooks, if the Ministry of Defence is not an authority on its own ships, who in the green and pleasant world is? --the Epopt 21:05, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There's a difference between the "Ministry of Defence" and "subcontractor non-expert who created a web page without the MoD knowing about it". :-) Web pages are generally good, but I don't like to rely on them without somebody more authoritative as the source for the web page content. I'm sure you've found as many obvious errors on govt web pages as I have... Stan 18:29, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The RN disagrees with itself then! As I said, I consulted a group of serving officers on this subject late last year and, after research and discussion, was told that HMSm was the correct form. I suspect nobody would object to HMS and that the HMSm form, although technically official, could be said to be 'almost obsolete'.

Despite this advice I have never found HMSm in recent official publications. I suspect that the 'm' has been dropped over time and S now stands for 'Ship or Submarine'. I have seen it occasionally in older publications but quick research on-line shows HMS being used in signals etc. in WWII. In 'long form', however, it is exclusively HM Submarine or His Majesty's Submarine. Perhaps it would be best to use 'HMS E15' short form and 'His Majesty's Submarine E15' long form.

btw HMSML Gleaner is official, in use, and used on that same website.

On older ships:

Long abuse approves the use of HMS for older ships but preferably not prior to 1800 or thereabouts, perhaps even later. It would be a shame if the information regarding the period nomenclature was omitted from articles. Personally I would prefer the form Royal Charles (Br) (16xx), as used (usually without the date – btw I assume that the commissioning date should be the standard) in history books for ships before the common use of HMS.

This should also, I think, apply for the USN – we find, for example, Capt Issac Hull designating his ship 'The United State's frigate Constitution' and his defeated opponent 'his Britannic majesty's frigate GUERRIERE' in an official letter in 1812. Yet things were changing: Capt Carden describing himself as 'late commander of His Majesty's ship the Macedonian' in a letter to the Admiralty in the same year and in 1815 Capt Biddle superscribed an official report 'US Ship Hornet'

Rick --81.174.205.72 21:16, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like you're really talking about style rather than correctness, and our responsibility is to define and use a style that is most useful for 21st-century readers. While it might be amusing to write articles in 18th-century style, we don't do that - we use modern idiom, we use names in forms recognizable to modern readers, we spell words consistently, and so forth. While it's certainly worthwhile to describe the confusing usages of yesteryear, because it helps readers decipher old material, it is completely counterproductive to let archaisms leak from article content into encyclopedia structure. Stan 18:29, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Actually I'm trying to talk about correctness, the avoidance of anachronism and not conveying false information. With the current naming standard you end up with either: HMS Endeavour for a ship referred to as Bark Endeavour or HMS Bark Endeavour (His Majesty's Ship Bark Endeavour, Ships and Barks being different things). And what about the Naseby? HMS Naseby when there wasn't a monarch when she was in service?

Its logical to use the well known 'HMS' where there is a reasonable argument for it being correct but it would be misleading to head an article HMS Someship when the Someship was probably never referred to as that. It would be similar to referring to the SMS Bismarck (info: SMS applies to the pre 1919 German Navy). It would be as wrong as referring to HMS Sir Galahad rather tahn the RFA Sir Galahad (or USS Taney rather than USCGC Taney). Try thinking of 'Blank Space' as being equivalent to a string of initial letters and you might have a better chance of seeing what I'm trying to get at.

Almost as an aside, if 'consistent spelling' is going to be applied to ship names, how will the several RN ships of the 1700-1800 period with idiosyncratic, foreign (usually captures) or just plain misspelt (verbal instructions to the man who wrote the name down) fare? Will they be listed under an name they never had?

Rick--81.174.203.9 20:36, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You have a logical argument for "blank space" as equivalent to a prefix, but in practice it would result in chaos for RN ships. We don't actually have a rule that we only use a contemporaneous name - we have Livy for the person known as Titus Livius during his lifetime, "Alexander the Great" is an English construct that could not have existed in his own time, etc. Sure, "HMS" is a more-modern abbreviation, but I don't think we we want to expand article titles to His Majesty's Ship Britannia, except of course during Queen Anne's reign, when it would have to be Her Majesty's Ship Britanna (redirs here we come!). I have no conceptual problem with alternate names for some of the oddballs like Endeavour and Bounty (we can finesse Naseby because she was renamed to an HMS later :-) ), as long as they're well-documented - a letter sent by the commander is not good enough, it would have to be multiple official documents, or a work by an authoritative historian that the article can cite. Those can be handled case-by-case as needed. And you're right, spelling of captures is very tricky - sometimes I have the resources to answer, others I just make an executive decision, document that I've done so, and wait for someone to come along with better evidence. Stan 22:29, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The key is, as I see it, that the title you use is for an article is usually regarded by the unknowing reader as being one of the generally acceptable forms in use today. Whilst you can point out the correct name in the text the unconscious assumption is there. In an Encyclopaedia that attempts to provide correct knowledge knowingly encouraging the reader to believe that which is not true is bad practice.

I fail to see how setting some reasonable cut-off (which can be discussed) for changing 'Blank' to HMS would produce chaos when its perfectly acceptable to change from SMS to DKM in 1919 for German ships. A simple redirect would deal with those doing a search for 'HMS Mary Rose'.

How the nationality of an 'unprefixd' ship would be designated is another matter, I don't see the need for 'His Majesty's Ship' etc, particularly as there wasn't a laid down form of nomenclature at the time (an article on RN Ship naming will be forthcoming).

I'm reluctant to submit or contribute to articles with the knowledge that they have to, or will be made to, conform to rules which encourage the reader to believe something that was not true at the time (that the prefix 'HMS' was used) and isn't true now (that its usual to refer to a particular ship as 'HMS Someship').

This is beginning to sound like a troll. It isn't, but its sounding like one so I'll make this my last post until I've got that article worked up. Rick--81.174.203.172 23:22, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't want you to be discouraged before you've even started! I've been focussing on why we do things a certain way, but have also been careful not to say that it can't be changed; there have been many cases where somebody comes in with a good idea and it "sweeps the Wikipedia". No feeling quite like having a small army of elves going through and updating hundreds of articles in order to put a new scheme in place... I'm looking forward to seeing your writeup, because I've been poking through my personal library and am not finding much on the subject of nomenclature, nor even much consistency in the way that people refer to ships in general. Prefix-less names mostly concern me because of ambiguity; as a general encyclopedia, almost every unprefixed ship name will be ambiguous with something completely unrelated, and that will result in bogus links everywhere - the net effect is to require masses of disambiguation pages and xrefs, and it will take quite a bit of effort to fix it all. Plus everybody who comes later will need to understand it well enough that they don't mess things up again with their own edits. To take a particular point, since the use of "HMS" doesn't have a well-defined starting point, we would have to make an arbitrary choice of year - and what about ships whose lifespans include before and after? But as you say, let's focus on some content (with references, so I can know what books to add to my apparently impoverished collection :-( ), then work up a specific proposal. Stan 03:50, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the fascinating discussion. Clearly the history of naming RN ships deserves an article itself. That said, I shall stick to the prevailing WP policy of prefixing with "HM*S". Geoff/Gsl 05:48, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I noticed that it says to create a new page for each new nationality of a ship, but only if the ships name changes as well! Um....it's the same ship! The was the carrier (Venerable?) which was British, then Australian, then Dutch, then Brazilian. it sepnt only about 3 years in the first 3 navies. The pages for this ship had the same details on each page, including details of its time in the other navies. There's no point in this. It is much easier for people to follow the ships career if they don't have to click back and forward through 4 pages to check and compare dates, etc. Put it all on one page. Link to that page from each reference to any name the ship had. I'm not sure why you'd not create a new page if the ship changed navies but DIDN'T change its name. Enterprise (1) in one navy might well be Enterprise (3) in another its tranferred to. It would seem to complicate things if it was left as Enterprise (1) even when referred to under the new countries flag. SpookyMulder 11:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Same ship, more or less, but with a different crew, possibly local modifications, different armaments, etc, so the now-gigantic sidebar box would have to have a column for statistics for each nationality, have all the naval jacks stacked along the top, and a montage of photos, one for each nationality. Also, the linking becomes nonsensical - a list of Dutch ships has apparent British ships on it, which is pretty weird-looking. You could also end up with a situation like HMS Macedonian vs USS Macedonian where the ship would be under HMS, even though 97% of her career was in the US Navy. Readerwise, clicking makes a nice "break" (OK, we're going to the Netherlands now, different navy, different conventions). I think the "no new article if no name change" is not actually followed - the reasons I've cited apply whether or not the ship's name changed. I'll give it a decent interval before changing. Stan 14:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Depends why people want to read about the ship (the ship, or the navy?). If the Macedonian was built as British, then it would be listed in the "British frigates list" page, as well as any other list page it belonged to, but each link would link back to the same page on the actual ship. that works, right? so you'd SEE a link with just the name of the ship on (or the prefix as well; im not sure that the prefix is that important, but people seem to like mentioning them insted of just the name) but the linked-to page would tell you "this ship was built British, then captured in 1812 (?) and renamed "xxxx" etc. The captain would change, but the folowing would likely stay the same:

dimensions and displacement
armament (maybe)
rigging
crew size
speed
builder

Listing a ship under a new navy gives the impression that that navy built it, that it was part of that navies ship program when it wasn't. You might be confused you mention. Well, seeing a French ship listed as having been built in Portsmouth might be confusing, also, don't you think?

Note that captain/crew numbers/armament/displacement/name etc. can change even if the ship doesn't change navies! I don't see that changing navies leads to such a major amount of change that couldn't happen otherwise, and also the changes that do occur may be quite minor (only different captain, different flag). I really don't think that having one ship described fully on one page is going to prevent any particular detail of the ships history from being mentioned. And like i said, the changes you mention (and more) can happen anyway, so that really can't be your reason for requiring additional page/s for the ship, right? People are aware that ships can change names/flags/captains. Breaking the ships career up into intervals which may be quite short, then having to repeat information on 2, 3, 4 pages (the liner given by germany to Russia, then Austria, then...some other country...in World War 1 is a case in point), some of which may contradict (do you check each page whenever you update any of the other pages?) will just lead to confusion, wasted time, and make it harder to get a clear picture of what the ship actually did. SpookyMulder 12:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you have multiple articles, each should refer to the other in abbreviated fashion ("Built as ..."), at least if the information is available, so you're not repeating the same stuff over and over. Changing navies entails conceptual changes too - for instance the British system of ratings is purely British, wouldn't be used on a US ship, even if captured from the British. The choice of separate articles vs one is a standard WP debate, comes up in a lot of contexts, and there's no standard answer. Partly it depends on one's model of the reader; if the reader is settling down in front of WP to read it like an online book, then fewer articles are better, and you want to have more continuous narratives. If the reader is using WP as a reference work to settle an argument (as I did just yesterday, on a music question), then you want articles that get right to the point. I tend to favor the "reference work" model, which for instance is why I write self-contained lead paragraphs, instead starting with one of those long rambles about the ship's construction dates that never actually says what kind of vessel it was. If I'm poking through a list of US ships, and Macedonian redirects to an "HMS" article, that's going to give me pause, and I have to think if this was a mistake or what. If ship info is cut up into per-navy chunks, it makes the body of a country's navy info "clean" and self-contained, at the cost of requiring an additional couple of clicks to read a continuous ship narrative from beginning to end. Another thing that happens with accumulating conceptually-multiple articles into one is that "what links here" gets mystifying - for instance, if Phoenix and General Belgrano are one article, then "what links here" would show Phoenix as being involved in the Falklands War, which is only really true in the sense that some atoms of the hull were there. :-) But again, one can make a good argument either way; if it becomes a major sore point, then the usual thing is to call for a vote to set the policy - it may be that I'm the only person who thinks this way, in which case I'll be outvoted. Empirically, it would be a good idea to continue to be active and do your good work for a couple months, and to observe polls and how they go on other pages, before putting the question - relatively new people can lose out in polls because voters will tend to side with oldtimers rather than considering a proposal on its own merits (just like in real-life politics :-) ). Stan 14:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Japanese ship names all changed

User:N328KF moved all the Japanese ships from names like Japanese battleship Yamato, as agreed here, to names like HIJMS Yamato.

I don't think this is right. Even the Net of Million Lies doesn't believe in "HIJMS": compare Google for battleship Yamato -HIJMS -space (8,900 hits) with Google for battleship "HIJMS Yamato" (75 hits). There are no hits for "HIJMS Yamato" from .mil or .jp domains.

So what's the justification for this move? And if not justified, who's going to put them all back? Gdr 19:13, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

It turned out that I put them all back. Gdr 22:23, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)

Disambiguation: Hull symbols

I'd like to reopen an old discussion. Why are hull symbols considered the "most natural" way of disambiguating ships with the same name? It would be better to simply use the year of launch or commissioning for most or all disambiguations.

Hull numbers are a specialist's tool, like a library number or ISBN number. You can distinguish two books with the same title using their ISBN number, but I would never do so except in a database. General readers won't always know what hull number are, and even people who know some naval history won't know the numbers of most individual ships.

In an encyclopedia, we should disambiguate in a way that makes it clear to a general reader which ship we're referring to. A hull number will only do this for a reader who already knows quite a bit. By constrast, any reader who is aware of a ship's existance would know roughly when it was in service. Isomorphic 16:53, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)