Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 35

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 30

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Archive 33

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Battleship Navarin photos

image:RUS Battleship Navarin underway.jpg and image:RUS Battleship Navarin.jpg have been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.247.66 (talk) 06:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:Royal Navy ships versus Category:Naval ships of the United Kingdom at Commons

I started a discussion on Categories for discussion/2012/10/Category:Royal Navy ships --Stunteltje (talk) 09:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Carnival Spirit

I have updated this page as the ship has now arrived in Sydney. Unfortunately, the major source I wanted to use (www. examiner.com) is spam blacklisted! (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/examiner.com) Can someone please have a look and maybe find a useable ref that she will be based in Sydney for 5 years etc? (and check my writing!) Regards, 220 of ^Borg 09:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The page seems a bit promotional in tone too, which I have tried to fix. - 220 of ^Borg 09:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You can ask for specific pages to be whitelisted if the main website is blacklisted. Mjroots (talk) 08:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Mj. I figured that by today more sources should be available, so wasn't too worried about taking that step.

- 220 of ^Borg 10:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

sailing classification

Is there a use for sailing classification outside of sport? (there's an RFD on this redirect, and a related requested move at talk:disability sailing classification) -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 07:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

TfD notification

Recently, I created {{sclass-}}, mentioned above. The template correctly formats the link part of a ship-class article name when the article name has a hyphen – it's otherwise identical to {{sclass}}. Editor Br'er Rabbit has nominated this template and {{sclass2}} for deletion. The reasoning for the deletion nomination is stated on the discussion page.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The result of the nomination to delete was no consensus. The admin who closed the discussion left the possibility open for a renomination. The nominator averred that multiple templates that all derive from one template but differ in only minor ways, is inappropriate. The suggestion was made that these templates, {{sclass}}, {{sclass2}}, and {{sclass-}} should all be combined into a single template.

I posed the question of how this should be done to WP:VPT. An answer there lead me to create these:{{sclass/sandbox}}, {{sclass2/sandbox}}, {{sclass-/sandbox}}, {{sclass/core/sandbox}}, and {{sclass/core/testcases}}.

Apparently they work. Comments about how they might be improved and ultimately implemented are invited.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Sclass

There is some discussion concerning {{sclass}} (and related templates) at WP:VPT. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

And at TfD notification above.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed link in Editor Redrose64's post because the discussion has been archived.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Recent cruise ship changes

I noticed that some of my recent edits at MS Costa Allegra did not register to the list of recent changes. This happened because the link in the list of cruise ships pointed to Costa Allegra, which is a redirect to MS Costa Allegra. For this reason, the list should be updated so that the links point to the articles instead of redirects. For that, it would be nice to have some assistance.

Perhaps we could also consider removing MS/MV prefixes from those articles in which there is no danger of disambugiation to anything which is not a ship (like Costa Allegra or Costa Concordia).

Also, how about changing the title to "passenger ships" so that we can safely include liners, cruiseferries etc. as well? Tupsumato (talk) 09:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 has been requested to be renamed, see talk:RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 10:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Renaming of icebreaker articles

This might be a minor issue, but since I'm mostly working on icebreaker articles, it is important for me. After all, my goal is to eventually write articles of all major icebreakers, of which more than 60% were built in my country.

User:Beagel proposed a move of Finnish icebreaker Kontio to MS Kontio according to WP:NC-SHIPS. In the past, I have followed "Nation Type Name" principle when creating articles of the Finnish state-owned icebreakers, but apparently that is against our naming conventions for civilian ships. However, I have never seen the prefix "MS" used for icebreakers, so I'd rather go for Kontio (icebreaker) or something similar, with year of launching as a disambiguation between ships of the same name. WP:NC-SHIPS would seem to allow this, but what do you think? Please join the discussion.

The point of bringing this up is that at the moment the icebreaker articles are named according to some naming convention, but not the same convention for every article — "name (<disambiguator>)", "name", "<disambiguator> name", "<nation> <disambiguator> name", "<prefix> name" etc. are all present. Thus, I think we should agree on a single naming convention for icebreaking ships.

I propose choosing "Name <disambiguator>(, <year>)" for civilian icebreakers. Tupsumato (talk) 09:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the proposal, could you give an example please? Gatoclass (talk) 10:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I have created a list of icebreaker-related articles with the actual article names for my own use. As you can see, no single naming convention is used. My proposal relates to the naming of articles of civilian icebreakers. Instead of "Icebreaker Vaygach" we should have "Vaygach (icebreaker)" and so on.

Also, I think I might've made a mistake in my previous proposal. Is the correct naming convention for civilian ships "Name (<year> <disambiguator>)" i.e. "Krasin (1917 icebreaker)" instead of "Krasin (icebreaker, 1917)"? Tupsumato (talk) 10:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have bracketed disambiguation at the end of a name? It makes for an unlikely search term and I doubt it's the most common structure used by sources. Personally, I would put more weight on WP:COMMONNAME - and different ships may be described differently by sources. bobrayner (talk) 13:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with bob. I am not a fan of lengthy, especially bracketed, disambiguators, and generally favour COMMONNAME as a principle. I don't see much wrong with the list you have compiled tupsumato, assuming those names comply with COMMONNAME, the only ones I dislike are the <country> <shiptype> <shipname> titles which fly in the face of COMMONNAME and PRECISE, but they are currently part of established practice at Wikiships. Gatoclass (talk) 14:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how WP:COMMONNAME applies here. The ship's name is in most cases unquestionable and will still form the "core" of the name. The bracketed disambiguator is only used to disambiguate e.g. Vaygach (nuclear icebreaker) from Vaygach Island, or in cases where other "standard" disambiguators (like USCGC in case of US Coast Guard cutters, hull number etc.) are not available. I agree that if disambiguation is not needed, it can be dropped (like in case of SCF Sakhalin, which used to be Icebreaker Sakhalin, by the way). However, if we need one (which is the case of ships named after anything), I think we should agree on something instead of letting everyone choose by themselves. Even something simple such as "let's have the disambiguator in brackets after the name instead of in front of it, unless it's something everyone already uses everywhere, and please don't invent prefixes and such by yourself" or so would probably solve the issue.

Also, I'm not sure what "search terms" are you talking about. Both the Wikipedia search as well as the search engines will find the article regardless of the disambiguator. As for links, in optimal case they will either point to the article itself, a disambiguation page, or a page with a hatnote "this is an article about blah, for other uses, see blah (disambiguation)". Having a certain format for disambiguators would also make life easier for those making the links... Tupsumato (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I threw up a proposal for renaming candidates in my sandbox. I didn't check all articles, so perhaps some disambiguators may be dropped, some added and some edited. However, you will probably see the pattern.

Also, I know I've created quite many of those articles I'm proposing to rename. I do admit that my nation-type-name-(year) way of naming the Finnish icebreakers might have been a mistake and it's time to correct it. However, while at it, let's fix some other issues as well... Tupsumato (talk) 15:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Even something simple such as "let's have the disambiguator in brackets after the name instead of in front of it ... and please don't invent prefixes and such by yourself" - Tupsumato

I'm fine with that as a principle, and the proposed renames on your list look good to me. Gatoclass (talk) 15:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

In the part you clipped, I mainly referred to certain prefixes commonly associated with some ships. For example, there's probably no need to rename RV Polarstern to Polarstern (icebreaker) as per WP:COMMONNAME and so on. I admit I tend to assume bad faith with some prefixes, especially those I haven't seen anywhere else, and I'm generally against using prefixes in the article name if there's no need to disambiguate (for example, RV Araon could be just Araon if "RV" is not part of the ship's actual name). However, that's probably another issue that concerns all ship articles... Tupsumato (talk) 16:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a couple of observations on your sandbox list. Quite a few of the vessels are not really icebreakers, just ships of various functions with some ice-strengthening. The definition in the icebreaker article is quite clear, and I would have thought that the category should follow that.

Prefixes like SS and MV remain a problem. Very few of them meet the criteria of WP:COMMONNAME or WP:NC-S. See my earlier comment here. "MSV" bothers me, additionally because it doesn't seem to match the stated uses in MSV. Davidships (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I am aware of the issues. Category:Icebreakers which has quite many "non-icebreakers" in it, such as the Canadian ferries that have a bulbous bow, and I intend to do something for that at some point. However, for now I've concentrated my efforts on the Finnish icebreakers. The general article needs overhauling as well and I've already collected some pretty good references for that.

As for "MSV", the prefix has been used for the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers since they were built in the early 1990s, e.g. here and here. Tupsumato (talk) 22:19, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks (though I see that almost all references to these ships on the Arctia site have no prefixes). I'm none the wiser on what "MSV" is an abbreviation of - neither of those refs explain it, that I can see. But if it's a legitimate English-language usage, best to add it to MSV.Davidships (talk) 19:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what it stands for. I'd guess "Multipurpose Supply Vessel", but that's just a guess. I'll add it when I can cite it somewhere. Tupsumato (talk) 19:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Infobox design

Hi all. I ran across this Hungarian article today, and overall I think they have a more 'modern' infobox design than us. Could we add some elements of their infoboxes to ours? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

List of ships built by A. & J. Inglis

The List of ships built by A. & J. Inglis is not yet complete. We would be delighted if you add more ships to that list, which is actually sorted by Yard Number. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 09:08, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I recommend putting the yard number to a separate column. Tupsumato (talk) 16:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Presumably it's intended to be a list of notable ships only. Davidships (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Does it matter? Also, why leave some ships out? Even if they are not notable enough for a separate article, the list of ships built by a certain manufacturer should, IMHO, be complete. Tupsumato (talk) 19:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, it would be a table with some 470-odd entries, of which at least 50 have no name. There is at least one other website whose mission is present that completeness for all Clyde yards (indeed it is the cited source for a considerable amount of the detail already included); I would have thought that duplicating that was beyond WP's objects.

Furthermore, there is far too much info in relation to most vessels currently on the Inglis page. Bizarrely, there is often more detail here than appears on the ship's own page. Davidships (talk) 20:16, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

A list of ships should be as complete as possible; the fact that some other site might list all the ships is irrelevant, one might just as well argue that wikipedia is pointless since all the info in it can be found somewhere else - readers should not have to go somewhere else to find what they are looking for. However, I agree that there is too much info on individual ships here, there should be no more than a line or two of the most important info for each ship. I would also suggest putting all the images into a separate column, probably on the left hand side either before or after the name field. Gatoclass (talk) 10:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I've created the article HMS Erin's Isle and added an entry for it to the List of ships built by A. & J. Inglis. For some reason the ship's name didn't automatically italicise in the article heading and the "HMS" template wouldn't work for links to the article either, so I used a piped link instead. I'd be grateful to anyone who can get the "HMS" template to work for this link, and teach me why it wouldn't do it for me.

Thanks, Motacilla (talk) 00:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

MTB articles

Hi there. I'm presently working (off-line) on an article on a notable motor torpedo boat. I see from the article MTB 102 that the style seems to be to not use italic letters for the vessel name. Is this correct? I also see that prefixes were avoided back when that article was written (per discussion on the article talk page), and I'd like to ask if that was still the case. Manxruler (talk) 01:11, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)#Ships with hull number only.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

So the article "MTB 102" should really be called "Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 102"? Manxruler (talk) 02:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Probably. Editors seem to have been relatively consistent with American PT boats; see Category:PT boats. Not so much with the British RN; see Category:Motor torpedo boats of the Royal Navy.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I guess that the fact that MTB actually stands for Motor Torpedo Boat has prevented that kind of naming for the British vessels, but I think consistency is important, as is following the naming conventions. A decision in this regard should be made. Manxruler (talk) 03:11, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Article should be at MTB nnn but in articles you would use constructions such as "Motor Torpedo Boat nnn was a British 70ft Vosper Motor Torpedo Boat of the..." (lede), "...Motor Torpedo Boat 'MTB nnn' was lost in the English channel" (identifying the vessel type at first instance in another article) and in both cases once introduced "the crew of MTB nnn were rescued by...." GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Though to be honest there's not much of a problem at the moment. There are only two articles about individual torpedo boats - the First World War HM Coastal Boat No. 4, and Second World War MTB 102 (which are the names they are commonly known by). The other articles are about the generic type and the specific classes of MTB. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:17, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

What names do sources use? bobrayner (talk) 08:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Quick check of Google Books shows that most authors use "MTB 102", while a few use "His Majesty's Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) 102". The don't appear to use italics either, which they do for "proper" ships. Manxruler (talk) 11:50, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

As for the number of MTB articles to deal with, I have one ready (will launch it in a week or so), and will eventually write something like 5-6 more (but that's a seriously long-term perspective). That's why I'd like to get this clarified. Per commonname, it seems that simply MTB "number" is the right way to go, without italics. Manxruler (talk) 11:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that WP:NC-SHIPS#Ships with hull number only seems to imply that hull numbers and the like, when there isn't a "proper name", should be italicized. I suspect that this is because the hull number, or whatever, is treated as a name in day-to-day usage.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. WP:NC-SHIPS#Ships with hull number only seems to say that the correct article title should be "Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 102". But is WP:NC-SHIPS#Ships with hull number only correct? WP:COMMONNAME does play a role here too. Manxruler (talk) 16:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't advocating for Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 102. Rather, I was saying that I think that MTB 102 should be italicized contrary to your previous post where you said that it should not be italicized. Because MTB 102 is the de facto name, that name should be in italic font style. At least that's what I think WP:NC-SHIPS#Ships with hull number only infers based upon the style of the examples given there.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand. I didn't really say that it shouldn't be italicized, I said that authors accessible by way of Google Books for the most part don't italicize the MTBs. Manxruler (talk) 23:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Clyde-built paddle steamers that served as auxiliary minesweepers

I've recently created articles for five Clyde-built paddle steamers: PS Minerva, PS Glen Rosa, PS Slieve Donard, PS Slieve Bearnagh and PS Erin's Isle. I've included in them all the details I could glean from the sources known to me. However, that leaves significant gaps including ports of registry and in some cases yard numbers and engine dimensions.

All five of these ships were requisitioned in the First World War as auxiliary minesweepers but I have no details of their equipment or armament. Also Slieve Donard was scrapped in 1921 and Slieve Bearnagh was scrapped in 1923, but I have no detail of what either ship did after the First World War. Slieve Donard had been bombed in 1917: did she just linger as a burnt-out wreck for four years? Slieve Bearnagh became a hospital carrier ship in January 1919, but for how long? Did she spend four years laid up before someone decided to scrap her?

Sources disagree about some of the dates in the history of Slieve Bearnagh, about the principal dimensions of Slieve Bearnagh and Erin's Isle and about the GRT of Slieve Donard. Wherever there are discrepancies, I have noted this and included each alternative date or dimension. The discrepancies are all relatively small, but if anyone can resolve them by reference to more authoritative sources that would be an improvement.

I'd be grateful to anyone who can add missing details to the articles for these five ships. There are photographs of each of these paddle steamers on various websites but I'm not sure of their copyright status. I'd be particularly grateful to anyone who can add a photo of each ship. Best wishes, Motacilla (talk) 00:48, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Current events ship

With rapid changes, Bounty (1960 ship) will need updating due to Hurricane Sandy -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 12:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

We now have a second one which might be rapidly changing, the John B. Caddell -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 07:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

HMS Prize

I've raise a question about the HMS Prize page at WT:MILHIST#HMS Prize. Mjroots (talk) 07:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Mjroots, I can't find your question. Nor can I find any record of an HMS Prize ... 2.102.249.66 (talk) 17:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Try here - as for the ship, there was a Q-ship by that name during the First World War, but I can't find any records of any other ship either. Parsecboy (talk) 17:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Headquarters ship, HQ ships Command ship

Noting quite a few WW2 ships are referred to Headquarters ship or HQ ship, I started a stub, only to see that there is an unreferenced stub Command ship, primarily dealing with post WW2 US ships. I think the subject is well worth an article and category but what's the best way forward? JRPG (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I would merge HQ ship into command ship, and set about expanding until there is enough information for a spin-out article. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 08:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

file:U352-B.jpg

image:U352-B.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 08:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Ship register citation template

Hi all,
Following an earlier discussion on this talkpage, I decided to create a "unified" template to cite ship registers: {{cite ship register}}.

This saves the need to remember lots of different citation templates for RINA, BV, ABS, GL, PSix, &c. We have a lot like this, and they are documented, but the low number of transclusions suggests that most editors aren't comfortable using them; hopefully a single template will lower the hurdle. This template handles aliases gracefully - it doesn't matter whether you type "DNV", or "dnv", or "Det norske veritas", which should make life easier for editors.
A single template should also allow more consistent citation styles, if you're into that kind of thing. At the moment we have some rather suboptimal usage of {{cite web}}.
The template currently supports 14 different databases.
If anybody finds they're going to cite some other database or ship registry a hundred times, it would be easy to handle that database in this template.
If you want an even shorter name for the template, to save typing, I could live with that. For those of you concerned about performance issues for readers, this template should be quite slick so big articles don't take long to render &c.

Any comments/complaints? I've built the template's main functionality, and am now improving error-handling &c. bobrayner (talk) 13:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I already wrote something on the template talk page, but I shall move my comments here:

Why is the registry name bolded (at least RS in MT Varzuga)? It looks pretty terrible in the middle of other, non-bolded references.
Take care of correct spelling, capitalization etc. of the classification society and database names. Det Norske Veritas.
I don't think MMSI should be included in this template as it is not used in any database in the scope of this template. Personally I use {{MMSI}} only in the "ship identification" field together with {{IMO number}} etc., so I see no use for it here.
Add a list of all available options to the documentation. I'm not sure why the template needs to be able to differentiate between e.g. "DNV" and "Det norske veritas" [sic]? Just teach everyone to use the abbreviations from the beginning — we're all new to this fancy tool, after all!
I would emphasize the name of the ship and put the database id to parenthesis, e.g. "Costa Concordia (9320544)", or even leave the ID out completely. It's just a pointer ot the database entry, not really relevant information that needs to be included in the article (some people even add the database IDs to the ship identification field!).
All entries should obviously yield identical results, with only changes in the classification society and database names. Not sure if that happens now. How about putting an example of every available option somewhere to be seen?

Otherwise, good work, worth of developing. Tupsumato (talk) 13:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason for "low number of transclusions" could be that many editors don't even know such databases exist, and for that reason cite private websites like FoF (don't even think... ;). Tupsumato (talk) 13:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that some private websites cover ground which isn't covered by the main registries. For instance, we have lots of articles on vessels which which don't have an IMO number, or which predate that system. Concerning the best text for the external link, I'm undecided - this is a citation which is supposed to be the foundation of WP:V. The ID number is the primary key of a database somewhere - if we suffer from linkrot or if somebody has an alternate means of accessing a registry, the ID number is more useful for WP:V than a ship name (which is not guaranteed to be unique or persistent). bobrayner (talk) 13:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

OK.

There is now an alias, {{csr}}, to save precious seconds at the keyboard.
Registry names are no longer bolded in the reflist.
The documentation is now a bit clearer on what you can put into the "register" parameter; further tweaking is welcome.
And to answer an earlier point: Whether or not "Det Norske Veritas" is better than "Det norske veritas", we shouldn't make a citation fail just because somebody types the latter. The whole point of the template's handling of aliases is that it's fault-tolerant and allows editors to concentrate on content rather than remembering the finer points of naming in a citation template. bobrayner (talk) 14:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I wonder about the ordering of the elements. In {{cite web}} the general order is author, title (in quotes), work, publisher, accessdate. In the example from the {{cite ship register}} documentation:

"Costa Concordia (9320544)". LeonardoInfo. Registro Italiano Navale. Retrieved 16 October 2012.

the order is publisher, work and ship name (combined), accessdate. We should strive to have a format that is consistent with other citations – makes it easier for readers when we do that. In keeping with consistency and to comply with MOS:ACRO the publisher's full name should be followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Also for consistency, the accessdate in the rendered citation should be: Retrieved <date>. Each segment of the citation should be terminated with a period. Example:

"Costa Concordia". leonardoInfo. Registro Italiano Navale (RINA). Retrieved 16 October 2012.

Wikilinks must not link to disambiguation pages as RINA does in the current form of the template.

If a database page has a title that is different from the ship's name, that title should be used in the citation. Perhaps a new parameter, |title= should be used for that. If both a title and a ship name are provided then the template should render them both as: "Title (shipname)". In the rendered citation, the title is not italicized.

I think that the template should not support unnamed parameters because that is just another way to confuse editors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Good points. Well,

I bypassed the RINA dabpage.
The only purpose of the shipname is to appear in the external link text and maybe provide a little insurance in case of linkrot; so it would be simpler to rename the parameter instead of adding a new one. Call it "title" or something like that...? Shipname is not used in creation of URLs.
Named parameters can be used in whatever order you want, but if folk agree that a different order should be used by default, I could rearrange the documentation accordingly. Changing the order of unnamed parameters would require a couple of minutes of technical tweaking.
At the moment, most acronyms are expanded, but some acronyms are longer/shorter than others and some are more/less familiar - I'm wary of expanding every acronym in the references list since this isn't the body of the article - a person reading an article about a ship doesn't have a pressing need to know the full name of a ship registry if that registry is only used as a source, rather than being mentioned in the body text. However, I'll go along with community preference. For comparison, we rarely expand "IMO number" or "MMSI" - they're usually just wikilinked.
Most citation styles don't separate every element with a full stop! Usually they also rely on other punctuation (colons, brackets), and differences in text style between elements, which we already have with the use of links, italics &c. bobrayner (talk) 15:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, after I posted my comments I noticed that you had fixed RINA.

The purpose of the ship's name or the title of the destination page in the rendered link is to create a mental link between the link and the destination page. Clicking a link that says, for example, "Costa Concordia" and landing on a page titled "Fred's Big Page o' Ships" causes a mental disconnect and confusion (did he inadvertently click an adjacent link?) because the reader is not led to believe that he is going to "Fred's Big Page o' Ships". It is important that the link that the reader reads match the title of the destination page. This is always and forever true. Editors should always strive to ensure that readers get what they expect and aren't surprised with the unexpected.

I'm ok, I suppose, with unnamed parameters but in terms of importance, that ranks very, very low in my estimation. Much more important is reader expectation and similarity to standard {{cite web}} rendered citations – something that readers are likely to be familiar with. {{London Gazette}} is one of those citation type templates that breaks my expectations – the order of the links is backward.

Readers should not have to click on a link the first time they encounter an abbreviation or an initialism – the notable exception being their necessary use in infoboxes. And this is an electronic encyclopedia; we aren't trying to fit an entire article onto a post-it note. An alternative to full linking might be something like this: .

The discussion that you linked in your first post in this discussion made several references to {{cite web}}. Here is a {{cite web}} rendering of the RINA Costa Concordia citation:

"Costa Concordia". leonardoInfo. Registro Italiano Navale (RINA). Retrieved 16 October 2012.

Note the periods; there are four of them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd vote for {{cite web}}-like approach as presented by Trappist the monk. Tupsumato (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Could we replace the list of "supported" registers/databases with a table that shows the name of the register and the commonly used acronym, and perhaps a short description about what one can find there? For example, you can easily find the information about classification society and the ship's operational status from Equasis, so it's a good place to start.

Also, I think we should recommend using the acronyms in inline citations within the article body as they make the "raw text" much more easier to read. We can maintain the support for the "full name", but in my opinion there's nothing wrong in nudging (new) editors to the right direction. Tupsumato (talk) 07:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The table is a really good idea - the list of registers has already been evolving in that direction. bobrayner (talk) 11:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not clear. Do you mean that instead of:

"Costa Concordia". leonardoInfo. Registro Italiano Navale (RINA). Retrieved 16 October 2012.

you would have it look like:

"Costa Concordia". leonardoInfo. RINA. Retrieved 16 October 2012.

I guess I'd rather see the citation rendered as in the first example for the reader.

If what you meant isn't in the rendering but in the template call, then I have no problem with the use of the acronym or initialism, in fact that seems preferable for editors because of spelling errors and reduced typing requirements.

I've had another thought while writing this: Are all of these registers in English? If there are registers in other languages, {{cite ship register}} should include that information and present it like this:

"Costa Concordia". leonardoInfo (in Language). Registro Italiano Navale (RINA). Retrieved 16 October 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I meant that we should recommend only acronyms to be used in the template call. Of course the actual citation should include the full name of the classification society.

As for other languages, I think all relevant registers are available in English — for example, RMRS has identical entries in both English and Russian. Thus, I think adding the language to the citation is not required. Tupsumato (talk) 13:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, we do have a slight CSB problem in that practically all of our content is drawn from anglophone sources. If anybody wants to start using some other ship-database which is not available in English, I would support that - and in that case it would be a good idea to mention the language in the references section. Probably not necessary to add a new parameter for that, as language would be specific to the registry so it can be done within the switch statement inside the template. For example, if somebody wanted to cite the Mongolian Yacht Registry, they just need |register=MYR and the rest would be done automatically. bobrayner (talk) 16:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's a very slight CSB. Still, if implementing the feature won't be a problem, I see nothing wrong in having one. Tupsumato (talk) 17:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Could you add the Finnish Mercantile Marine Database to the citation template? The database entries can be referred to by a four-digit ID in the URL, and it is available in English. Tupsumato (talk) 17:32, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. You can use |register=FMMD or, if you prefer, |register=Finnish Mercantile Marine Database (not case sensitive). I kept the ID in the external link text because the cited pages seem to use ID rather than ship name as a heading. It seems to work when tested in one article; feel free to poke it a bit harder and look for ways to break it.

bobrayner (talk) 20:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Miramar ship index, I think the id should be the ship's id (usually IMO number, some special hanky-panky for pre-IMO number era ships) and the link should point to the search feature, e.g. [1]. Of course we also need a registration required note. Tupsumato (talk) 00:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This discussion began by referring to Class Societies, but I see that it has broadened to include "derived" sites (unofficial sites based on official data - eg FMMD) and "enthusiast" sites (with multiple sources, and involving original research, eg Miramar). The implication is that this covers Class, Flag State and others. Is that the intent? No problem if it does, but I just wanted to be clear. There are a handful of national flag register databases on-line, eg USA, and another derived site would be CLIP, covering British registered ships up to +/- WW2. No doubt there are others. Davidships (talk) 00:42, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm happy for other sites - not strictly class societies - to be included if they are treated in broadly the same way. From a citation perspective, the class societies are all just a flat database, we just want to cite one row of a table... bobrayner (talk) 07:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The technical side of this is well beyond me, but the entry-points for some national registers I use that might be suitable:

USA (US Coast Guard) http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/CoastGuard/VesselByName.html

Canada (Transport Canada) http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/4/vrqs-srib/m.aspx?lang=e

Denmark (Søfartsstyrelsen) http://skibsregister.dma.dk/Main.asp?A=1&D=6

Norway (Skipsregistrene) http://www.nis-nor.no/Søk/SkipAktuelleData.aspx

and if you want to have fun:

Vietnam (Register of Shipping) http://203.162.20.156/TaubienVR/Selectship_V.aspx

and for the Class registers:

Croatia Register of Shipping http://report.crs.hr/hrbwebreports/

Indonesia Classification Office http://www.klasifikasiindonesia.com/ajax/lain.php?menuku=lima&idnya=51

On reflection the CLIP database isn't in a suitable format. Davidships (talk) 10:41, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Question on Dutch navy ship prefix

Is there a reason why Dutch warschip use the HNLMS prefix and not the Hr.Ms./Zr.Ms prefix? Iam asking this because the article on HNLMS states its wrong and because the German and Austrian SMS seems to need no translation. Regards Pindanl (talk) 20:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Simple answer: it's just common English usage, on both counts. "SMS" is commonly used in English, while "Hr. Ms." isn't, don't ask me why. Parsecboy (talk) 21:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Previously discussed here. 2.101.34.124 (talk) 21:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

USS LST-738

Prompted by SuggestBot, I have added quite a bit of material to this article, which was rated 'stub class', and it can now be evaluated, perhaps for a better class rating. Buster40004 Talk 03:09, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:52, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, Buster. How about a lede para that summarises rest of the page while it is fresh at your fingertips? Davidships (talk) 16:41, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

File:APA-33 and LSM-59.jpg

File:APA-33 and LSM-59.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 07:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Bibliography of early American naval history

Over the last couple of years I have included not only content but citations and sources for various naval pages that needed them. In the process of much reading and 'hunting and gathering' for reliable and primary sources I have amassed a large list of these publications. After sorting them out by subject name and era I launched the Bibliography of early American naval history article hoping it will inspire further interest in this fascinating area of naval history and help editors write well cited articles. Additional reliable sources are always welcomed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:14, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Useful indeed. Some possible additions from a serious US researcher in this field:

Johnson, Robert Erwin (1964). Thence Round Cape Horn: The Story of United States Naval Forces on Pacific Station, 1818-1923. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp276. ISBN 978-0870217005)

Silverstone, Paul (1989). Warships of the Civil War Navies. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp288. ISBN 978-0870217838)

Baxter, James Phinney (1933). Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp416. ISBN 978-1557502186)

and he thought it a bit thin on Mahan:

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1907). From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval life. Url

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (Oct 1895). The Future in Relation To American Naval Power. Harper's New Monthly Magazine.

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1883). The Gulf and Inland Waters. Url

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1897). The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future.

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1899). Lessons of the War with Spain, and Other Articles.

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1913). The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. Project Gutenberg

Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1905). Sea Power in Its Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols.). Boston: Little Brown.

Hope this helps Davidships (talk) 16:52, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for these wonderful additions! I will begin incorporating these sources into the bibliography immediately. Currently the bibliography has only one work written by Alfred Thayer Mahan -- Admiral Farragut, 1892. Many of Mahan's works, presumably all in the public domain at this late date, are available as free 'ebooks' -- Once again, many thanks!! -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:44, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

RSS Discovery II

As of 25 November 2012^[update], RSS Discovery II is near the top of Wikipedia:Most wanted articles with 111 incoming links. A good project for anyone with access to suitable references. -Arb. (talk) 22:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

You sure that's not RRS Discovery II as in "Royal Research Ship"? Tupsumato (talk) 06:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Could be. Not my field of expertise; looks like it might be yours. Perhaps you could take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/RSS_Discovery_II and figure it out. If you are correct then creating RSS Discovery II as a redirect would resolve things very nicely. -Arb. (talk) 13:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

This calls for AWB. I'll try to remember to do something for it once I get ashore if it's still an issue. Tupsumato (talk) 20:53, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Society for Nautical Research member?

Hi, is anyone who frequents this project a member of the Society for Nautical Research? I'm in need of an article from Mariner's Mirror but it is behind a paywall. - Sitush (talk) 09:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

A contributor asked around at some non-WP forum and the item has turned up. Thanks, all. - Sitush (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't see this until now, but for future reference, my university library has all of the Mariner's Mirror journals, so I can get them fairly easily. Parsecboy (talk) 14:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

That could be handy! - Sitush (talk) 14:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

First ship article

I've just written my first ship article at S.S. Quanza, but I'm unfamiliar with Wikipedia's ship article conventions. Anyone willing to give it a second pair of eyes has a .jpg of beer coming their way, on me. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:09, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Generally a definite article preceding a ship's name isn't used. Quanza not the Quanza. Should be SS not S.S.. One of your references is a google search result with the search string "when does dark knight rises come to redbox". Somehow I don't think that this is reliable source. Needs a ship info box. See {{Infobox ship begin}}. Links to useful style guides and the infobox usage guide are in the infobox at the top of this page. Use them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 04:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the catches--cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Per Trappist, an infobox is needed. You'll find much info for a description section in the pages linked from here. Take a look at the RMS Magdalena (1948) article for some idea of how an infobox and description section look in practice. Mjroots (talk) 18:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. I've started to add a little info from it, and a rough infobox. Cheers! -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to add a more general thanks to the project for the number of people who contributed to this one in the last twenty-four hours. I post questions to WikiProjects often when I'm venturing into a new area, but I've never gotten this kind of response. Thanks everybody. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's another suggestion: once you get the infobox filled out as much as possible, take that data to write a short section on the technical characteristics in prose (see for instance Brazilian cruiser Bahia, AHS Centaur, or HMS Tiger (1913). Modifications to the initial design would also be good to include, if there were any. Parsecboy (talk) 16:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

SS Tofuku Maru.png

file:SS Tofuku Maru.png has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 07:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Admin needed

In List of currently active United States military watercraft at Tenders is this list:

I think that that first item, Seagoing Buoy Tender, should be renamed USCG seagoing buoy tender in keeping with the other USCG tender articles in the list and so that the article name is in keeping with WP:TITLEFORMAT. Additionally, while the current title is relatively generic, the article is specifically about USCG buoy tenders.

But, as you can see, the name that I would choose is already in use as a redirect to Seagoing Buoy Tender and the redirect has a history so I can't move Seagoing Buoy Tender over the redirect.

I'll do all of the cleanup if an admin will make the appropriate changes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Done MBisanz ^talk 18:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Help needed at MY Sam Simon

MY Sam Simon is a recently created article, and I'm seeking some advice on the ship career infoboxes. The vessel was built in Japan in 1993 and was in service until 2010. In 2012 it was purchased and registered under the flag of Tuvalu as New Atlantis. It was then sailed to Brisbane for a refit, after which it was re-registered in Australia as Sam Simon with a new home port of Melbourne. While the facts are generally correct, I'm not sure they are presented correctly in the infobox. Could somebody cast an eye over this article please? --AussieLegend (✉) 00:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

MV Harambee

The MV Harambee article is at AFD. Can we please rescue this one. The article history shows that there is a good chance of the vessel meeting WP:GNG. Mjroots (talk) 17:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Best-known name?

Hi everyone; I'm not quite sure that "Golden Princess" is really the "best-known name" of MS Golden Princess (2000) - some opinions at Talk:MS_Golden_Princess_(2000) would be helpful :-) Thanks! Gestumblindi (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, similarly, MV Mary the Queen is the current article name for a vessel which sailed from 1972 under the name Mona's Queen V. She was the fifth of a series of ships bearing the name Mona's Queen. After an ownership change 1995, she moved to the Philippines and was renamed, serving under the new name until 2004. I haven't done anything on this, but I'm wondering whether a renaming and rewrite of the article on this vessel along more chronological lines might be appropriate. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I fixed the Mary the Queen article per your request. Some of the other Mona's Queen articles also look pretty messy however. Haven't really looked at the Golden Princess article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A ship called "Asia" c1800?

Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone mentions a ship called "Asia" that made a voyage from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone in 1800. Can any of the experts here provide a more precise identification of this vessel? -Arb. (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Possibly HMS Asia (1764), which was at both Jamaica and Nova Scotia around that time. I don't happen to have any sources for her, though. Maralia (talk) 00:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That fits. Many thanks. -Arb. (talk) 03:28, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Late to this party, but absolutely right, John N. Grant's The Maroons in Nova Scotia (which would seem to be de rigeur if you wanted to expand this interesting article) states HMS Asia arrived at Halifax on 31 May 1800, presumably still under her captain from 1796, Robert Murray, to pick up the Maroons, sailed again with them on 8 August, and arrived in Sierra Leone on 30 September that year. Incidentally, good to see you around again Maralia! Benea (talk) 13:43, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference; use on both articles. -Arb. (talk) 00:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

MV Brigitte Bardot: IMO number

Hello there,

I have virtually no experience with ships and IMO numbers, so I thought I'd ask the experts to have a look at this. Currently, the IMO number in the infobox is 6418273, which I think might be wrong. The number seems to belong to another vessel called Ocean adventurer, built in 1964 (see e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5]). The Brigitte Bardot (aka Gojira) was formerly also called Ocean adventurer, so there's some potential for confusion. I did some quick google-ing: Some websites use the 6418273, some other 1859712 [6], some say there is no IMO [7][8][9] (since the vessel is probably way below the 100 gross tons mentioned in the introduction of IMO number this might be the most probable option).

If this was an airport with a wrong IATA code I would know where to look for the correct one and which databases should be avoided, but I'm a little bit lost here … --El Grafo (talk) 13:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Brigitte Bardot definitely does not have an IMO number - I have checked with the IHS-Fairplay database (it is they who allocate numbers on behalf of the IMO)[10]. It is possible for a yachts and/or vessels under 100gt to have an IMO number on application. Strictly speaking some of these are not IMO numbers, but they are in the same system and are applied on the same principles (as indeed for those older vessels which had 7-digit unique numbers issued by Lloyd's Register prior to the IMO convention coming into force) - I call these "proto-IMO numbers", but are perfectly valid for WP purpuses. As for which sites to believe over others, I am afraid that shipspotting.com fails WP:RS as a member-edited enthusiast site; fleetmon.com and marinetraffic.com seem to be professional sites that have a proper editorial control. But they all make mistakes from time to time (as do IHS-Fairplay). Davidships (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks alot! --El Grafo (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Polar class icebreaker

There's a request to cleanup Polar class icebreaker to be a regular class article. Right now, it contains 1 additional ship of a different class for no particular reason (according to talk:Polar class icebreaker) -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 13:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I propose moving the article to USCG Polar-class icebreaker (yay, correct hyphenation!) and turn Polar class icebreaker (or well, Polar-class icebreaker) into a disambiguation page for USCG Polar-class icebreakers, CCGS John G. Diefenbaker (often referred to as "Polar class icebreaker project") and the IACS Polar class. Tupsumato (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The proposed name doesn't quite work with {{sclass}} and {{sclass-}}templates: USCG Polar-class icebreaker (sclass) and USCG Polar-class icebreaker (sclass-). But, because none of the ships listed on that page are actually named Polar but are named Polar Star and Polar Sea the correct template would be {{sclass2}} (or better, if the new article name is hyphenated as it should be, {{sclass2-}} – which doesn't yet exist but could).

Still, I'd rather see a solution that is less specialized and is more in keeping with what is generally done with classes of ships. I would encourage careful consideration before acting so that we don't end up down a rat-hole without any easy way to back out when we suddenly realize that it isn't going to work.

Also, move the whole conversation to one place, either here (my preference) or to Polar class icebreaker. Having two parallel conversations may cause confusion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that we continue the discussion here to get wider audience. As for the name of the current article, I'm open to suggestions, but I still think we need a disambiguation page for the USCG Polar-class icebreakers, the new Canadian Polar class icebreaker project, the Polar 8 Project and perhaps the IACS Polar classes. I don't think a hatnote will do, especially if the USCG comes up with a "Next generation Polar-class icebreaker" project at some point...

I had not considered the templates you listed since I rarely use them — good point. Tupsumato (talk) 06:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Polar class icebreaker

Are there any other class articles where the disambiguation is placed at the head of the article title? I'll point out here that such leading disambiguation is contrary to virtually all disambiguation used in Wikipedia.

I wonder if Polar class is correctly named. That article is about classifications assigned by IACS. Shouldn't that article be titled Polar classification or perhaps Polar class (IACS)?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:22, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

As for articles that have the dab up front, see British Porpoise class submarine and United States Porpoise class submarine. I guess my question is, what do reliable sources call Polar Star and Polar Sea? Parsecboy (talk) 14:02, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Just as an aside, are the ships in the "Polar" class (as per the Coast Guard website) or the "Polar Star" class (as per Combat Fleets 1998–1999 and Jane's Fighting Ships 1985–86)?Nigel Ish (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Coast Guard seems to be of two minds; Polar Star and Polar Sea are referred to as 399' Polar-class icebreakers as well as Polar-class icebreakers. source If the sources cited by Editor Nigel Ish are to be believed then the issue becomes moot because the article gets named Polar Star-class icebreaker, Healy is excised and merged into USCGC Healy (WAGB-20), and Bob's your uncle.

If it is determined that Polar Star and Polar Sea are Polar-class icebreakers then barring a better solution, the class should be disambiguated the same way British Porpoise class submarine and United States Porpoise class submarine are disambiguated. We should use nation rather than service as the disambiguator – United States Polar-class icebreaker, Canadian Polar-class icebreaker, etc. This is still ugly but is at least consistent with precedent. I'm still hoping for a better solution ...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why USCG has to add the length of the ship to the class name on their website, but that might have something to do with bureaucracy rather than what the ships are actually called in real life. The article names in Wikipedia seem to omit this information and many of them also have the prefix "USCG", so renaming the article to USCG Polar-class icebreaker would also be, in a way, consistent with precedent. I would consider the USCG website to be the first and foremost source for class names — for all we know, Jane's might just use the name of the first vessel of the class as the name of the class if they have no better information. Personally, I have never seen "Polar Star-class icebreaker" anywhere — it's always jsut "Polar-class icebreaker".

The problem is that when someone is speaking of "Polar-class icebreakers", he or she might refer to a) these two USCG ships, b) + Healy, c) icebreakers with IACS Polar Class (not that many out there), d) some other icebreaker project (usually Canadian), or e) polar icebreakers in general (aaargh!).

As for Polar class, the rules are known as "IACS Unified Requirements for Polar Ships" or simply "IACS Polar Class Rules", but the notation is just "Polar Class" (PC). Perhaps IACS Polar Class could be a good article name? After all, we already have Finnish-Swedish ice class. Tupsumato (talk) 20:11, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that the length thing is a general habit with the US Coastgaurd - Combat Fleets has them as Polar Star-class icebreakers (399-foot class), with the Hamilton-class cutters also the 378-foot class.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

If the USCG calls them "Polar class", then I think we should go with that, and not "Polar Star class". It was built for them, named by them, owned by them, and operated by them. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 05:54, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

NOTE when this discussion is concluded, it should be copied back to the article's talk page, to show what happened. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 04:11, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's an important note: USCG Polar-class icebreaker does not conform to the disambiguation format standards. Polar-class icebreaker (USCG), however, would. "USCG" would be used as a prefix only if it was an article about USCG Polar... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:42, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm okay with that, but then we should to go through the other USCG articles and harmonize the article names as many begin with USCG and some might not even need such disambiguation. We could even draft a list of potential move candidates and discuss it here. Tupsumato (talk) 21:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Might be a good idea. To be clear: if it's an article about a specific ship, then USCG comes first. If it's about a class, and there is another class with the same name somewhere, it gets (dabbed) after the name. If it's the only ship class of that name, it shouldn't have "USCG" at all in the title. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:07, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the problem doesn't seem to be as bad as I expected. I only found the following articles that begin with "USCG":

There's probably no need to disambiguate with (USCG) in any of those articles. Tupsumato (talk) 22:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Went ahead and moved the "Bay" class. Not sure about the others, as undabbed names would appear to be referring to ship types, not classes (which they are about). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that in this context "seagoing" and "inland" are rather USCG-specific terms similar to "high endurance" and "medium endurance" in High endurance cutter and Medium endurance cutter, respectively. If there was a class named "USCG buoy tender", we would of course have to disambiguate since buoy tender is an universal ship type, but in this case I don't see it necessary. Tupsumato (talk) 23:11, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

@The Bushranger re: Polar-class icebreaker (USCG). This. The only issue that I can see with formatting the class-article name this way is that it does not lend itself to {{sclass}}-style templates: {{Sclass2|Polar|icebreaker||USCG}} gives this result: Polar-class icebreaker. No such article as icebreaker (USCG) and the disambiguator isn't included in the article-name link. These are relatively minor inconveniences I suppose, since the we can always use wiki markup: [[Polar-class icebreaker (USCG)|Polar-class]] [[icebreaker]] which gives: Polar-class icebreaker.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Notability for historic merchant ships

Please note that by historic, I mean simply that it isn't contemporary. The article in question is Gananoque (ship). I just don't see the notability when all we know is that it is merchant ship that docked a few times in New Zeeland. Is there a standard? Gtwfan52 (talk) 18:10, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

That article is sorely missing in detail. I presume this ship was built in Canada, or by Canadian owners, because Gananoque is a place in Canada. But the entirety of the article is about four trips to New Zealand, so missing details of the rest of its service life. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 20:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

A brand new article, obviously a bit of research is needed to flesh out the rest of it's carreer. Apparently launched in Quebec. This ship is part of the early settlement of New Zealand by Europeans, the number of ships wasn't huge, we're talking about thousands of people per year, not millions, so all these small ships were significant contributors to the new nation. --Tony Wills (talk) 04:57, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Given it a general edit and added further sources. Twice lost to collision with iceberg, and a precedent legal decision all strengthen notability.Davidships (talk) 16:11, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Aegir-03s.jpg

file:Aegir-03s.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.225 (talk) 05:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Help starting a new article titled: Submarine Design and Manufacture by Country

Hi everyone I am looking to start a new page, with the title mentioned above, and it will have a similar style to the missiles by country page. It is my first wikipedia project and so I need some help and some people to work on it with me to help me get to grips with wikipedia and how to edit properly.

Any takers? David.Baratheon (talk) 11:57, 6 May 2022 (UTC)) 14:21, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

We already have an equivalent article, List of submarine classes and a similar one List of submarine operators. There seems to be a bit of overlap between the two, and another article along the lines of List of missiles by country would merely increase that. I'd suggest working on these existing list articles rather than duplicating them. Benea (talk) 16:56, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Deletion discussion...

Oak Bay Sea Rescue has been nominated for deletion. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:58, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Unknown classification society abbreviation: CM

Please update Classification society#List of classification societies. Ta. --AlastairIrvine (talk) 14:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Please go ahead if you know it exists.Davidships (talk) 22:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

USSCumberland1842.jpg

file:USSCumberland1842.jpg has been nominated for speedy deletion -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 06:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Deletion request

Can I get an admin to delete Hms Hood, currently a redirect to HMS Hood (51), so I can move List of ships called HMS Hood to that name? The latter has a long history so I'd rather not lose that with a copy paste.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

*Admin hat on*

Not sure that is a valid request. "hms Hood" should be a redirect to "HMS Hood (51)" [or the list/dab page]. The List should properly be housed at "HMS Hood (disambiguation)" IMHO. What do other members of this WP think? Mjroots (talk) 21:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

RN ship index pages are named HMS XXX with no disambiguator. The ship index page gives the disambiguated links. See HMS Ark Royal for an example. List of ships called HMS Hood needs to be renamed as HMS Hood and Hms Hood deleted as I stated above (note the lack of proper capitalization in the latter).--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

HMS Hood (51) is surely the most famous use of the name. Similar situation to HMS Victory IMHO. Mjroots (talk) 22:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

If that's the case, why is the article not simply at HMS Hood with no disambiguator? This seems to be a clear-cut primary topic. Parsecboy (talk) 23:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, we seem to be getting somewhere.

Proposal

The HMS Hood (51) article is housed at HMS Hood. The list is housed at HMS Hood (disambiguation).

I will ask for further input from MILHIST members. Mjroots (talk) 08:00, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation for ship articles is stated in WP:NC-SHIPS.

Because there is already an index page (albeit not named as it should be), because Editor Sturmvogel 66's request is consistent with the article naming conventions specified in WP:NC-SHIPS, this editor opposes Editor Mjroots' proposal and supports Editor Sturmvogel 66's request.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:45, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Parsecboy and Mjroots - per PRIMARYTOPIC the current HMS Hood (51) article should be at HMS Hood. The disambiguator page would then get the usual title for such pages. Gatoclass (talk) 15:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
- Trappist, our naming guidelines do not trump WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - in this case, the Hood sunk by Bismarck is far and away the most famous of the ships named Hood - there's no good reason to force readers to make extra clicks to find the article they're looking for. Parsecboy (talk) 21:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I am unwilling to accept WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as superior to WP:NC-SHIPS with regard to ship articles. To do so essentially says that as the scope of a policy becomes narrower, the authority of that policy is reduced until it becomes nonexistent. It should be the other way round: as the scope of a policy becomes narrower, the authority of that policy increases and becomes definitive.

Those here who have trotted out WP:PRIMARYTOPIC would, it seems, neuter the guidelines that this community has crafted and yield to the authority of more general policies. What purpose then is served by policies and guidelines specific to this community?

In cases not covered by WP:SHIPS policies and guidelines, the generalized policies of the broader community should control. If WP:SHIP policies and guidelines don't cover situations that they should, then we need to fix that.

Perhaps you will be surprised to know that I did not know that HMS Hood is much more famous than the other Hoods. I have come to believe that for something to be famous, one has to know that the thing is famous. As time passes and we get farther and farther away from Hood's fleeting fame, she will probably remain the most famous Hood, though only to knowledgeable readers; she won't be any more famous than the other two Hood's to the rest of us.

"Oh! My! An extra click! I don't think I can go on!" Oh, please ... the number of mouse clicks? What are we doing here, writing for the laziest readers? Nah.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:43, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The article on Hood-the-battlecruiser should stay where it is. Or should we move USS Nimitz (CVN-68) to USS Nimitz? We have NC-SHIPS for a reason, making exceptions in "special cases" will snowball and make things look sillily inconsistent. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which is what NC-SHIPS amounts to, does not trump broader guidelines. Allow me to quote established policy:

"participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope."

The purpose of our local guidelines is to fill in the gray areas not covered by broader ones. In most cases, there are not primary topics for ships like HMS Centurion or USS Essex - this is where NC-SHIPS is useful.

Bushranger, we are making exceptions to PRIMARYTOPIC in favor of NC-SHIPS, which is expressly prohibited in WP:C unless we can provide a compelling reason to do so. Uniformity is not a compelling reason. We don't disambiguate article titles for ships that are the only one to hold that name, even if they had pennant numbers, just because their contemporaries did (see for instance HMS Glorious and HMS Furious (47)). The situation is analogous here. In any case, NC-SHIPS does not mention primary topics, so there's no real basis there for the objection to moving HMS Hood (51) to HMS Hood. Parsecboy (talk) 03:11, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I apparently missed this earlier, but NC-SHIPS in fact prescribes the very changes Mjroots and I proposed:

"In a few cases, one ship is so much better-known than her namesakes that she need not be disambiguated."

There really is no basis for objecting to moving HMS Hood (51) to HMS Hood. Parsecboy (talk) 03:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Not clear to me how WP:C applies to this discussion. Perhaps you meant WP:CON?

I disagree. Uniformity, or rather, consistency is a perfectly valid reason to take exception to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Consistent look and feel is a hallmark of a quality product. We aren't here to create works of art where every article and the journey to it is a unique experience. What readers experience in the search process should be consistent throughout. When I type HMS Hood in the search box I expect to land on an article titled HMS Hood. But, when I land on HMS Hood (51) my expectations have been broken. Broken expectation are always wrong.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WP:CON.

The problem with your assumption is that is that you expect to land on a disambiguation page. That assumption does not necessarily hold for all readers of Wikipedia. As the numbers I noted below, roughly 90% of readers who type in "HMS Hood" are looking for the battlecruiser, not the battleship. Parsecboy (talk) 14:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

IMHO, they should all have pennant numbers if the ship had a pennant number. But, as with so much common sense on Wikipedia, the rules trump it... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:07, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Pennant numbers are really only useful in article titles for experts (especially with very similar #s like HMS Ark Royal (R07) and HMS Ark Royal (R09) - which ship is which?). Preemptive disambiguation where there is no real need for it gets us utterly stupid titles like 82nd Airborne Division (United States), the location of that article until 2010. As if there was some other 82nd Airborne Division somewhere else in the world. We also have to remember that we're writing Wikipedia for a general audience, who doesn't know squat about pennant or hull numbers (though the latter are somewhat easier to figure out since there's more of a coherent pattern).

In cases like Hood, where the battlecruiser gets over 100k pageviews in the last 90 days, compared to less than 5000 for the Royal Sovereign-class battleship, there is a clear case that most readers who type in "HMS Hood" are looking for the ship sunk in the Denmark Strait. (Interesting side note: both articles were written by the same editor). Parsecboy (talk) 12:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Editor The Bushranger that ship article titles should include pennant or hull numbers if such were assigned. It is part of the ship's identity. Virtually all American warship articles that I've touched have the hull number as part of the article title. This leaves the undisambiguated name for a ship index if one is needed. The undisambiguated name lends itself to editors who use the {{HMS}}, {{USS}}, etc templates (as you have done in this discussion) to get to a ship index page. Now, for anyone who wants to link to the HMS Hood ship index the link is the cumbersome and non-intuitive [[List of ships called HMS Hood]]. Readers who don't know which HMS Hood article they are looking for should land on the ship index page where the brief descriptions there can help them make the choice. I think that it is wrong forever and always to presume that we know best what readers are looking for; we may be right the vast majority of the time but when we're wrong, we're wrong and the reader didn't get to the correct article.

It does not follow that HMS Hood (51) has a lot more page views than Royal Sovereign-class battleship because of what readers typed in the search box. There are some 300+ article-space links to HMS Hood (51); each of those links, when followed, counts as a page view. And how are Hood (51) and the Royal Sovereign class related? This is a nonsensical comparison. Even were the comparison valid, the number of page views cannot be attributed to what one presumes that readers type in the search box.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The point is, all guidelines on article titles and disambiguation prescribe moving HMS Hood (51) to HMS Hood. You are free to disagree with the guidelines, and are free to try to change them, but you must have a compelling reason to ignore them in practice on a particular article. Simply repeating your general argument against these guidelines is not a compelling argument in this specific case (which is to say that you need a specific reason why in this case, we need to ignore all of these established guidelines).

If the numbers of page views were remotely close, your argument would be valid. But the disparity in the number of incoming links is not sufficient to explain difference here. HMS Hood got 10,390 page views over the past 90 days; List of ships called HMS Hood was viewed 1,150 times. We can be reasonably sure that essentially all of the latter page views are from people who typed in "HMS Hood" and were looking for the ship launched in 1891, rather than the one in 1918. That still leaves 9 out of every 10 people who type "HMS Hood" into the search bar and are looking for the battlecruiser. And I was not talking about Royal Sovereign class battleship, I was referring to the Hood of that class, rather than the member of the Admiral class. Parsecboy (talk) 14:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll buy it as a primary topic, so should I rename List of ships called HMS Hood to HMS Hood (disambiguation) or somesuch?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:02, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

This whole mess was to some extent caused when the dab page was moved from HMS Hood (disambiguation) to its current location, on the argument that ship indices aren't technically disambiguation pages per WP:DAB. Perhaps a better option would be HMS Hood (index) or something along those lines? Parsecboy (talk) 21:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:IAR, they serve a disambiguation purpose. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

If they serve a disambiguation purpose, they should be formatted to best facilitate that purpose (that is, follow WP:MOSDAB). But consensus is that set index articles are not disambiguation pages, and shouldn't include (disambiguation) in the title. Instead, they are list articles titled "List of XXX named YYY". Ignore rules when there's a benefit to the encyclopedia. Here, though, the benefit to the encyclopedia is gained by calling lists "lists". See WP:SETINDEX. But I'd have no problem with ships using (index) or (ship index) or (list of ships) or whatever, as long as we don't title non-disambiguation pages with (disambiguation) -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

{[od}} OK, we've had the discussion. Time to decide. Do we move the HMS Hood (51) article to HMS Hood and the list to HMS Hood (disambiguation) or not? Mjroots (talk) 20:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

We can't title the non-disambiguation set index article "HMS Hood (disambiguation)". If it's not at "HMS Hood", the current title is workable, or one of the options below at Ship index articles can be used. Alternatively, the set index article can be made a disambiguation page (with dab page formatting). -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC) -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Khufu ship

Can someone fix this? on Khufu ship, the section on "other solar ships" has been split off to Ancient Egyptian solar ships, but the person who did it didn't remove it from the originating article. Now we are replicating information at two articles, one where it is offtopic, and another where it is the topic. -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 07:46, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

AFD notice

Hello all, I have nominated H-45 for deletion at AFD (see nomination here). All comments are welcomed. Parsecboy (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Assessment query

The USS Mahan (DD-364) article has been checked against the criteria for B-Class status. And has met four of the five criterions: with referencing and citation the exception. Since they were late additions to the article, it’s likely they were not in place when the original assessment was made. Now that they are included as part of the article, could an assessment be made of this one criterion? Pendright (talk) 00:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Each paragraph needs at least one cite to count as fully referenced and nothing in the paragraph should be uncited. As a small matter, cites follow immediately after the punctuation (if any) of whatever they're citing; no space.Look at how a FA-class article is cited for guidance on how to do it properly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Pendright (talk) 01:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Much better, although you missed a cite for the # of battle stars awarded. Add that and I'll reassess formally.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Infobox Ship Career

Guidance please. I understood from looking at many individual ship articles that the Ship Career Infobox often contains multiple names/owners/flags etc, summarising the ship's career. That seemed sensible where not too complicated (occasionally multiple infoboxes can help with that), and I have followed that pattern. However, adding such info to Queen Elizabeth 2 led to an instant set of reverts by Alphacatmarnie on the extrordinary grounds that showing previous Cunard ownership and British flag is "clutter" and only latest info should be included. This seems directly contrary to Ships Infoboxes, particularly the Intro and Infobox Ship Career sections. (I do now see that my additions were more-or-less a reversion of Alphacatmarnie's previous changes, though I had not noticed that at the time.) Similar deletions have also been made to MS Queen Elizabeth , MS Queen Victoria, RMS Queen Mary 2. I posted the question on User_talk:Alphacatmarnie, but instead of responding/commenting, he/she has merely deleted my posting. What next?16:15, 7 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidships (talk • contribs)

David, you are correct here. Infoboxes can be used to indicate numerous owners, operators, names etc. This is achieved by using <br> tags. Flags are also appropriate in the port of registry section. Removal of such is not a valid action. Mjroots (talk) 19:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the matter is best decided by local consensus. The infobox template we now have allows for incredible detail, and infoboxes can easily overwhelm the article. Just because the infobox allows us to do something, does not mean we should. Some ships have had a half-dozen owners or operators. One size does not fit all here. These questions are probably best handled on the article talk page. Kablammo (talk) 19:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Kablammo makes a really good point; one size does not fit all. The article talkpage should usually be the first place to solve these disagreements, but this page is still a good place to ask for extra input from other editors... bobrayner (talk) 23:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Kablammo regarding the info box - if you fill it full of trivia, facts and statistics then number 1. You have a info box overloaded with information and number 2. The article will either have nothing of value to fill the void or meaningless duplication. Alphacatmarnie (talk) 12:28, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

That is my point, but the present infobox is less than optimal. The "Career" section of the infobox has the Cunard crest next to the heading, and the history is principally Cunard. When the decision is finally made (or announced, if already made) that this vessel is no longer going to sea, it would be strange to keep the present infox, listing the current owner, when the ship was a Cunard vessel for virtually her entire career. I am concerned about infobox clutter, and in many cases the details of a vessel's career are best handled in the text. Kablammo (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I had a look at the article and it occurs to me that the "Career" section is not about the current owner at all. The ship's career was with Cunard and either the owner field should be omitted or changed to Cunard. If she had a career after service with Cunard, then a second section might be appropriate, but to include the current owners in a section about her career, which was entirely with Cunard is perverse. It is analogous to military ships that served in two navies - we don't put the last country of service as the operator of the ship in the career section about the original country of service. If QE2 had any post Cunard career, not just being tied up somewhere waiting conversion to a hotel, or worse scrapping, then a second section may be appropriate. Otherwise her career was with Cunard and the info box should reflect that. - Nick Thorne ^talk 21:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me wether a decision regarding the info boxes was made or has Davidships made the decision himself and carried our a reversion?

Alphacatmarnie (talk) 16:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see explanation at Talk:Queen Elizabeth 2. If you have in mind major revision of the Ships Infoboxes Guide, then I imagine that you might propose changes at Template talk:Infobox ship begin/Usage guide (but the old hands here will no doubt put me straight if it should be considered elsewhere). Davidships (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Fakta om Fartyg

Some 60-odd passenger ship articles have citations from the website http://www.faktaomfartyg.se/. Unfortunately the site's owner has, without warning, closed it down. There is more explanation at http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http://www.soefart.dk/?art=2159 and some discussion at http://forum.shipspotting.com/index.php/topic,11463.msg61537.html. Davidships (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As a reminder, FoF is (was?) a private website that does not state its sources. Thus, at least for technical information of existing ships it is easily replaceable by public classification society databases. Tupsumato (talk) 18:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Tupsumato. It was useful, but as a self-published source did not meet the requirements of WP:RS. Kablammo (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. My purpose was merely to draw attention to editors of the affected pages that there are now a large number of dead links, which need to be replaced by other sources. Davidships (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a bot job to make a list of articles affected. Mjroots (talk) 19:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Heritage of US Navy Carrier Strike Groups

While reviewing another article I became aware that many of the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) articles claimed a connection, and the heritage of, the WW2-era Carrier Divisions (CarDiv) of the same number. I've reviewed all of the articles' sources and can find only one that specifically traces CSG 10 to a WW2-era unit, although that's a destroyer flotilla, not a CarDiv. [11] Unfortunately, that's from globalsecurity.org, a website that has been deemed non-reliable for our purposes.

CSG 1, CSG 2, CSG 3, and CSG 5 make the claim without source
CSG 4 Commander Strike Force Training Atlantic references USS America 1967 Cruise Book, p.258, via navsite.de, something that is unreliable.
CSG 6 references [12], a webpage of a reunion group, and also not reliable.
CSG 7 the official Navy page for this unit says that it was established in 1956 and makes no reference to the WW2-era unit of the same number [13]

No mention of any connection in the other CSG articles.

And then there's this statement from the Dictionary of American Naval Aviation Squadrons Volume 1: The History of VA, VAH, VAK, VAL, VAP and VFA Squadrons, p. 541:

A unit’s history and lineage begins when it is established and ends at the time it is disestablished. Determining a squadron’s “family tree” may seem cut and dried, but that is not the case. A squadron may undergo numerous redesignations during the period between its establishment and disestablishment. A newly established squadron bearing the same designation of a unit that had previously existed may carry on the traditions of the old organization but it cannot claim the history or lineage of the previous unit. The same is true of U. S. Navy ships and, thus, the rationale for such a policy becomes apparent. For example, Ranger (CV 61) is the seventh ship to bear the name Ranger and may carry on the traditions of the previous six ships. Ranger (CV 61) is obviously not the same Continental Navy Ship Ranger commanded by Captain John Paul Jones during the War of Independence. The history of Ranger (CV 61) begins with its commissioning date, not with the commissioning date of the first Ranger.

From what I can tell, but cannot definitively prove, the CSGs all trace their lineage to Cruiser-Destroyer or Destroyer Flotillas or Squadrons, most of which seem to be post-war creations. I do not know what became of the wartime CarDivs, but they appear to have been disbanded sometime after the war and their carriers came under the control of the Cruiser-Destroyer ~~Divisions~~ Groups.

I propose, following a suggestion from Buckshot06, to cut the CarDiv material from the articles that have it and paste them into new articles that specifically cover the interwar and wartime CarDivs. Thoughts, comments?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Quick note. SturmVogel is incorrect in saying that the wartime CarDivs were disbanded and their carriers shifted to Cruiser-Destroyer Groups and Carrier Groups. The Carrier Divisions, as shown in the Naval Aeronautical Organization data available at history.navy.mil, dwindled in number with the reduction in number of carriers, but retained administrative control of carriers until 30 June 1973, when they were all redesignated Carrier Groups. There was no sharp or specific change after the war; the higher-numbered divisions disbanded steadily with the retirement of the Essex-class carriers, and then all remaining CarDivs became CarGrus on 30 June 1973. Sometime after that date, some carriers were placed under the administrative control of Cruiser-Destroyer Groups. All CRUDESGRUs and CARGRUs were redesignated Carrier Strike Groups on 1 October 2004.

I would request anyone who's interest to take a look at the Naval Aeronautical Organization volumes (huge PDF files year-by-year) which will show the gradually dwindling numbers of CarDivs from 1945-73, and then the change in name on #0 June 1973. The lists are available at http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org4-25.htm. Buckshot06 (talk) 06:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'm convinced. Thanks for sharing that link, I hadn't noticed it before. Curious though how infrequently mentioned the CarDivs are in anything before '53. I do think that we're going to need to split the CSG articles as some of them are getting pretty unwieldy.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

They're enormous, yes, but splitting them at 30 June 1973 (or 1 October 2004) won't help very much at all. Each section before 2004 covers about 10-12 of the 90-100kB. The problem is the inherent bloat in the way they were written for post-1 October 2004. Whole sections copied out of press releases, no consolidation of data, epic numbers of doubled references, full titles for 'Carrier Strike Group X' repeated ad infinitem, enormous amounts of info that should be in different articles (like individual squadron details that should rightly go in CVW articles), the list goes on. However, if you would like to work on them, please feel free to ask for my help. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't really do modern warships, but I agree that they're far too detailed as presently constituted, especially for peacetime units. That level of detail might be appropriate for wartime activities, but there needs to be far more summarizing when you've got 40+ years of peacetime activities to cover.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)