Talk:Ship's cat

Spaceship cats eligible?

Are cats on spaceships eligible for this article? If so, then the French cat Félicette who flew into space on October 18, 1963 might be listed. (Though the short length of her voyage might argue against inclusion.) More info: http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/felix.html T-bonham (talk) 00:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

fun

75.95.47.110 (talk) 19:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC) this is a lot of fun, thanks for posting this article.Mtsmallwood (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Popular Culture

I know that "... in popular culture" sections are now to be shot on sight, but wouldn't there be some other way of working the cat in Alien into this article, probably through some "fictional ship's cats", as a way of showing that the tradition has even been carried over into sci-fi? Daniel Case (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Split

75.95.47.110 (talk) 19:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC) It may be too early for this but I see the possibility of a good article about general use of ship cats separated from the list of cats especially if we start including more cats and fictional ones which will lead to further imbalance of the article. gren グレン 16:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well done

Very interesting and great photos. I was surprised this topic didn't already have a page. Any chance of some non-British ships cats being mentioned (apart from Unisnkable Sam/Oscar)? Or is it a particularly nuts-about-animals-British maritime thing? 86.133.240.138 (talk) 17:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

As was I. Chibbley is Canadian I believe, though the British seem to have a soft spot for animals, and have turned some of them into celebrities as a result. Celebrity ship's cats seem to be a rarity in other nations. Benea (talk) 17:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

And the Unsinkable Sam was a German cat come to think of it. Benea (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on the nice new article and on the DYK mention. Very interesting. I suggest you add "other uses" templates to cross-reference this article and The Ship's Cat (book) to each other. Hult041956 (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Polydactyl cats

I thought the reason they were better on ships is that they could climb along ropes better. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-01-10 17:51Z

Balance?

Overall this was a good article. However, I do believe that the examples are focused too much on British cats. I'm not sure if this is because there are no known other examples of ships cats in other countries but I do believe that it should be fixed.

Foodmonster (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In other countries?

The article gives a lot of time to ship's cats in British ships, but, aside from ancient history, doesn't really mention them in the context of other countries. While it's likely there may not be many cats from other countries which rise to the level of notability, it would be good to have info on the general status of ships cats in other navies. For example - are there ship's cats on US Naval vessels? If not, when were they banned? (You can substitute other countries for US, as you will.) Also unaddressed in the article - are there any navies still using ship's cats routinely? How about merchant fleets? -- 19:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Lead Photo

The caption of the lead photo says that the National Anthem is being played. In view of the relaxed attitudes of all present this seems unlikely. Does anyone have a reference to back it up? DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Horrible site-search, but I eventually tracked down the original page: [1] which uses the caption we use. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It's because they are only playing the US anthem. 75.95.47.110 (talk) 19:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

In that case, the link on "National Anthem" is wrong. It goes to "God Save the Queen"; it ought to go to "The Star-Spangled Banner". I'll fix it. T-bonham (talk) 00:21, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I suspect the ip was being tongue in cheek when he says it was the American anthem. Even if he wasn't, no evidence has been presented that this is the case, or what anthem was being played. The original comment that the men are too relaxed to make this the British national anthem doesn't really hold up either. The men are indeed standing to attention, but the air of informality created by Churchill himself as he stops to stroke the cat has caused several to glance over and break into smiles. Given that it was not recorded what music was being played beyond that it was 'the national anthem', it would be original research to attempt to add a link to one piece or the other. Benea (talk) 00:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Atlantic Charter Signing?

That's a great story about Churchill stooping to pet "Blackie", but it must be pointed out that the so-called "Atlantic Charter" was never signed by either FDR or Churchill, not on August 14, 1941, or August 12, 1941 or on any other date. It was issued as a press release titled "Joint Statement". It was never a dated, signed, legal document. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.112.217.139 (talk) 05:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Where exactly the entire "Early history" section gets its facts from? The story presented there is tenuous and rather fable-like to be posted just so without a single reference to an original peer-reviewed work. Can we may be suppress the whole section or substitute it with a slightly less melodramatic material until a reliable source is found - even then, the whole section needs to be either expanded and diversified or contracted and critically redacted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.240.75 (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

It claims in the article that the Phoenicians brought the first domesticated cats to Europe, around 900 bc but then it also claims, rather contradictorily, that "The domestication of cats is believed to date back some 9,500 years...", which is probably in reference to a cat found buried next to a human in Cyprus. Cyprus is definitely inside Europe, and 9,500 years later it still is, strictly speaking, in Europe, not Asia, Africa or even China, lol! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.20.141 (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Chibbley => Chibley

The captain should know, HARRRRR! GEEZER^{nil nisi bene} 06:36, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Viking cats

http://www.sciencealert.com/cats-sailed-with-vikings-to-conquer-the-world-genetic-study-reveals

Why am I not surprised in the least? Ceannlann gorm (talk) 12:28, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

@Ceannlann gorm: That is a great find! Although, as you say, not surprising, the kitties do get around. I'll see what I can do about including this in the article later tonight when I have some more time. :) cart-Talk 12:46, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

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"Chibbley" vs. "Chibley"

Which of these two sources is more likely to have the correct spelling of the cat's name?

• Chibbley: "Interview With Chibbley – BeWorldWise". 9 April 2007.
• Chibley: Captain Daniel Moreland (11 November 2011). "Captain's Log". www.picton-castle.com. Archive for the 'Chibley' Category. Retrieved 23 April 2018.

—2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 07:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Let's see ... either an "interview" of the cat on a children's website from the Wayback archive, or ... by person who named the cat in the Captain's log archived on the ship's official website (?) —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 20:01, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Current statuses

The cat Blackie I'm certain has deceased by now, even if his fate in Singapore's evacuation couldn't be determined, it's not like he would have lived up to a hundred, and Jenny's exact fate on Titanic is incorrect: some people claim to have seen her and her kittens leave the ship before it even set off, so they couldn't have died when it sank: there's a lot of articles that say this.184.186.4.209 (talk) 00:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Title and lead

Since "ship's cat" is not a proper noun, but rather the general concept of feline mariners, it should not be bolded in accordance with MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD. This is not to mention the other problems with the current lead sentence such as overlinks. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 18:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDTITLE has nothing to do with whether something is a proper noun or not. Citing TITLEABSENTBOLD is circular reasoning on your part, since it's you who are removing it from the lead in the first place. "Ship's cat" is a stock term and is the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject, not a made-up Wikipedian descriptive phrase, so it should remain in the first sentence of the lead and be boldfaced there like we would at any other article. And what links would you remove?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm citing MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD as my reason for removing the bolding from the lead, so it's not circular reasoning or logically fallacious even if wrong. As for the links in the lead sentence, I would at the very least remove the ancient times link (and rewrite the sentence to remove that phrase altogether to make it sound less like a high school paper) and probably the other "types of ships" links, and as for the whole lead section Vector (epidemiology) is linked twice; even with the piping this is suboptimal and ought to be rewritten. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Um, TITLEABSENTBOLD instructs us to not boldface terms in the lead that aren't in the title (or presented because they redirects), but you are the one making "ship's cat" not appear in the title in the first place, and citing TITLEABSENTBOLD as the rationale for doing it; that's quite circular. The link cleanup sounds reasonable. But be aware that DUPLINK was changed by RfC recently; we now link once per section, not once per page. Something linked in the lead should still be linked in a later article section, because large number of our readers do not read leads but jump directly to the section they're looking for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

My point is that the title ought not be bolded if that makes things more awkward; for (a much darker) example, rather than bold "The Holocaust in Hungary was the extermination of the Jews in Hungary", say something like "The Holocaust impacted Hungary especially hard". I'll leave it up to others to decide whether that's a good point. In any event, I was unaware of the duplink change, thanks for informing me on it. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:33, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Is that a good analogy? Our article at The Holocaust in Hungary does in fact start with "The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of ...", presumably because "[the] Holocaust in Hungary" is an actual term/phrase in use in the sources and not a descriptive phrase made up by Wikipedians for lack of a common, sourced term that covered the article scope. That is, it seems to me that you have an issue with how WP writes leads, not an issue with this article's lead in particular. I would suggest this is a matter to bring up in more general terms (perhaps using both of these articles as examples) at WT:MOSLEAD and see if there's general agreement to change how to we do leads, to use less boldfacing. (There might conceivably be more support for this idea than I'm imagining there is, too. I've been surprised here before.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:49, 8 September 2023 (UTC)