Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 13

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Move request

There is an active proposal to rename the article Italian submarine Sciré (1938) (with acute accent) to Italian submarine Scirè (1938) (with grave accent). Interested editors may comment on the proposal at the article's talk page — Bellhalla (talk) 16:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article Review for SS Andrea Doria

I have nominated SS Andrea Doria for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Lists of ship launches

I've been giving the subject of flags in these lists a bit of thought, and am of the opinion that, on balance, the use of flags is beneficial to these lists. Currently only a few lists (1939, 1944, 1946) are missing the flags. I'd like to add them for consistency across the lists. The lists previously displayed flags but an editor removed them. Mjroots (talk) 09:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Page move

I've just botched what should have been an easy page move. HMS Iphigenia (1805) was actually launched in 1808 (Colledge Ships of the Royal Navy, p. 174, Gardiner Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars p.11, Lyon & Winfield, The Sail and Steam Navy List p. 52). A combination of clumsy fingers and an unfamiliar keyboard (mostly the latter, honest!) led to me moving it to HMS Iphigenia (1805)8 and now the system is digging its heels in and refusing to allow a move to what I had originally intended, HMS Iphigenia (1808). Can an admin help? Much obliged! Benea (talk) 23:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Nick-D (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it time you got adminned yourself Benea? Gatoclass (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

American Civil War ships reassessed.

I took the whole of Category:American Civil War ships and all subcategories, about 1000 articles in all and reassessed accordingly. The result is a gain of about 500 articles to C-Class, a few went to B, a lot of articles from stub to start, a few from start to stub etc. All of those articles now have B class checklists for ships and milhist where needed including the proper work groups for milhist. Found more articles for new infoboxes and another few that never had project tags on them. Remind me never to do that again; halfway through I wished I hadn't started :) --Brad (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Why would we want to remind you not to do that again? <g> These big projects are OK if approached in a methodical way and broken down into smaller chunks. Just takes a bit of time, but there's no rush, is there? Mjroots (talk) 18:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Eisenbahn und Häfen GmbH

Hello! Does ships include river boats? I was wondering if there are any experts here on barges of the Rhine or similar - I'm looking for info on the two boats the Eisenbahn und Häfen operates - eg builder, basic info etc. The article already has locomotive info so it would be good if the ships it operates could be named too... FengRail (talk) 02:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

FengRail, The subject has been broached before. There is a set of proposed notability guidelines in which the subject of non-ocean going vessels has been raised. What sort of tonnage are the vessels in question? Mentioning the boats in the Eisenbahn und Häfen GmbH article would probably be ok, but they may not be sufficiently notable Wikiwise to justify individual articles. Mjroots (talk) 06:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That's what I meant - a brief mention in the article, not new articles. The boats are (by the way) what I would call 'tugs' - I believe there are two of them.

Basically what I think is needed is enough information to 'identify' the ships - ie the builder, the basic stats, and if possible names, if they have them. Less than 1 paragraph of info...FengRail (talk) 13:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

In that case, a paragraph on each with a redirect from the tugs name to the relevent section of the article will suffice. Mjroots (talk) 18:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks : I already knew that (sorry for shouting) ... The reason I asked here was that I know nothing about these tugs, and was hoping to find a expert/enthusiast who could tell me where to look for the info etc. :)

FengRail (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops! The following are useful for googling - IMO number, name, owner, builder, ship type, tonnage. If you know any of those you should be able to find some info. Mjroots (talk) 19:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

"Tug + Eisenbahn und Hafen", or, "Schlepper + Eisenbahn und Hafen" (tug=schlepper ? de:Schlepper (Schiff) ) doesn't seem to give much - but that's all I've got - only got the company name.

Does anyone know the company names of tug manufacturers around the Rhine.. Often the manufacturers keep lists (that might not be referenced by a google search), I'd guess there are only a few makers, but I don't know who.

Anyway if anyone gets or has some info please contact me, or leave a message on the talk page. Thanks.FengRail (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

FengRail, I assume you speak German. Why not ask on the German language wikipedia if anyone has any ship names for the company's tugs? Mjroots (talk) 08:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I can read german slowly - speak german=0. FengRail (talk) 21:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Collaborator wanted

Are there any editors out there who possess a copy of Haws, John (1978). Merchant Fleets in Profile, volume 2. Cambridge: Patrick Stephens. ISBN 0850593247. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help) who would be interested in collaborating in a triple April Fool's Day DYK nom? Anyone interested please reply on my talk page. Mjroots (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

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

Steamship Prince Rupert move/rename?

Please see Talk:Steamship Prince Rupert....shouldn't this be SS Prince Rupert?Skookum1 (talk) 13:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the page to SS Prince Rupert. Parsecboy (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

USNS Stalwart (T-AGOS-1)

USNS Stalwart (T-AGOS-1) has been proposed for a move to SUNY Maritime (ship). Comments can be made on the talk page. --Brad (talk) 02:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Obsolete

At Talk:USS Connecticut (BB-18) some noise has been made concerning the use of the word obsolete to describe predreadnoughts. Nothing serious has happened, but if this turns into a major discussion concerning the use of obsolete it could affect descriptive practices for battleships constructed around the time of HMS Dreadnought. Additionally, to ensure that things stay civil, extra eyes would be appreciated. This message is being left at both MILHIST and SHIPS, so look for both projects to weigh in on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Some people have funny ideas about that word. I had a long argument some time ago with a couple of users at Operation Barbarossa who couldn't accept that junk like the T-26 and BT-7 were obsolete in 1941. Gatoclass (talk) 06:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates with red links/Ships

Greetings! Please be aware of this collection of red links, almost all of which are for classes of vessels. bd2412 T 08:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Australian light destroyer project now open

The A-Class review for Australian light destroyer project is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:05, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

TCG Giresun / TCG Gemlik

Bit of an odd one here. The List of ships attacked by Somali pirates article has a piped link for TCG Giresun which leads to USS Antrim (FFG-20), while that article has a piped link for TCG Giresun to USS Flatley (FFG-21). That article has a piped link for TCG Gemlik which leads back to USS Antrim.

Q1, which ship became which?
Q2, As these are both serving ships, shouldn't the articles be under their current names?

Mjroots (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The official Turkish Navy website is unhelpful, but this unofficial one says,

• GAZİANTEP: Clifton Spargue FFG-16
• GİRESUN: Antrim FFG-20
• GEMLİK: Flatley FFG-21
• GELİBOLU: Reid FFG-30
• GÖKÇEADA: Marlon S Tisdale FFG-27
• GEDİZ: John A. Moore FFG-19
• GÖKOVA: Samuel Eliot Morison FFG-13
• GÖKSU: Estocin FFG-15

I'll change the redirects.

I don't see much point in moving the articles until/unless there's more to say about their Turkish careers than there is about their USN ones.

—WWoods (talk) 06:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Now that the identities have been clarified, I've been able to expand the correct article. Mjroots (talk) 07:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Nassau class battleship now open

The featured article candidacy for Nassau class battleship is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 15:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Links to ship index pages

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

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

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

Ship class infobox caption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Move proposal

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

A-Class review for Moltke class battlecruiser now open

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

FV Monte Galineiro nominated for deletion

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

And another

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

Eyes requested on a controversial ship class article

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

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

Commons:Category:Ships by IMO number nominated for deletion

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

the great ocean liner

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

Air draught

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

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

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

April Fools Day DYKs

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

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

Silent Service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tonnage: 1625(GRT), 2500(BM)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From J. J. Colledge 1969:

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

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

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

So:

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

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

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

instead of separate lines:

Tonnage: x tons (grt)

Burthen: y tons (bm)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll

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

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

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

MV Princess of Acadia

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

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

Future aircraft carrier category for deletion:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to do with these articles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proposed name changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Category:Shipwrecks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where is the hyphen?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article Requests

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

Project scope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outside the scope of the Project

Suggestions by Mjroots (talk)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some consensus

We seem to have solved the following:

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

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

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

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

Requested moves.

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

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

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

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

MS Explorer

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

Peer review for HM Bark Endeavour now open

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

Set index cleanup needed

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

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

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

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

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

SS Orcades (1948)

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

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

Request made at WP:REPAIR. Mjroots (talk)

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

Article on RN's LCAC(L) needed

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

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

Comments requested on the Future Canadian Amphibious Assault Ship article

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

Bainbridge CIWS

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

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

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

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

Article about the shipbuilder Jacob Aaron Westervelt

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

I moved the article to the public space --Rectilinium'♥' 20:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Replied at your talk—very promising, and will help with this soon. Maralia (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais now open

The featured article candidacy for Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for SM UB-10 now open

The A-Class review for SM UB-10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 14:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Some pairs of same-ship articles

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

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

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

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

That seems reasonable. How about this pair:

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

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

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

Alright, now here are two four more pairs:

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

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

Here's a set I just came across:

HMS Patrician and HMCS Patrician

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

I would lean towards HMS, because of the World War I service. -- saberwyn 07:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Cap Lopez

I've just removed the PROD tag from this article (due to expire tomorrow!). I've checked Miramar and the ship existed and was wrecked on date given. Editor who created the article is inactive. Can we rescue this one? Mjroots (talk) 20:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for SMS Seydlitz now open

The featured article candidacy for SMS Seydlitz is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 12:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

"Shipevents" templates nominated for deletion

All of the templates of the form "Shipevents[decade]", ranging from {{Shipevents1860}} to {{Shipevents2000}}, have been nominated for deletion. All editors are invited to comment at the templates' entry at the templates for discussion page. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature for historical ships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A different perspective

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question from above

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good analogy, Shimgray. Point taken.

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

Decision?

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

• I would say continue to use the launching date as the disambiguator for the time being. -- saberwyn 07:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

..."for the time being"?--Rectilinium'♥' 21:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

....I don't think there has been enough discussion at this point to lead to an outright alteration to the project's naming conventions, so until the point in the not yet forseeable future when/if the naming conventions are changed, stay with the current guidelines and disambiguate by date. -- saberwyn 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks --Rectilinium'♥' 00:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Research source

I came across [this while researching a ship article. Plenty of info there to expand articles with! Mjroots (talk) 18:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Year-based categories for ships/classes?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arbitrary break

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

With year known

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

Without specific year known

• Categorize in the most refined category possible

Some examples:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up to 1599

by century only

1600–1849

by decade only

1850 to present

by year

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

Bot run results

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

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

Ship launch dates by century
all ships with launch dates

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

Ship launch dates by decade
from 1600

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

Raw data from bot run

"Ship launched" (A - H)

"Ship launched" (H - M)

"Ship launched" (M - U)

"Ship launched" (U - U)

"Ship launched" (U - Z)

"Ship laid date" or "Ship commissioned"

Other articles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment by Piotrus

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

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

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

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

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

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

I believe that a category for decommissioning is a vital, logical counterpart that will have to implemented in the future. Not implementing it now is simply delaying the inevitable. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

To add my AU$0.02 to the discussion, a few points. First, I agree that there is sometimes a long gap between when a ship is launched and when she is commissioned (for example, it took ten years for the carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21)) to be commissioned after launching. However, I personally prefer the launch date to any other date as an indicator (regardless of the fact that I wasn't supporting the introduction of these cats in the first place), as the date a ship is completed is not always immediately obvious, while on the other hand most sources about a ship will at least specify the the year in which hull and water met for the first time. Second, it should be noted that the date a ship was completed is not the same as the date a ship was launched, nor the date a ship was commissioned. Third, in regards to adding in cats for commission and decommission dates...what about civilian and non-naval vessels? They don't have either. Fourth, if we add a decommissioning or scrapping year category, what about all the other possible fates of a ship? Will we then add new categories for all potential fates of a ship? -- saberwyn 04:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a more general category, like Category:Ships that left service in 2009 would be the best route. Parsecboy (talk) 11:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comments

Tanit (yacht) has been nominated for deletion, in part based on the fact that it is a private yacht and not "notable", except for its capture by pirates. Comments appreciated. Should these incidents be named by dates, or by names of the ships involved? Pustelnik (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment An article about the vessel, and one about a hijacking or action as a result of a hijacking, are not necessarily the same thing. Mjroots (talk) 17:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Historic photos available

New Zealand's Alexander Turnbull Library has placed some historic NZ photos on Flickr The Commons with no known copyright restrictions. These include quite a good number of ships, and a few shipwrecks. Very easy to upload to commons using the Flickr tools. Gwinva (talk) 23:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

If you upload them,you can add them to commons:Category:Images from the New Zealand National Library. Gwinva (talk) 22:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Images should be tagged {{PD-NZ}} Mjroots (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Otherships template

An admin has removed the {{Otherships}} template from the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) article per this diff, citing WP:NAMB. I reverted him, asking him to dicuss it here. He reveted me per this diff, stating "Just because a WikiProject does it does not make it right, or give it the right to override the manual of style."

The MOS is a guideline, not a policy, and as such it can be overridden in certain situations. To me, the template is needed because links to ship articles, especially those about USN ships, are often piped or limited with a template, so that the hull code or pennant number does not display in the linking article. Is this the primary reasoning behind the template, or are there more? Should this template be listed as an exception to the MOS (or is it already)? Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. A thought: for Kitty Hawk, the articles are disambiguated (AKV-1) and (CV-63). This is useful for all sorts of practical reasons, but is fairly opaque to the casual reader - we're not using (transport) and (aircraft carrier), or (1932) and (1961). As such, the names are a bit ambiguous - if someone had tried to pick one from a list of search results, without anything to go on but the name, there's a good chance they'd get it wrong, which seems a pretty good test for ambiguity... Shimgray | talk | 20:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Shimgray appears to have identified the crux of the issue. Looking at WP:NAMB, the most relevant portion of the guideline for this discussion is in the second paragraph: "a hatnote may still be appropriate when even a more specific name is still ambiguous." Outside of naval enthusiasts and veterans, 99% of the general population is going to find the article name USS Toledo (SSN-769) just as ambiguous as that of USS Toledo (CA-133). As such, the instructions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines to preemptively disambiguate ship articles with {{otherships}} is actually following both the spirit and lettre of the WP:HAT guideline. — Kralizec! (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

SchuminWeb (talk · contribs) notified -MBK₀₀₄ 01:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I meant to do that, but got distracted ... — Kralizec! (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I look at it this way: Most people are probably not aware there had been a Kitty Hawk prior to the aircraft carrier. Maybe they would learn something if made aware that there were two with that name. --Brad (talk) 02:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

What do we mean by "Decks"?

What constitutes a 'deck' as far as the infobox is concerned? Because I came across inconsistency between the ferries MV St Clare and, for example Maersk Delft. Both are car ferries, but while the Delft (and Dunkerque) state they have "9" decks (which includes just 2 decks with passenger lounges), St Clare's infobox states "2 passenger decks and 1 viewing deck on top". Now I know (and you can see from the photo) that St Clare has 3 car decks below the first lounge deck, so this is misleading. However, what I'm not sure about is whether the figure for 'decks' should therefore be "6" (all public-access deck levels), "7" or "8" (as the bridge is on a level above the sun deck, and there must be machinery below the vehicle decks). Any advice? I'm going with 6 for now, as it seems safest, but if there are any official guidelines on this, it would help if they were more obvious. If not, perhaps some need to be drawn up...--Peeky44 (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

No official guidelines that I'm aware of. It would make sense that if a ship has 9 decks then 9 should be in the infobox. --Brad (talk) 22:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

U.S. piracy history

There's been mention in a news article, cited at Talk:Lightship Ambrose of an 1885 incident on Lightship Ambrose outside of New York Harbor being the last act of piracy on a U.S. ship before recent off-Somalia business. I just put the news article mention into the Lightship Ambrose article, although it is pretty skimpy. Anyone have more info to add? doncram (talk) 00:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The article cited as a source calls the ship (without anything else that would identify it as a lightship) as 'Ambrose Light'. The recent creation of Ambrose Light (ship) suggests a different story, that this was a ship named Ambrose Light. And that she was a Columbian vessel taken as a suspected pirate vessel in the Caribbean Sea. The argument was made that she was carrying Columbian insurgents to act against the Columbian government, but since the United States did not recognise a state of war between the insurgents and the government, that the ship was a pirate vessel. She was duly captured by an American vessel, the USS Alliance (1877). The decision was overturned by US Secretary of State, who declared that there was a recognisable state of war, and that the Ambrose Light was not a pirate ship. The two vessels are very clearly not the same. To be fair your source has also goofed, it says 'Alfred P. Rubin, a professor of international law at Tufts University who wrote a book on piracy, said there had not been a major pirate prosecution in the United States since 1885, when the American ship Ambrose Light was attacked by pirates.' The ship was not American (though the court case was). And it doesn't actually say that it was 'the last act of piracy on a U.S. ship before recent off-Somalia business.' So it would seem it was not the last attack on an American ship before Somalia for a good reason. I think you have read too much into some vague sourcing. Benea (talk) 01:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Coincidentally, doesn't this fit well with the above discussion! Benea (talk) 01:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Not to split hairs, but the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea defines piracy as "any criminal acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or aircraft that is directed on the high seas against another ship, aircraft, or against persons or property on board a ship or aircraft." Private ends would exclude actions taken by governments, but the definition includes (for example) the hijacking of aircraft. There are well-documented instances of the hijacking of US planes in recent years, which are more routinely called terrorism but may also fit the definition of piracy.

Even if we restrict piracy to the high seas, we are left with actions by unrecognised governments. For example the Khmer Rouge seizing of the US-registered yacht Leilani in 1978[3] was arguably piracy as the Khmer Rouge was never widely recognised as a government. I'm also reasonably sure (but can't yet find a source to prove it) that US-flagged vessels have been attacked by pirates off Indonesia or in the Straits of Malacca in the last fifty years or so.

We'd be on safer ground saying this Somali is the first person to be tried by the US for piracy since the 1800's. But I doubt we can call it the first act of piracy since then. Euryalus (talk) 03:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good point. We'd be compounding some sloppy journalism with our own Original Research if we claimed that the Ambrose Light incident was anything like the last incidence of piracy on a US ship. Let alone that that was about an American vessel capturing a 'pirate ship' (which it turned out not to be) and not the other way around! Benea (talk) 03:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

{{Ship}} question

Folks, quick question re usage of this template. How should it be used for a ship that does not have an HMS, SS, MV etc prefix, such as Endurance (1912 ship)? I have tried playing around with various combinations of the parameters and cannot get it to display correctly. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 13:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Regrettably, it doesn't work without a ship prefix. (I've tried, too!) The easiest way for formatting the example you provided is by using the pipe trick. Type

''[[Endurance (1912 ship)|]]''

which expands to:

''[[Endurance (1912 ship)|Endurance]]''

when the edit is saved, and displays as:

Endurance

Hope this helps a little. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes I know all about the pipe trick and that's what I resorted to, but it's so yesterday when the template exists! Has any thought been given to tweaking the template to fix this? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 14:12, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It should be possible to modify it to use an "if" statement to ignore the field if it contains "null" or some other chosen value to force it to be dropped ... or alternately to set an additional formatting parameter option that tells it to ignore anything in the first field. I probably can't work on it until later this weekend - if no one else gets to it, I'll take a closer look on Saturday or Sunday. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

According to the template, it should work. {{ship||Endurance|1912 ship|2}} gives Endurance. Mjroots (talk) 17:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I was sure I tried that, but thanks for the tip! Adding it to my snippets. – ukexpat (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for SM UB-14 now open

The A-Class review for SM UB-14 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox pirate ship

Given our drive to standardise all ship/boat articles to use Template:Infobox Ship Begin, one I've just stumbled across, Template:Infobox Pirate Ship, seems to have been missed. It transcludes onto only two articles (Queen Anne's Revenge and Fancy (ship)). Opinions on replacing it and subsuming its function to infobox ship begin? Benea (talk) 21:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

With only two articles using the template and that template does nothing but almost duplicate Infobox Ship Begin, I would say replace and delete. Of course we should work this out with the piracy project. --Brad (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

As a member of both the Piracy and Ships WikiProjects - I'd support replacing the Pirate Ship infobox with the standard ships one. There's nothing so distinctive about pirate ships that requires their own infobox, and there's not always agreement on what is' a pirate ship and what is just another vessel.

An example - the crew of my pet subject, the HMS Endeavour tooled about the Pacific taking land and objects from the natives and occasionally shooting at or kidnapping people. The increasingly leaky ship then sailed to America with a mass of heavily armed, bloodthirsty mercenaries ("yarrrrr"), was used a holding pen for shackled criminals and was eventually scuttled in a desperate attempt to blockade a bay. A pirate ship? Or as its more commonly seen, a legitimate exploratory vessel?

There's also nothing in the pirate ship infobox that can't be adequately conveyed using the standard ships one, so its existence is essentially a duplication. Euryalus (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd support replacing the Pirate infobox with the standard one. There is nothing in the Pirate infobox that cannot be represented with the standard box, with the possible exception of the 'Flag' and 'Battles' fields, and I'm sure that someone whose wiki-fu is greater than mine will find the way to fit them in as well. -- saberwyn 00:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no problems with using a standardized infobox... as Euryalus, it would help clear up confusion when it comes to the "was it or was is not a pirate ship?" debate... - Adolphus79 (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I've replaced the two instances with Infobox Ship Begin, what steps should now be taken with the currently unused Template:Infobox Pirate Ship? Benea (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say just redirect it to the standard infobox. That way if anyone anywhere has it bookmarked, they'll at least get to the correct infobox. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Importance ratings for shipyards

I notice that Brad is giving shipyard articles an importance rating of "Low". I just can't agree with this rating. While individual shipyards would not rate as high importance, they should be rated as at least as important as individual ships in my opinion, which get a Mid rating. Can we agree to rate shipyards as Mid importance?

Also, in our earlier discussion, we didn't get around to discussing marine engine building companies. I certainly think these companies would come under the purview of this wikiproject, and again I would suggest a "Mid" rating for these articles. Comments? Gatoclass (talk) 23:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd say that some of them could even rate as High - Harland & Wolff for example. The number and size of ships produced should have an influence here. Most would probably be Mid, some of the lesser ones may rate as low. Mjroots (talk) 08:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

British Shipbuilders was the entire nationalised British industry - I've just set it to mid.GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

We had a conversation recently about cruise ship operators which mostly applies to the ship building companies. This project is about ships and a ship building company is not a ship but it is ship related. Maritime Trades would likely rate a ship building company as high importance. --Brad (talk) 22:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how one can argue that a shipbuilding company, which is responsible for the existence of hundreds or even thousands of ships, can be less important than the individual ships it built. I think "mid" importance is the right rating for shipyards and marine engine manufacturers. Gatoclass (talk) 05:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Gatoclass, this is WP:SHIPS, not WP:SHIPBUILDERS. Our primary interest is in individual ships. Shipyards, marine engine builders, shipping lines etc are a secondary area of interest to this WP. A shipyard may well rate higher importance for other WPs than it would for this WP. Mjroots (talk) 10:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The subject of this Wikiproject is ships. People who are interested in "individual ships" are likely to be just as interested in topics like their design and construction. I can't think of a Wikiproject that is more relevant to such information than this one.

It's also counterintuitive to relegate articles about shipbuilders to "low" importance. People who look at these ratings are going to wonder how the heck a shipbuilding company that built hundreds of ships can be of "low" importance to this project. I think it's important that our ratings reflect such concerns, or we will have people changing the ratings as someone recently did with this article. Gatoclass (talk) 17:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Good topic nomination for "Yorktown class gunboats"

The following articles:

• Yorktown-class gunboat
• USS Yorktown (PG-1)
• USS Concord (PG-3)
• USS Bennington (PG-4)

are under consideration for Good Topic status. Interested editors may comment on the topic's entry at the Good Topic nominations page. — Bellhalla (talk) 10:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

That was good timing Bellhalla, you've managed to finish work on the Concord and Bennington shortly before my article on the shipbuilder will appear on DYK :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Empire ships

I'm pleased to announce that every one of the 1,367 Empire ships owned by the British Government that carried an Empire name now has a mention on Wikipedia. Mjroots (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Well done! Gatoclass (talk) 09:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a thousand or so articles to create on the individual ships now. Info in the various lists of Empire ships should give enough leads for seeking sources. I'm going to slow down on the ships for a little while, once I've covered those ships which were lost before they could be allocated an Empire name. Need to do more work on windmills and finish off bashing the Kent & East Sussex Railway article into shape. I'll work through the ships in due course but won't mind if others create a few of them. Mjroots (talk) 10:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Not much chance of that from this quarter at least since I have more than enough of my own projects in the pipeline to keep me busy. But it sounds as if you have laid much of the groundwork for others to make use of, if and when they can find the time :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Worthy of a well-deserved barnstar. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks :-) Mjroots (talk) 18:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

WWII convoy listings

The National Archives (UK) has recently improved their cataloguing of records of WWII convoys in the record series ADM 199, convoys are now searchable by ship name (escorts are not listed, any HM Ships shown were carrying some sort of cargo as well) and convoy number (no spaces or other separators are used), ports of departure and arrival may be given too, or there will at least be a general description such as UK to North Russia, dates of deaprture and arrival are also given. See for example a search for Empire Morn. Hope this may be of use to project members. I understand that the cataloguing team revisited all the original documents, and that the listings include all ships that sailed with a given convoy including those sunk or forced to retire (no indication of such fates is given in the catalogue), but not ships originally assigned to a convoy but which did not sail. David Underdown (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

FPC Battle of Scheveningen

Want to see one hundred ships on one single painting? Check this featured picture candidate: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Battle of Scheveningen. Rubenescio (talk) 21:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Possible error/request for eyes

Hi all, if someone knowledgeable on the topic of submarines/French submarines or otherwise with access to reference material on French submarines, could look over Talk:Surcouf_(N_N_3)#Suggested_change.2Ferror_fix and give their opinions/make any required edits, it'd be much appreciated.

Regards,
Daniel (talk) 08:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

DYK list

I'm finding it quite difficult to search this list since ship prefixes were ignored for the alphabetical sort. I found it much easier to read when all the "HMS" articles were together in one place, and the "USS" articles, and so on.

Anyone else having this problem? I think this is one list where the prefixes probably should be counted in the sort strings. Gatoclass (talk) 06:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Use of flags on early Canadian/BC ships

On Enterprise (1855) I changed the use of the old Canadian Red Ensign to the Union Jack, as the ship's lifespan was entirely within the timeframe of the Colony of British Columbia (give or take a month or two at the end of service); similarly on Beaver (steamship) I supplanted the HBC flag there, although much of its service was under contract to the Colony of VI, then to the Royal Navy, so maybe those flags shoudl be included; even in the Canadian period (1871-1888) of its service it was under contract to the RN, or remained in HBC service; on that page the modern Canadian red-and-white maple leaf had been in use; so I changed it. But looking up a few others via List of ships in British Columbia to spot other such irregularities, most of them have the Red Ensign (the ones I've looked at so far, other than the Beaver and �Entrerprise,were all Canadian-era, not colonial-era) but now I'm wondering if the Red Ensign is even correct; for pre-Statute of Westminster shipping anyway, i.e. ships still flew under the Union Jack, no? Or was there a commercial-use flag? Because wasn't the Red Ensign not even used on RCN ships but another version? Or just the Union Jack? In any case, in 19th Century ships I'm pretty sure the Union Jack is more appropriate; if somebody knows different, i.e. what such vessels actually flew, please speak up. Examples are Nechacco (sternwheeler) and Charlotte (sternwheeler).Skookum1 (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Also RMS vessels would have definitely flown the Union Jack rather than the Red Ensign, no? Or was there a special Royal Mail Service flag?Skookum1 (talk) 01:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The issue of flags at sea is rather complicated, and your post is a little confusing, but I'll try to set out what I think the situation is:

• Prior to 1864 a vessel flying a red ensign could either be a warship of the Royal Navy (it signified either it belonged to the red squadron of a fleet, or had not been assigned to a squadron), or a British merchant ship. After 1864 it seems that merchant vessels registered in Britain and the empire flew the red ensign, naval ships flew the white. The Canadian red ensign replaced the plain red ensign on Canadian registered vessels only in 1892.
• Royal Canadian Navy ships used the white ensign from their foundation as a separate entity to the Royal Navy, from 1911 until 1965 when it was replaced by the Canadian flag, and then the new Canadian naval ensign from 1968. They also flew a modified form of the blue ensign as a jack between 1911 and 1965.
• RMS vessels were treated the same as other merchants and would have flown the appropriate ensign according their country of registry and other conditions. Merchant vessels often flew house flags as well, which identified the shipping line the ship was owned by or was sailing for. The defaced red ensign you refer to as being used by the Hudsons' Bay Company appears to be a house flag rather than an identifier of nationality.
• The Union Flag is only flown in the navy at the jackstaff (when it becomes the 'Union Jack') on commissioned warships not underway, or on the masthead of the ship of the admiral of the fleet. I'm not certain of its status as regards merchant and private vessels. (see below)

In summary, the examples you refer to probably flew the plain red ensign. Benea (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Apparently non-naval vessels were forbidden to fly the Union Flag from the seventeenth century, and they remain forbidden to this day. The exception is the 'pilot jack', which contains the flag in a white border, but this has no official status. Therefore none of your ships would have flown this flag. Benea (talk) 03:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, my mistake, or rather in capitalizing Red Ensign I was meaning the pre-1967 Canadian national flag, the one with the escutcheon on the lower right; I forgot red ensign had (duh) a broader meaning in the Empire; in my Canadian schoolboy upbringing it meant "the old flag". I'm pretty sure I've seen an etching or photo of the Beaver with the HBC version of the red ensign, but that may be artistic embellishment by later painter/artist. HBC vessels were I suppose merchant vessels so the plain-jane (non-escutcheon) red ensign would apply....or do you know, perhaps, of any specifics of HBC insignia usage. There's another famous painting of Simpson's journey, there's a flag on the boat carrying him, I'll see if I can find it; but again, it could only be artistic interpretation/interpolation and not waht was actually in use. Also, the Beaver, as noted, was on-lease to the Royal Navy, from what date I'll have to consult that article; and this included, i think, post-1864...

• Yes, the HBC flag was a "house flag" as you call it - 'defaced" is an interesting term. While not a country, the HBC's trading area was larger than nearly any country of its day, and functioned as a country; I think it was flown over the forts, not sure again about its vessels.
• The Union Jack as I noted I put on Enterprise (1855) - sounds like it should be the plainjane red ensign instead, yes? I'll replace it with the Jack with the Ensign on that one, then....Thanks for the explanation, though I'm still uncertain of the Beaver and its sister the Otter and others like them, which were HBC vessels drafted into RN use; that began pre-1864, but extended some time after, I think. Few of the vessels I've noted so far were in service after 1892 ,but there might be some that bridge that divide - should their infoboxes have both flags, then?
• In the infobox "Career"/country spot a lot of these have "Canada" and I've been adding, as applicable, Colony of Vancouver Island and Colony of British Columbia; in t heory simply "Britain" and it woudl seem the colonial flags are irrelevant (the Colony of BC's was simply the Union Jack itself, though). Ship regsitry wasn't "Canada" until 1892, am I getting that right, i.e. prior to that registration was British, even after BC became part of Canada?

Probably still sounds confusing; I'm on painkillers from a tooth extraction tomorrow, I'll revisit this tomorrow and tidy up after myself (messy though I typically am anyway).Skookum1 (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That's all right, I wondered if something like that had happened. HBC vessels would presumably have flown both a house flag and the generic red ensign, though of course both were pretty similar. It may be that they only flew the house flag though, I've no idea as to the specific operation of that company. Defaced in this sense is a heraldic term, nothing derogatory is implied :) Many royals and nobles had 'defaced' coats of arms in order to identify them specifically from other branches of their family, so if it was good enough for them... Enterprise (1855) and Enterprise (1862) (you changed the latter rather than the former) would both have flown the red ensign, being pre-1892 merchant vessels. I'm not sure about the Royal Navy service of the other ships you've mentioned though. They don't appear in Navy lists, could they have just been operated under charter by the British government (i.e through the Admiralty?) With the infoboxes the convention with naval vessels has been to use the ensign they had when they left service. So if the ship left service prior to 1892, use the plain red ensign, if it left service after, use the Canadian red ensign. Nechacco (sternwheeler) and Charlotte (sternwheeler) use the Canadian, the Enterprises use the plain. As to registry, these ships were presumably registered in their particular Canadian colony, but this was all treated as part of the empire. I'd guess that the particular colony should be linked there for clarity, up until they become part of Canada, but I'm not entirely sure. For the most part though there was no real official distinction between a 'Canadian' ship and a 'British' ship, typified by the fact that they have the same ensigns up until 1892, when they receive an Admiralty warrant to use their own version. Benea (talk) 04:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

USCG Patrol Boat

The article USCG Patrol Boat, as written, refers to Island class cutters only. I would like to re-name this article "Island Class Patrol Boat". Are there any other suggestions or objections? Pustelnik (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the more proper name would be Island class patrol boat (noting the capitalization). — Bellhalla (talk) 17:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Rating glitches

Can someone please explain to me why the John Roach article, which has clearly been assessed as "B" class, keeps formatting to "Start" class?

This is not the first time I have experienced this apparent glitch, BTW. Gatoclass (talk) 01:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The 'structure' field in the checklist has been (rightly or wrongly) set to 'no'. With not all fields set as passing B class criteria, the template will not list it is as B class until all the criteria are fulfilled, no matter what you put in the main rating box. No glitch that I can see, unless I'm missing a deeper one? Benea (talk) 01:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

How did I miss that? I thought I checked those fields, I guess I didn't look hard enough.

I've reset the structure field to "y", although I agree the arrangement of the article is somewhat unusual, I felt it was the best way to present the material at the time. Possibly I might consider restructuring it at some stage, but I didn't want the narrative on his business career to be overwhelmed by the political intrigues. Gatoclass (talk) 01:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Turns out the assessor felt the intro was too long, but has changed his mind since, so no drama here. Gatoclass (talk) 13:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

On Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works why would you erase the assessment I did on 25 April? --Brad (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I added a number of new templates to a recent spate of articles I completed a few days ago. Since I added all the templates together as a cut-and-paste, I found it convenient to delete some existing templates in one or two instances. I didn't go right back and restore the assessments because they were coming up for appearance on DYK and I thought maybe someone else would save me the trouble, but that didn't happen, and I just haven't gotten around to restoring the old ratings or assessing the articles under the various wikiprojects myself yet.

In regards to the assessment you mention, as you know I disagree with the "Low" assessment for articles on shipbuilders in any case so I probably wouldn't be restoring that one anyhow. Gatoclass (talk) 04:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the "B" rating for the wpships template on that article. Apparently the software defaults to "start" if you don't fill in all the fields, even if you put "B" in the quality field. So even though I included a "B" it was defaulting to "Start". Gatoclass (talk) 04:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Orzel incident

I'm not sure if the page for the Orzel incident isn't a duplication of what was written on the page for the ORP Orzel. How do I nominate something for review? I looked at the page for doing that and I'm not sure where to begin. Thanks.Openskye (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

It's fairly normal for long sections to be spun out into separate articles if they unbalance the original article. In this case, there is an additional reason to make Orzel incident a separate article as it was apparently an important political event in its own right. So I don't see a problem here. Gatoclass (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Need article history merge

The edit history from USS Remlick (SP-157) needs to be merged into USS Remlik (SP-157) and then the article redirected to Remlik. There was a spelling error in the original article title and instead of renaming the article it was created anew. --Brad (talk) 06:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

It actually seems to be a duplicate article, not a copy and paste move. Since the content wasn't just copied over to a new page, there's no need for a history merge. I'll just redirect the incorrect title (Remlick) to the correct one. Parsecboy (talk) 10:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbuthnot (schooner)

I added info about a galley ship with refs eg London Gazette. Somebody removed the refs and left some info. Another person added a fact tag. I have put the link to the removed info on the talk page. But somebody else needs to sort this whole thing out. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

List of British Mark 8 Landing Craft Tank

A quick request for another opinion on List of British Mark 8 Landing Craft Tank. User:Medcroft has been adding some personal observations and commentary to this article based on his personal experience, and re-adds it if it is removed. He's getting mildly irritated about it as well if accusations of pedantry are anything to go by. Could some other editors confirm that this is not just me being a pedant or 'making hay'? (Since it's not summer I assume that's a negative comment, but I've never heard it before. Isn't wikipedia wonderful!) Benea (talk) 00:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I just removed the personal observations - these kind of comments clearly aren't suitable for articles. Nick-D (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the very swift action! Benea (talk) 01:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If he does it again, suggest that he leaves the comments on the talk page instead. They won't do any harm there, and it adds a little interest for anyone who happens to read the page. Gatoclass (talk) 14:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I suggested that to him, he didn't take it well. It's just as well I'm a new kid on the block, otherwise he might get pissed off with me and report me for vandalism. But things like this are not very encouraging. I hate to bother editors with better things to be doing... Benea (talk) 02:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

sb and r?

Anyone know what "sb" and "r" might stand for in regards to armament in a ship like this? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 14:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

From http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/abbreviations.htm (which they have "hidden" at the NHHC website): sb = smooth bore, and r = rifle (or rifled). — Bellhalla (talk) 15:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally for Alert, I think DANFS has a typo: the NavSource.org page lists the one gun as an 11-inch gun and not an 11-foot gun (as DANFS does). — Bellhalla (talk) 15:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that looked like a mistake to me too, but until I found out what "sb" stood for, I thought it might be best not to change it. Thanks for the assistance :) Gatoclass (talk) 03:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?

Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Doing away with importance ratings

A while back the subject was raised of doing away with the 'importance' ratings. Is it time to revisit that possibility? Are people on this project using the ratings in a meaningful way in their work? Benea (talk) 20:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I don't use the 'importance' ratings as a guide. I find that the interesting history of a ship along with the available information for expanding and improving its page are what helps me decide where to spend my time.Shinerunner (talk) 21:31, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes there was; I found the conversation in archived posts. There wasn't any consensus then either. But if the issue of what should be rated what continually comes up maybe we should think about getting rid of them. We really have better things to do than argue over importance ratings. --Brad (talk) 02:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of getting rid of them similar to MILHIST. What purpose do they serve? And why are they even needed? It just seems like necessary overhead that the project has to take care of... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I am alone in this, but I personally use (and like) the importance ratings. However I think a lot of that is because our assessment scale is very straightforward and does not require much (any?) subjective interpretation. — Kralizec! (talk) 03:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be in favour of getting rid of them... from my own point of view they don't serve any purpose. Martocticvs (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've got no objection to them being removed. Mjroots (talk) 10:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

←One thing to keep in mind is that the WikiProject Ships articles selected for the recent Wikipedia 0.7 release by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team were chosen, in part, based on importance ratings assigned by our project. (See archived discussion.) It's quite possible that future releases may be selected by this same method.

But personally, I agree with Kralizec!, that for the most part our importance scale is straightforward and easy to implement. Let's not let a minor quibble quash the whole system. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I kind of like the ratings myself, and I agree that for the most part they are straightforward. I wouldn't like to see them dumped just over some disagreement about what some particular topics should be rated as, because I think we ought to be able to come to an agreement over such topics. Although I concede some topics are rather difficult to decide upon, like articles about shipping lines. I do think however that ship/engine building cos. should generally be rated "Mid" unless they are minor companies, in which case they could be rated "Low". I don't see much reason to ever rate a shipbuilder as "high" importance because I don't think shipbuilding articles would qualify under the existing criteria. Gatoclass (talk) 23:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey uh do the ratings rate the pages amount of important information or does it rate how badly we need to fix it because if their is only one page one the subject then maybe we should get rid of them.ANOMALY-117 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC).

The importance ratings are for how important the article to the topic an article is. So, RMS Titanic would ovciously be a "top" importance rating, while 10. Unterseebootsflottille is "Low", since it's about a grouping of ships, not itself a ship. Parsecboy (talk) 20:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the importance ratings serve no useful purpose and should be removed. The ratings are obviously subjective and don't provide useful guidance for editors or Wikiprojects - I've seen articles on obscure patrol boats rated as 'high' importance and articles on capital ships rated as 'low' importance! Nick-D (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

While I do not agree that importance ratings are many more or less subjective than the quality ratings, your examples could well be correct. As per the assessment instructions, individual ships are typically given a "mid" level of importance. However an obscure patrol boat like PT-109 has has a "high" importance (no doubt due to the events following the destruction of the boat that made John F. Kennedy a war hero) while Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk (which would have been the first Soviet super carrier) is of "low" importance. — Kralizec! (talk) 15:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

i'm not a native english speaker so i just have to ask: what exactly does "doing away" mean? Loosmark (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the English euphemisms, Loosmark. To "do away" with something means to eliminate it, so the proposal was to get rid of the importance assessments. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

thank you. i suspected it means that but just wanted to be sure. i agree with those who wrote above that some of these importance ratings are a bit too subjective but on the other hand they don't disturb me in any way so importantance ratings or no importance ratings, both is fine with me. Loosmark (talk) 00:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Results so far

I'm winging it here but it seems that we have more editors saying that we should get rid of importance ratings and others that have no opinion either way. I see about 3 editors that think we should keep them. Perhaps a more formal vote would be in order? --Brad (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Yorktown class gunboat now open

The A-Class review for Yorktown class gunboat is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for USS West Bridge (ID-2888) now open

The featured article candidacy for USS West Bridge (ID-2888) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 17:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

List of aircraft carriers by country

in my opinion there is a big problem with the List of aircraft carriers by country and namely it includes all kind of seaplane cruisers, seaplane transports, "former sloops", "german tugs", seaplane carries (even those converted from merchants which is basicaly just adding a derrick to lift the seaplanes) and what not. what do all those vessels have to do with the aircraft carriers i don't know. therefore i plan to delete all vessels which aren't proper aircraft carriers, (those which don't have a flight deck and can't land or conventional aircraft). if anybody opposes this please comment. Loosmark (talk) 19:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

No complaints here. Too many of our list articles don't adhere to the topic they were designed for. --Brad (talk) 23:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Mostly Support. When I think of aircraft carrier, I think a ship designed primarily to launch and recover multiple fixed-wing aircraft from a flight deck, and operated as such. (taken from footnote I of HMAS Melbourne (R21)). However, sometimes the most literal definition of aircraft carrier, "a ship that carries aircraft" is taken. If the list was stripped down and reassembled to meet this or a similar definition of... lets call them 'conventional aircraft carriers'...and this definition was clearly listed at the top of the article, I would have no complaints. -- saberwyn 23:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the logical progression from seaplane carriers to full aircraft carriers as naval aviation developed is the reason why the two have been grouped together like this. To be honest though I don't really see a need for this. 'what do all those vessels have to do with the aircraft carriers i don't know' - well a seaplane carrier carries aircraft. 'Proper' aircraft carriers seems a subjective term, and since the list currently includes only a handful of seaplane carriers/tenders from three countries, Italy, France and Germany, I don't immediately see the point in splitting them out, though if you did you ought to group them in a new list of 'List of Seaplane carriers and tenders by country' to ensure this information is retained, not simply delete them. But returning to the point of semantics, I still think that many people will think of seaplane carriers and their ilk in the sense of aircraft carriers. List of battleships of the Royal Navy includes vessels that were classed as armoured frigates, but are included (and properly contextualised) to help readers understand the evolution and progression of ships. For the same reason I think seaplane carriers and tenders should be included in lists covering the development of naval aviation related ships. I think there should be either two lists, or one list with the wider context covered in detail. Benea (talk) 21:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I would happily support a separate list for seaplane carriers/tenders. -- saberwyn 21:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it is that there is a definite heirarchy. From the top:- Aircraft carriers (purpose built), escort carriers (converted merchantmen), aircraft ferries (converted merchantmen, relegated from escort carriers), CAM ships (merchantmen). I've a feeling that some German warships in WWII carried Arado floatplanes. I'd say that these were on the same level as CAM ships. Mjroots (talk) 05:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Benea i disagree with you. Proper aircraft carrier is not a subjective term, the definition of an aircraft carrier is clear and unambiguous, for example the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary: "aircraft carrier - a warship with a flight deck on which aircraft can be launched and landed." The free dictionary: "aircraft carrier - a large naval vessel designed as a mobile air base, having a long flat deck on which aircraft can take off and land at sea." Therefore all vessels without a flight deck who can't launch and land aircraft have no place on that list. (seaplane carriers, and all those aircraft transports, tugs and all that). When people think of aircraft carriers they usualy think of the most powerful ships of any Navy, vessels like USS Enterprise or the HMS Ark Royal and most certainly not about converted merchant aircraft trasports and things like that. Loosmark (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, the converted merchant escort carriers saw active service. they too were front-line vessels. Those that survived were later used as aircraft transports once new aircraft carriers had been built and entered service. Mjroots (talk) 07:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Mjroots sorry i maybe i didn't word my comments clearly, i don't think merchant escort aircraft carriers shouldn't be on the list, they had a flight deck, were able to launch and land conventional aircraft thus they were perfectly capable aircraft carriers. What i meant is those merchant seaplane carriers, tenders, tugs etc. etc. (look the section of the article about France and Germany). Loosmark (talk) 09:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

In that case, maybe a note in the lead that an aircraft carrier is defined as a ship with a flight deck that a non-VTOL fixed-wing aircraft can both land on, and take off from. That removes any arguement about ships that Harriers and helicopters can use. Mjroots (talk) 09:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

That would remove all the Royal Navy Illustrious class carriers, Also the Italian, Spanish, Thai modern ships, in fact all that would be left would be the French and USN. See Japanese seaplane carrier Wakamiya = Wakamiya was a seaplane carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the first Japanese aircraft carrier. Seaplane Carriers were all Aircraft Carriers remember this was 100 years ago when there were no Catapults and the only way to launch planes from the sea was by using seaplanes. I also remember reading about the Royal Navy launching attacks on Germany or Behind the German lines using Seaplane Carriers in World War I, and what about HMS Ark Royal (1914) She could carry five floatplanes and 2 normal aircraft. The latter would have to return to land after launch, but the seaplanes could take off over the bow and land in the water alongside the carrier, before being lifted back onboard by the cranes --Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The HMS Illustrious (R06) is classed by the RN as a light aircraft carrier, and does seem to have a flight deck in the Gulf photo (also a "ski jump"?), though nothing in the article about what planes are carried. Re the HMS Ark Royal (1914), WWII battleships like the HMS Prince of Wales (53) with catapults for seaplanes which landed on the water and were hoisted back on board, they were not regarded as carriers. Hugo999 (talk) 14:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Good topic nomination for "Tucker class destroyers"

The following articles:

• Tucker-class destroyer
• USS Tucker (DD-57)
• USS Conyngham (DD-58)
• USS Porter (DD-59)
• USS Wadsworth (DD-60)
• USS Jacob Jones (DD-61)
• USS Wainwright (DD-62)

are under consideration for Good Topic status. Interested editors may comment on the topic's entry at the Good Topic nominations page. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)