WikiProject Ships/Archive01 |
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This archive page covers approximately the dates between January 2004 and April 2005.
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Please add new archivals to 23:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
=List of United States submarine classes=
I ve got a question about the annotation format I m using at 05:27, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
=List of fleets=
I added a 17:57, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
:Good idea, there s a bunch of un-indexed historicals randomly scattered about, like 19:46, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
=Templates for ship articles=
Noting the above type of message, I would suggest that creating MediaWiki messages for ship classes would be an excellent idea. I m going to try it out using the Iowa class ships. 20:50, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thinking again, DANFS as a source is another very good thing for a custom message. 20:54, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There are now a couple of MediaWiki message elements for classes of ships. It would be nice if someone listed them all on this page, or a subpage. (See the page for countries for an example of what I mean: .)
:There are more than a couple. I ve covered every British and American dreadnought battleship class, all British and American fleet and light fleet aircraft carriers, and a few others besides. Still, a list of them doesn t seem unreasonable. 21:20, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
::I saw that you added the page. Excellent. How do you feel about actually including the footers themselves That makes it easy to compare the formatting, etc. Also it lets you admire your handiwork. 
-- 22:58, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Is there anywhere where official template ship data tables are kept / discussed I see them on numerous pages but I can t find the source. 06:30, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
:I m not sure if i m too late, but the tables are located at 19:00, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
::That s not strictly true. It is true that my page has the most blank ship tables around (varying only by the ensign/jack they have at the top, apart from the Military Sealift Command one which has cargo capacity as an additional row). However, I did not create that table design originally. I merely went round various articles and saw the tables, and created templates in one place which is convenient to me. I also saw the table list on the 06:20, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
=Infoboxes=
The guys at 19:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
=Distinguishing ships of same name=
Recommend the following hierarchy for ship name disambiguation: # Designation and hull number (i.e., BB-64) # Launch year (if known) # Purchase year (if known) # Commissioning year (if known) # Year of first action
= Paddle steamer Waverley =
having come across this missing page, I ve put some effort into filling the need and have taken care to use the title Waverley (boat) already on the disambiguation page. The result has an inelegant and inappropriate title at the top - the P.S. Waverley is referred to as a ship, but never as a boat. Ian McCrorie s Clyde Pleasure Steamers uses ship or steamer throughout, with the sole exception (at a quick glance) of The teetotal boat Ivanhoe (1880), and even this he refers to in the text as a ship or as a steamer. As it would also simplify typing links ( 07:23, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
:The old saw about boats fitting in ships but not ships in boats suggests ship rather than boat . Any of 12:49, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
:: Thanks for the advice - page moved to 20:13, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
= How to handle templates/messages for 2 classes of Farragut destroyers =
I ve got a list of 8 WWII Farragut -class destroyers (starting with 19:59, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
:Categories win! Checking 21:01, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
::Huh. didn t even know about to point to the (1958) template, there is a redirect at the old template page. How should we disambiguate the templates Just using a disambig message in the Template pages will cause the disambiguation message to be included in every ship page that includes the template, which could be confusing.
:::I don t think you can disambig the templates, in fact 15:46, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
= Categories =
The project page needs some advice on how to categorize ships and other vessels. By nationality By type By function By period 15:29, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)
:Why, all of them, of course! 1/2 Type/function is probably the main system of subcategories, nationality is for mainly for naval ships and nicely subdivides some large categories ( US destroyers ). Period I think is a little shakier to define - do you want to list Constitution as a WWII-era ship because she happened to be afloat and in commission at the time I ve not been so keen on categories for each class of warship, that makes for very small and 1-member categories, which isn t so useful. 14:05, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::That s sensible advice, but you need some recommendations on the 08:12, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)
:::Yup, it s getting to be about time to codify. I ll add something for people to take potshots at.
Another idea - for ship classes that are big enough to have had a Template footer designed for them, the category can be included in the footer and therefore automatically be placed on the relevant pages. I ve done this with the 03:14, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I like the idea of a catagorization in the ship footer template. One less thing to remember to add. Concur that class of ship is a less useful catagory - besides, it s already a class and we have a lot of good info on that already. Prefer not to do the period, as previously noted, some ships are long-lived. Important to remember that some ships will be in multiple catagories as they have been converted (destroyer to tender to transport). What about early vessels, which are schooners, brigs and the like
:The trouble with putting the category in the template is that the article won t alphabetize in the right place. 08:12, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)
::Templates can have parameters now... 13:23, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I ve added a first draft of a categorization policy - it doesn t cover all the subcategories yet, so needs a little expansion still. 14:08, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:So to clarify how the subcategories interact, should
::Yes, that seems logical. 05:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:Also, it seems to me that if there s a 01:44, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::Yeah, that s the little expansion that I m now too bleary-eyed to work on tonight. There a couple things to resolve, like whether to prefer Royal Navy battleships vs British battleships and so forth. 05:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::: 06:05, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::::Yup. Amusingly, we seem to have 13:46, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:::::Any objections by anyone to my gradually moving all US naval subcategories to United States Navy and British subcategories to Royal Navy -- 04:05, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:::::: While most subcats in US naval could be moved, the category needs to remain since US naval should include US Navy, US Coast Guard, US Revenue Cutter Service. 15:16, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::::: Don t forget the 21:20, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::: That is also true of the British subcategory. Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Merchant Fleet Auxiliary ships are just as much naval ships as Royal Navy ships. 17:43, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:On a separate issue, can we agree to use United States or US or U.S. - we have dup ed categories because of this. Personally, I like the unambigious United States It also helps in alphabeticizing with United Arab Emirates and the like. 15:16, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
==Categories for ships and boats==
I m sure that this has been discussed before, but I think it s worth revisiting. The category hierarchy under 08:43, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)
:I discussed this with 16:57, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::Categories can t be redirected at present. I agree that Water vessels is not the way to go; indeed it would be nice to cut out that layer of the category hierarchy altogether. The Chambers English Dictionary gives any floating craft as the third meaning of ship so I suggest using 17:38, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)
:::Dinghies as a subcategory of ships People would look at us funny. But seriously, I think that even though the ship/boat distinction in categories looks untidy, it will correspond better with what editors are thinking when they go to assign categories. 05:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:What about submarines I know that they re generally boats in the parlance of most (all) navies, but will people look for them there -- 06:05, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:: . If the consensus is to separately classify ships and boats, I m happy to go along with that. But it would be a shame if the distinction started to replicate itself all the way down the hierarchy: Museum boats , British boats , US naval boats , US naval boats of World War II , etc. (It might not happen because there are so few notable boats, but it only takes one to make a category.)
:::Submarines are called boats by tradition, probably because the earliest ones were boat-sized - crews of 10, etc. Having them as a subcat of boats isn t critically necessary, but is a handy bit of navigation for someone who s unsure. 13:30, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::Anyway, I tidied out 09:22, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)
:::OK by me. 13:30, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Agreed: Having tried out Water vessels it s turned out to be an ugly answer to this problem which was discussed under . Merging ships and boats is my preferred option; logically Boats might be the better main heading, but Ships is more complete and already has too many layers of sub-sub-categories. Noting that the Chambers definition supports Ships as the parent category, here are my suggestions: # Delete Category:Water vessels : first re-categorise any pages or categories directed to it. # Change the parent category of Boats to Ships , and add a redefinition of what boats includes - or delete boats as above. Boats could be restricted to be small vessels - but this invites hidden sub-categories, which should be avoided... # Avoid hidden sub-sub-categories. It s not intuitive to look for submarines under Ships by type , especially when other ship types are on the main level. For the uninitiated the category structure is a hindrance: at present you can go layers down to find one article. My preference would be to have all main types on the top layer as a sub-category of ships. A workaround would be to have a list with the heading giving links to hidden categories, but this would have to be manually updated. # Accept that articles can have a use for more than one category. Scottish steamships is useful for relating their history to Category:Scotland , but irrelevant to Category:Ships where they belong in Steamships without further sub-categorisation. # Wherever appropriate, try to get articles off Ships main page and into appropriate sub-categories: there are a whole lot of USS ships which presumably should be under naval ships somewhere. Take these as ideas from a beginner with a pay-per-minute dial-up connection and a preference for not having to click a lot of times to find what you want - 12:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:Just want to second about layers of subcategory - to me the ideal size of a category is 30-60 articles, basically a screenful. If the Peruvians only ever had one battleship, say, it s not an affront to national honor just to leave the article in )
::I d still make a case for (hypothetical category) Peruvian battleships . One feature of the Category system that seems sadly under-utilised is the way that Category pages can hold links to provide additional navigation through the tree. So the Peruvian battleships Category page could hold links to other nations battleships - and better still, this could be implemented with a Template. To see an example of what I m talking about, see 23:12, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Responding to Dave souza: # Agree. Done. # Agree. (But not done yet.) # Disagree. We have at least four schemes for categorizing ships: by type (schooners, submarines), by era (American Civil War, World War II), by nationality (French ships, Spanish ships), and by miscellaneous attributes (Museum ships, shipwrecks). It seems wrong to me to lump these schemes together, so that Shipwrecks are next to Spanish ships and Sloops. In particular if they were all moved up to for another subject area organized like this. # In the particular case of Scottish steamships I am neutral, but I disagree in general. I think it needs to depend on the relative sizes of the categories. If there are only 10 steamships it makes little sense to further categorize them, but if there are 100 steamships I think it does, in which case Scottish might be a sensible sub-category. # Agree. But someone has to do the work! I moved about 50 articles out of and into the right place. Maybe you can help with the rest 15:18, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the progress. :::3. this is something I d like to look at and think about, but to me it s not intuitive at the moment: for example, why naval ships and not merchant ships I ll have to work at understanding this. :::4. in the particular case, Queen Marys (2 of them) are tucked away in Scottish steamships because of relevancy to Scottish history, but other RMS s are on the main list: for general users I d think RMS, PS etc. are better subdivisions. I didn t set up Scottish steamships , and have wondered if Scottish ships will work better for Category:Scotland . If you don t mind, I ll think it over and perhaps add categories to these articles. :::5. will do. The weekend phone rates are cheaper, will tackle some then. ::: p.s. there may be more boats around than some expect: I m just thinking about doing articles about some puffers and the Vital Spark - the smertest boat in the tred - 22:03, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:::3. Era can sometimes be harder to define, since the career of a naval vessel may span several major conflicts and it might be better to leave this as a secondary classification that could be added if and when relevant. On the other hand, it could be arbitrarily set as the decade of the ship s launch or commissioning (French destroyers 1930-1939). In either case, it could converge at Ships by era or Naval ships by era .
:::I think it s probably best for Miscellaneous attributes to remain directly under ships - it s better than Ships by miscellaneous attributes :)
::: Merchant ships would make a logical parallel Category branch. -- 23:35, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::::Better move fast then - 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:*back to 2. - having looked through the ships sub-categories, I now feel that Boats should become a sub-category of Ships , and should continue to contain sub-categories of anything people might go to Boats for, thus giving an alternative route to the categories for canal boats, submarines, tugs, corvettes etc. as well as dinghies and rowing boats. In addition, Categories: Boat types and Ship types should also appear as sub-categories of Ships . Any comments By the way, Category:Scottish ships fits nicely into Category:Scotland and Category:British ships (under Ships by nationality ), and it s my intention to move the articles over from Category:Scottish steamships shortly. Merchant ships seems well enough covered in Ships by type - 20:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
==Proper sorting==
Since many ships with the same names are also the same types of ships (i.e., all Whipple s are destroyers), to ensure they are properly sorted, I suggest that we use the pipe trick and number each ship. So the first Whipple would be Category:U.S. Navy destroyers|Whipple 1. The second Whipple would be Whipple 2. This works even if the names jump ship type, when they are of the same era. Unless anyone objects, I ll add this standard to the Project page.
:That s certainly workable. Another trick is to add leading zeros, since lexigographic sort on DD-069 and DD-217 does what you want, when just DD-69 would not. 05:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Renamed/reflagged ships =
HI I was wondering the best way to name ship pages. Some ships have several pages for themselves because they changed name. This seems rather.... silly really. If a ship spent say, 3 years in a particular navy, and with a particular name, why have a whole page just for that all the stuff on that page is going to be repeated on the previous name and future name pages for that ship, and users will have to click through 3 pages to read the whole history of the ship, and they ll end up reading parts of it 3 times (maybe even with discrepencies). I don t see the point. If ship name 1 was renamed to ship name 2, put it on page ship name 1 under its original country, and link all mentions of the ship under any name to that. that page will have the whole history of the ship. no repetition necessary :). Is there an actual reason for doing it the current way It s not like users won t realise that the ship has changed names. 12:07, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:If anybody s interested, I put in my 2c on the subject at 14:05, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
= More categorization =
A couple fine points of categorization: I d like us to standardize on U.S. Navy for all subcats of (surprise) U.S. Navy ships, because for some types the spelled-out name is unduly long, and it s helpful to editors to be consistent so they can type without doing a lookup first. Also, I d like to have a general rule that small ship classes don t get their own subcategories, require about a minimum of 8-10 vessels to justify a dedicated category. 14:43, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
: As I stated earlier, I prefer United States to US. I always end up looking up whether its US , U.S. or U. S. -- Or we could skip this entirely and use American , but that will only get us into another mess. :On the idea of ship classes, I like using them no matter what the size of the class. It s a useful category even if its small. However, I ve been thinking about not using the ship class as mutually exclusive of the larger category. So, for example, USS Wickes would be in both the Wickes class category and in the USN destroyer category. I know that this type of thing would be helpful to me as I m looking up a ship - or is that what the list is for Thoughts 15:59, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:: 21:34, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::So far, 23:58, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::Start from 03:57, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::Also see 04:02, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::Why keep United States Navy and not United States Navy ships It seems to me to be basically the same thing. It s also a question of which is more important: brevity or accuracy Technically, United States Navy is the correct term, but U.S. Navy is an acceptable abbreviation. Is shortening the category names by nine characters worth the (admittedly small) loss of accuracy in nomenclature
::::In many cases, the confusion arises because Americans are expected to use adjectives other than American —but editors do not consistently use United States , U.S. , or US , because none of these is the standard designation. (Admittedly, this is not really relevant to the military categories, since the actual names realy are United States Navy , etc., but it does explain some of the confusion under 13:58, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::: U.S. is a completely accurate substitute for United States , in fact the USN style guide mentioned in another discussion below specifically allows U.S. as an equivalent adjective. So I don t think it s any kind of a tradeoff between brevity and accuracy. If there are no downsides, brevity is preferable, especially for repetitious things like categories, which are gradually creeping across the bottoms of articles... 01:01, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::I still prefer United States at least for the parent category as another parent that includes U.S. ships that aren t Navy), but I m okay with U.S. so long as:
::::::# It is U.S. and not US , and
::::::# I don t have to do the massive re-categorization that would be necessary.
::::::I tend to prefer 04:25, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I moved everything to 19:37, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
= Navyphotos images =
on images from http://www.navyphotos.co.uk and removing them from articles on the grounds that their permission is too restrictive.
What, exactly, is the permission given for those photos. I had assumed that they were in the category Free use if credit is given since that was how I read the statement in this WikiProject, but he is stating that the permission was Wikipedia-only and thus unacceptable. It states that has the permission letter; could this be obtained to place on Wikipedia and answer definitively
It seems to me that most of the photos there are expired of copyright anyway. Crown copyright in such photos is 50 years from publication. 21:14, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
:I was only repeating what it says on 05:38, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC) P.S. In each case I think the replacement is more interesting as well as having a more certain copyright status.
=Merchant Ships=
As a new contributor I have a few queries and requests. *What category do the WWII MARAD vessels (Liberty ships, Victory ships, Tankers, etc) fall under *What Ensigns, Jacks, Pennants, and Other Vexillologs would the War Shipping Administration ships use *On a similar subject how about the Category for the US Navy Armed Guard and the Britishs DEMs *Where would the WWII Merchant Marine medals go. Some have the same names as military decorations. *I have hardcopy of a great number of the WWII era house flags for various shipping companies, but no talent for producing digital images from them. Any suggestions *I have put up two pages on Liberty ships, SS John W. Brown and SS Henry Bacon. I would appreciate any comments on style, layout etc before continuing with my notes on about 200 more Libertys. Thanks 04:09, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You ll need to make new categories for those ships, perhaps something like . :I would like to add my info on the ships built under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. The vessels include American, British and other WWII allies. The ship were built between 1936 and 1952. Can you suggest a concise Category 02:17, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Comments on style, layout etc: #No need to use thumbnail style images within information boxes. #If you format dates according to then they will adapt according to users preferences. #Give metric conversions for measures in US customary units. #No need to repeat the ship prefix: USS Foo on first mention, thereafter just Foo . #Once you ve added something to because the category hierarchy represents the fact that all World War II American ships are American ships I made these changes for .
With regard to house flags for shipping companies, [http://www.fotw.net/ Flags of the World] has many. See for example [http://www.fotw.net/flags/us~hf.html]. You might not need to scan any of the ones you have. 05:22, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)
:Any US-flagged ship, whether merchant or naval uses the same jack. British-flagged merchant ships would use the red ensign. 18:04, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have a couple more questions. 02:17, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC) *I have added an article under MS Bloemfontein Castle. I sailed as a crew member and all my documents call it the MV Bloemfontein Castle. I recall that all large British motor ships of that era used the MV designation. Should this be changed If so, how do I do it *If I create a category, should it be Motorships, Motor Vessels, Diesel Ships, Oil Ships or what
= The before the ship s name =
:Unless merchant ships are fundamentally different from warships, the ship should be referred to as John W. Brown not the John W. Brown . The exception is when an adjective is used, the first John W. Brown or the merchant John W. Brown . Or a noun follows the John W. Brown commander or the John W. Brown hull , although these are more commonly rendered the commander of John W. Brown . 20:33, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:I have been reading about ships for some 40 plus years now. The only time I have seen the rule regarding the use of an article before the ship s name was in a US Navy handbook concerning the proper wording of invitations to launching ceremonies. See: 22:02, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::The U.S. Navy Style Guide [http://www.news.navy.mil/tools/view_styleguide.aspsort=S 1] specifically states Do not use the in front of a ship s name: USS San Jose, not the USS San Jose. Of course, as I mentioned above, merchant ships might be different. 23:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::I d like to know if this is just a USN idea or what - I don t have any style guides that address the subject. We don t actually have to follow USN style, even for articles about USN subjects, because we re a global encyclopedia with our own style guide and not a branch of the US govt - for instance, the USN guide has rules regarding foreign navies , which is sort of a meaningless concept in WP. Also, check out the USN rules for Arabian Gulf vs Persian Gulf , hee hee. 00:43, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::I would certainly not put the before the names of RN ships, and I ve adopted the same principle when writing here about German and Austro-Hungarian ships ( 01:08, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::::Seems not to be agreement among the pros - flipping through the Oxford illustrated RN history (written by various specialists ca 1995) in my lap, I see towing away the Royal Charles (p. 72), The Asia , a new and very heavily armed ship (p. 168), introduction of the Dreadnought in 1905 (p. 201), Meanwhile the Emden was pursuing (p. 300). On the other hand, Only Tirpitz remained (p. 372), the WWII section (by Eric Grove) being consistent that way, but then the Belgrano was sunk (p. 396). One gets the impression that Oxford s editors were not too concerned about this point of style when assembling the book. 03:09, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::Is it okay if I just don t like the in front of a ship s name Do we have to have official style guides from all the nations navies After all, only rarely am I called the Jinian . 17:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::::::I personally don t care much either way, but our options are to define a house rule and allow editors to enforce it on articles at will, or to not define a rule, and leave articles in the style in which they were originally written. I wouldn t want to not define a house rule *and* allow editors to edit to their personal taste, because that makes for silly edit wars. If we have a house rule, it should be WP-wide and not be per-navy, civilian-only, or whatever - consider that it also affects usage in WP articles not primarily on nautical subjects, so everybody will need to be informed of the rule. That s why I asked about style guides - if we go advertising a rule to all editors, we want to forestall debate by saying how it compares with the advice found in the standard style guides. 02:08, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::::For what it s worth, using the before a proper noun sounds funny but before a common noun sounds natural. Thus, I naturally say I went to sea in Ohio — no, not the battleship, the submarine Ohio . -- 13:53, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::::: Okay, then, unless anyone objects, let the house rule say no the . I ll wait a week for objections and then move this to the main page, as well as mention it in the naming conventions article. 17:54, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::::::::: Did you do the style guide research then If Fowler or some such says to use the , and your defense is the USN style guide, you re risking a huge flamefest about attempts to force Americopedia , etc etc. It s one thing to discuss with the five people in this little corner of WP, and another to get the attention of the thousand 6th-grade English teachers that make up the main body of editors. Hopefully I m just being overcautious, but bigger debates have erupted over smaller issues, and an hour in the library should give you the shell-fired guns you need to defend against the slings and arrows of disbelieving editors. (I can get to library myself on 10/31, but not before.) 22:22, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
::::::::::: I meant to get to the library and check Fowler tonight, but didn t. The online guides I ve found do not address this issue specifically. I m not in any real hurry, so will either check next week or trust your research on this. 02:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:::::::::::: to the English teacher: Mrs Grundy, ships are the tool most anthropomorphized by Anglo-Americans. What other inanimate object is so consistently female Accordingly, she is spoken of as if she were a person. One doesn t use the definite article before a person s name, does one
::::::::::::: Not unless it s the Fonz or the Donald . 15:19, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I did actually get to the library, but the only statement I found on the subject was in somebody s massive tome on English grammar. The learned discussion of the went on for some pages, and was quite entertaining. There are three categories of usage; obligatory, disallowed, and optional, not always obvious why one is one category or the other. For instance, compare I went to see the Great Salt Lake to I went to see Great Salt Lake - the latter makes it sound like one was at a concert by an obscure band. Conversely I went to Clear Lake sounds right, while I went to the Clear Lake suggests there are several, and that you have a particular one in mind. Anyway, after all that, ships and planes were put in the typically used category, with examples of the Victory and the Spirit of St. Louis , along with a note especially if they are famous . My takeaway is that we have a free hand to decide on style, and that USN guide is sufficient to tip us towards omitting the when possible. 04:15, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:I don t think there is a hard and fast rule here, the inclusion of the definite article depends on the context of the sentence you are writing. As most ships are named after other things, it is necessary to precede the name with a The in order to make the reference clear. However, you can also make the reference clear by using a Ship prefix. Once you have established the context, you can (optionally) drop the definite article for further references, but would use it again if you had spent a paragraph or two talking about something else. When a ship is named after a person or place you will need the definite article, or another disambiguating phrase, more frequently. :So in the case of HMS Hood, I would open the article with HMS Hood was.. later on I might discuss a naval battle as Hood sighted the Bismark coming over the horizon and opened fire. Bismark was quick to respond... . As I haven t discussed the Bismark before it needs the definite article, but after that I can drop it. :Now lets say I go over to the and drop in the question. :: What was the length of Hood :Without a context, the question doesn t make sense. If I ask What was the length of the Hood , there is a chance someone will understand. With What was the length of HMS Hood I m nearly in the clear, but since several naval vessels bore that name, I really need further qualification What was the length of the WWII battlecruiser HMS Hood . :For a ship such as The Mary Rose, I will nearly always need the The . Even after referring to the ship several times and staying in a naval context, if I write Mary Rose sailed from Southampton to Calais you can t help but think about a woman making a journey. Similarly, referring to USS Ohio is not a problem, but later writing Ohio was torpedoed will always be confusing whilst The Ohio was torpedoed isn t. :Where a name has become synonymous with a ship, and that ship alone, you can get away with dropping the definite article more often, even on its first use. Back at the Reference Desk I could reasonably ask :: What was the length of Titanic :But I couldn t complain if I got the reply 3 hours 14 minutes . Even so, I would suggest the Titanic article should go back to using The Titanic... more often. :I suspect the U.S. Navy Style Guide has been taken out of context, making it appear too prescriptive. When it says Do not use the in front of a ship s name , it is in relation to using the USS ship prefix and to the initial mention of a ship. Note that in almost the next paragraph that manual uses a the to clarify the colloquial name of a ship, USS LaSalle (AGF 3), the Great White Ghost, sailed into San Diego . -- 10:24, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:: Could it be somehow different in American English than in regular English (just an idea...) ::At least in French, the names of the ships are always preceeded by Le or La , even though the article is not part of the name itself (for instance, 13:35, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:::First references should always use the prefix (SS George Washington , HMS Hood , HMS Bismarck ). :::Second references to the ship has the name distinquished either with italics or capitals. So, Ohio was torpedoed or Mary Rose sailed or (in the case of the USN) LASALLE entered San Diego harbor . Reading an article about USS Ohio or any naval article, and reading Ohio was torpedoed shouldn t cause any confusion.
If we take a look at the dictionary (www.dictionary.com) definition for the :
# ## Used before singular or plural nouns and noun phrases that denote particular, specified persons or things: the baby; the dress I wore. ## Used before a noun, and generally stressed, to emphasize one of a group or type as the most outstanding or prominent: considered Lake Shore Drive to be the neighborhood to live in these days. ## Used to indicate uniqueness: the Prince of Wales; the moon. ## Used before nouns that designate natural phenomena or points of the compass: the weather; a wind from the south. ## Used as the equivalent of a possessive adjective before names of some parts of the body: grab him by the neck; an infection of the hand. ## Used before a noun specifying a field of endeavor: the law; the film industry; the stage. ## Used before a proper name, as of a monument or ship: the Alamo; the Titanic. ## Used before the plural form of a numeral denoting a specific decade of a century or of a life span: rural life in the Thirties. # Used before a singular noun indicating that the noun is generic: The wolf is an endangered species. # ## Used before an adjective extending it to signify a class and giving it the function of a noun: the rich; the dead; the homeless. ## Used before an absolute adjective: the best we can offer. # Used before a present participle, signifying the action in the abstract: the weaving of rugs. # Used before a noun with the force of per: cherries at $1.50 the box.
-- 07:26, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:Whilst checking a range of internet references to compare the frequency of Mary Rose vs The Mary Rose , I ve noticed a trend that suggests the tendancy to drop the the increases with naval history web sites. The majority, including [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/mary_rose_01.shtml the BBC] and the official [http://www.maryrose.org/ www.maryrose.org] site prefer The Mary Rose . On the other hand, the [http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/3510.html Royal Navy site] initially tries to stick to Mary Rose but soon reverts to using The Mary Rose . The website for [http://www.flagship.org.uk/welcome.html Portsmouth historic dockyard] manages to consistently refer to Mary Rose and includes a matching usage from the ship s log. Unfortunately they get so carried away they also say Visit Mary Rose shop for a superb... , but in that sentence Mary Rose is an adjective for the shop and so its totally wrong drop the the . :If the trend is for more technical or more military sources to loose the definite article, it would explain why some editors here believe it is correct. However, Wikipedia is addressing a more general audience, so I think would be more appropriate to include the the more often, and certainly wrong to remove it systematically. -- 08:31, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Italian Navy =
;Is there a prefix for Italian Navy ships E.g. INS Whatever ; 20:52, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I ve seen RN used for ships of the Kingdom of Italy, e.g. RN Dante Alighieri , Italy s first dreadnought. Presumably RN stands for something like Regia Nautica . -- 21:19, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As far as I know, there s no standard prefix for ships of the Italian navies. Some authors do use RN for ships of the 22:28, 2004 Nov 7 (UTC)
= DANFS =
I wrote some notes on DANFS conversions at 14:46, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)
: I like it. Nice job. Can you include some suggestions for other sources though I find myself Googling and have no idea as to the veracity of the sources I discover. 11:47, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Ship class footers =
These seem to get quite big when ships are sold from one navy to another. I found that I had made 22:20, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)
: Why do multiple entries, when the same ship changes navies You can leave the history to the page or pages about the ship. In some cases the second navy gives the ship a new class as well as a new name, e.g. the ) | ... : 00:29, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::A good question. I was following what appeared to be the standard format for these boxes, for example 01:06, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
:::I ve tried not to reproduce ships unnecessarily. Where there are vessels that have served in different navies, I only tend to list them only if new. For example, the 22:51, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::A reason for listing each ship once for each navy it served in is that otherwise it seems very likely that someone will be offended: My father served on a Colossus -class carrier in the Argentine Navy and I don t see it here. (I don t know whether this is a good enough reason to fully populate these boxes.) 23:36, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
I made some proposals at 18:47, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
:I illustrated some of the proposals using the Flower-class corvettes (only the first 215, not the revised ones). I think the lesson is that a ship class box is inappropriate for such large ship classes and that a simple link to an overview article containing a list is fine. As for smaller classes, I m still not sure. 00:25, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)
= Existence and naming of disambiguation pages =
(I split the discussion that started below into several parts because there are several issues here — 14:44, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC))
The whole situation is a mess and needs cleaning up. I see we have three pages that list ships of this name: 22:52, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
Ditto. There are just not very many situations where one is interested in the aggregate of vessels that happen to have the same name. I m all for experiments, but unilateral repudiation of the standard used for what is now hundreds of ship articles is just not a winning strategy. 01:13, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is not as you characterise it a wholesale repudiation of anything. The article 08:14, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
:I haven t touched Ships named Nautilus because I don t want to get into an edit war, but I did edit all the other Nautilus articles to put them into the currently accepted format for ship articles, and I redirected Nautilus (submarine) to Ships named Nautilus, moved several of the articles to their preferred name according to , and expanded Nautilus (1800). I cut the duplicated material about the origin of the name Nautilus and see also list from each ship s article, replacing it with a link to the ovierview article. It s not a good idea to have text duplicated like this between lots of articles because it makes it hard to keep up to date. If you feel that each ship article needs boilerplate, then make a template.
:I don t object to having pages disambiguating between all the ships with a name (regardless of nationality or navy), at least for certain famous and notable names like Nautilus . 14:44, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
I m only going to address one of these things at a time.
...First (moved to #Contents of ship name pages below)
...Second, what naming convention specifically are you using, when you name articles People keep referring to naming conventions, but nothing I read in says that ships should all be called USS .
...Third (moved to #Contents of ship name pages below)
...Fourth, show me the convention where it says all disambiguation articles are to start with USS.
...Fifth, what is the convention that says ships should be referred by the incorrect prefix, in other words, what is the justification for calling a ship USS Something when the ship didn t exist at any point in time after the prefix USS started being used. (covered at #Backdating ship prefixes below)
I m not moving on to the next section until we settle what s in this section, since I think that once this is discussed here a lot of the other stuff will be moot. 06:21, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)
:There is no convention that all disambiguation articles should start with USS . This is a misunderstanding on your part (and possibly on the part of some other people). Perhaps this misunderstanding is at the heart of your disagreement with the project
:This is my understanding of the current disambiguation convention and why it is like it is: (1) Many ship names are repeated, hence the need for disambiguation pages. (2) Ship names are generally repeated within a navy and not between navies. So all the Sheffields are in the Royal Navy, all the Samuel B. Roberts are in the United States Navy, all the Karel Doormans are in the Royal Netherlands Navy and so on. (3) Within a navy, some things are passed between namesakes: documents, battle honours, flags, etc. (4) So for most names, it is most appropriate to disambiguate that name in the context of a navy, that is it make sense to disambiguate at USS Samuel B. Roberts and not at Ships named Samuel B. Roberts (similarly, it make sense to disambiguate at HMS Sheffield and HNLMS Karel Doorman). (5) This also usefully catches the very common case where someone forgot to disambiguate and just wrote USS Samuel B. Roberts.
:However, for famous ship names which are shared between navies , or which are used by notable civilian ships , then I completely agree that a disabiguation page is appropriate. Certainly Nautilus and Enterprise fall into this group, and many other famous names, e.g. Alabama , Queen Mary , Queen Elizabeth , etc etc.
:We should work out the best way to do this. I think it would be best to follow the ordinary Wikipedia disambiguation rules, so that the Enterprises would be disambiguated at 11:41, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)
=Contents of ship name pages=
(I refactored the section above to separate this issue. 11:41, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC))
My personal preference is for lists of ships to be short indexes, like 22:52, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
:and it is not about ships actually, its about the naval history of the name Nautilus. Yet someone redirected it to a page with LESS ships in it, without moving the content anywhere. Deleting content Is that ok in anybody s book Not in mine. That article was written by the curator of the Naval Museum in Groton and the Officer-in-charge of the Historic Ship Nautilus, I think that those two would be a great addition to the team, and I m trying to recruit them. Blanking the article doesn t help that goal at all. 08:14, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
I do feel that the current format of 14:44, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
:...First, Ships named Nautilus is not a disambiguation page, it wasn t written to be a disambiguation page and isn t intended to replace any other disambiguation page. It s about the Naval history of the name Nautilus .
:...Third, 06:21, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)
You claim that Ships named Nautilus is about the naval history of the name Nautilus , but I just don t see it. There s nothing there about how the ships got their names, who named them, whether they were named after the mollusc or the Verne submarine or the ancient Greek sailor. It s just a list of facts about ships that happen to share a name. So in what way is the page more than a disambiguation page What added value does the reader get over having the individual articles We don t do this with other pages that list several ships, why does Nautilus deserve this special treatment
Here s my proposal: following normal Wikipedia disambiguation policy ( 20:39, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)
= Categorize by name =
A few categories have sprung up by name . If you d like to input on this, see to comment.
I ve already made my thoughts on this clear, both on this discussion and previous attempts. It s generally a bad idea since we already have so many other ways to approach this. 20:41, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Separate issue: The categories and if you think they should be deleted, vote to delete them. Note that I am not proposing to put ALL ships in this kind of category, only ship names that have been used so often that there is a likelihood of someone having difficulty finding them just using the existing scheme. This is not a replacement for the existing scheme .
From WikiProject Ships: Within ships , multiple categories for individuals is both useful and desirable
From : how to categorize ships and other vessels. By nationality By type By function By period Category:Ships shows that there isn t yet consistency in this area. Gdr 15:29, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)
:Why, all of them, of course! is unnecessary, because the initial < ! > makes them captions, which are automatically centered. But what---if anything---does the < no-repeat scroll top left; > do I ve tried taking it out, without apparent effect (in my browser).
;Why is the ensign-placeholder sized at 44 pixels, when the header strip is only 30 ; 17:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
=Susan Constant Godspeed, and Discovery at Jamestown=
I have been working on the article 20:30, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
:Here s my suggestion: #Do all the disambiguation on the Discovery page (you may want to break out a sublist for ships; cf. Nautilus (disambiguation) and Akagi) — done #Make Discovery (ship) a redirect to Discovery — done #Name the article about the Jamestown Discovery at Discovery (1602 ship) (1602 being a terminus a quo since I think her launch date is not known [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_027100_discovery.htm]). — I put a stub there for you; I look forward to your article. #Fix redirects. — done : 00:17, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)
= FOIA Request =
Well, I m giving the UK s new Freedom of Information Act 2000 a test run. It s extremely difficult to get hold of reliable information about exact dates of when ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary changed status. There is, so far as I am aware, no British publically accessible equivalent of the Naval Vessel Register, and there is certainly no UK equivalent of DANFS. So, a few minutes ago I sent the following FOIA request to the Ministry of Defence.
For all Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships currently in commission I would like the following information:
# The date when the ship was ordered # The date when the ship was laid down # The date when the ship was launched # The date when the ship was commissioned into RFA service # For vessels that were not newly built for RFA service, the date when they were purchased for RFA service # For vessels that were not newly built for RFA service the name of the previous owner of the ship
It ll be interesting how they handle this. They can t claim any exemptions about sensitivity of material which removes one significant potential road block. With that information available it should considerable help the accuracy of our articles about the RFA vessels currently in commission. 23:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:I ve received a reply from the 22:12, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
= Active in service =
I ve created 18:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
: As one who had been dreading going around changing active as of 2004 to active as of 2005 , I saw this work and thought, Great idea. Wish I d thought of that. In other words, well done and thank you. 01:27, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
=New Table Format=
We have shifted a good number of the tables across to the wiki markup, rather than sticking with HTML, as the wiki markup is a good deal easier on the eyes to edit. However, I have been struck by how powerful the syntax adopted by the battles WikiProject for their tables is. This evening I have been fiddling with the format of the standard table and the template syntax that is now available with the Wikipedia. The result is that I believe I can reproduce the current standard table format for almost all cases (the Military Sealift Command and ships like the destroyer escorts in their current format perhaps being the exceptions) in a way that is a good deal more maintainable and centralised. It is somewhat an extension of the that I made and mentioned above.
Each ship class would require a number of templates to be created for it. Those templates would carry the measurements and properties that are common to each ship class. I have also allowed for the variation of each individual ship by including a bit in the table code called Individual ship. In cases where there are single ship classes it may well be useful to create a version of the table for those cases. Please see this copy of the table for the current HMS Invincible as an example of what can be done and let me know what you think:
00:55, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:This is interesting. It would have saved me going through a dozen pages to fix one mistake yesterday. A few questions: *What is the syntax for all these elements What gets and what gets } Is there a tutorial, or do you have a page with all the Template: things that need to be written *Is there a way to make inapplicable lines not show up; things like Homeport: for decommissioned ships, and Aircraft: for ships that don t have any Simply cutting out or commenting out those lines doesn t seem to work. Maybe splitting the table into Ship_Career_Table or Active_Ship_Career_Table, and _Ship_Characteristics_Table: }}
:On a more general point, some ships are changed substantially over their careers--e.g. their armament and even their lengths. Should the Ship Characteristics document their original configurations, or final, or modal, or what
OK, the syntax } is used for template variables within the . With that in place all you would need to do to get the displacment of an Arleigh Burke -class vessel instead of an Invincible -class vessel would to substitute |Ship displacement=Arleigh Burke class destroyer for |Ship displacement=Invincible class aircraft carrier in the table. A good tutorial of how to use this sort of thing can be found on the Battles Wikiproject page.
I ve not found a good way to do the second point yet. One possibility would be to alter the templates for things like aircraft, armament, home port etc., to include table markup. That way if they were not included then the table markup would also not appear with them. That will require further experimentation, but it is something I intend to try and get working if I can.
As for your final point, I would think that individual ship could be used for later characteristics. For example, all the short-hull Essex -class ships could have a which includes their original configuration. Then the various modifications that got applied to each ship could be covered using the individual ship variables. The individual ship variables was a major change that I needed to make from the battlebox which served as the prototype for this idea.
I ll do some more work on the table template and keep you up to date with what is going on with it. I hope to be able to report success soon. When I m fiddling with the template please be prepared to see the version on this page be broken occasionally. 19:55, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, further progress has been made. I ve further altered the template to allow optional parts of the table. The problem is that while the yes to them option works fine (as evidenced by the example table on the right), the no to them option isn t quite so good. It produces a table that does not have the lines we don t want, but it does have some ugly spacing issues (as evidence by the example table on the left). They ll have to be sorted out before the table is ready for mainstream useage. I would appreciate some ideas on how they could be dealt with. 11:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:Even more progress to report. I appear to have fixed the ugly spacing problem. It was simply a case of creating the correctly styled table row when the optional row not wanted (like say electronic warfare and decoys for USS Constitution or HMS Victory ) variable is set to no.
:So, in summary, I believe that there are two things needed before the table can go live.
# What other features are needed in the ship table to cover permutations I ve not thought of # Writing the instructions on how to use the thing!
13:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
===Responses===
Can a user include only certain sections of the table, and not the stuff that is inapplicable Also, I d add entries for Damage Value (or just Value), and some sort of entries for how and when the ship was destroyed and if the crew survived, all in a separate, includable template. You might want to include sub-dividers with different colors, such as what is used by battleboxes to include a campaignbox in the table. -- 14:39, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:Yes, there are certain sections of the table that are optional. I have made those sections that all ships possess as non-optional, so they will appear even if all the optional sections are not in the table. The optional sections are:
# Purchased # Commissioned # Decommissioned # In service # Out of service # Struck # Homeport # Range # Test depth # Capacity # Time to activate # Sensors # Electronic warfare and decoys # Armament # Armour # Aircraft
:In order to make the optional sections appear or not as necessary the appropriate variable needs to be set to yes or no. For example, in order to make the time to activate cell not appear, which will not be necessary for most ships, the variable Ship table time to activate should be set to no. The table markup necessary for the time to activate row of the table will then not appear. Conversely, set it to yes and the markup will appear. The other optional table part variables work in the same way, as would any other optional variables that might get added to the table.
:How and when the ship met its end is covered in the fate section of the table. That could be set to active in service, with vessels that are currently active, in reserve, as a mueseum ship, wrecked, sunk by enemy action, scrapped, building, etc. After the variable Ship fate , the variable individual ship allows the global identifier to be elaborated upon. For example, if the variable Ship fate gets set to scrapped, then the following variable individual ship would then carry information on what firm scrapped the ship, when and where for example. In the case of a sinking, the Ship fate variable would be set to being sunk by enemy action or wrecked as appropriate, and the individual ship variable would then detail who or what sank the ship, where and when.
:As for your points about damage value and sub-dividers with different colours, I don t see the point of those. This is meant to duplicate the functionality of the current table for ships, that has been used for a couple of years now, for ships, but to have that functionality in a more easily maintainable and more consistent form. It is particularly applicable for large ship classes where common features of the design will be shown consistently from ship to ship in the class, and also for cases where tables need to be changed, such as when a ship decommissions. Instead of having to add sections to the table, all that needs to happen is that the variable for the decommissioning row needs to be changed from no to yes and the date of the decommissioning added.
:The question about the casualties from a sinking is potentially something that could be added to the table, as lots of ships have been lost to enemy action. It might be useful to have information about only 3 Hood crew members surviving. On the other hand, it could just be information overload. I don t know of any of the existing tables where that information is presented. Nonetheless, it certainly is well worth looking at. 17:55, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:: How about making Draught an optional value--and also Draft , so we can use one or the other ( Armour doesn t bother me the same way, for some reason.)
:: Also, saying a ship s Fate is to be {active in service}} doesn t really make sense. How about Status for ships which have been ordered (or awarded) / are under construction / are undergoing trials / are active / are decommissioned in reserve After that , they have Fate s.
:: For submarines, [Test ]Depth is another significant value. And a fair number of ships have Nickname s.
::However, not everything has to go in the table. The firm that scrapped a ship can go in the text of the page--if it s needed at all. Conversely, the fate of the HMS Hood (51) deserves more than one line in the table. :: 07:19, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:::Test depth is certainly something that I hadn t thought of that merits inclusion. I ll sort that out once I ve finished this reply. As for fate and status, that is a somewhat semantic distiction, but one probably worth making. Also, given how relatively easily the two different spellings for draught/draft and armour/armor can be put in place that s also worth doing. I ll also add nickname as an optional row. 10:28, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
==Tutorial==
This template is an attempt to reproduce the functionality of each of the different types of table that have been developed for the WikiProject Ships in a more easily maintainable and centrally editable fashion. It has functionality to allow the common specifications of a ship class to be created in one template and then promulgated to all ships of that class, meaning all the information of all the ships of the class is as consistent as possible. It also has functionality to include or exclude certain optional table rows. For example, there would be little point in including the electronic warfare equipment of a sailing frigate, and little point in including the time required to activate a ship from reserve for a vessel already in active service.
===Optional Table Rows===
The optional rows for the table are as follows:
# Purchased # Commissioned # Decommissioned # In service # Out of service # Captured # Struck # Reinstated # Homeport # Range # Endurance # Test depth # Capacity # Time to activate # Sensors # Electronic warfare and decoys (with a variable EW) # Armament # Armour # Aircraft
In order to include or exclude an optional row set the variable Ship table optional row to yes or no as appropriate. For example, for a ship without a cargo capacity the value Ship table capacity=no would be correct, where a ship with embarked aircraft would need the value Ship table aircraft=yes . The one slight exception to that rule is the armour variable which is explained below.
===Class Feature Templates===
A number of the rows allow the common features of a ship class to be reproduced across the whole class from one template. Those rows are:
# Displacement # Length # Beam # Draught # Propulsion # Speed # Range # Endurance # Test depth # Capacity # Complement # Sensors # Electronic warfare and decoys (with a variable EW) # Armament # Armour # Aircraft
To use ability of the template to display the common features of a class from one central document, Wikipedia templates covering those variables that apply to the ship need to be created. For example, for the have been created.
The templates must use the following name structure:
where variable is the name of the parameter referred to, such as sensors for the sensors of the ship, complement for the complement etc and XXXX is a descriptor of the ship class, such as Invincible class aircraft carrier or Arleigh Burke class destroyer .
===Individual Ship Variables===
Following many of the template variables will be found a separate section Individual ship . The intention of that section is to allow variations from the class unique to each ship to be covered in the table. For example, if one ship in a class has half its guns removed at a certain date, then the appropriate number Individual ship variable would be the place to cover that change.
===Spelling Variants===
In order to accomodate the traditions of the Wikipedia, the template can cope with both British and American English. This comes up at two points in the table: draught/draft and armour/armor. In order to tell the template which variant to use, two variables must be set. For the armour variable, the functionality is incorporated into Ship table armour . To set the armour row not to appear the variable should still be set to no . To set the armour row to appear with British spelling it should be set to yes uk , and to set it to appear with American spelling it should be set to yes us . For the draught variable, the functionality is implemented using Draught , with the variable simply being set to uk or us as appropriate.
There is one other variation in the structure of the table: the variable Ship table fate can be set in two ways. Set it to status and the ship will have a status row in the table, and set it to fate and the ship will have a fate row instead.
===Unique Values===
The most simple part of the table covers the following variables:
# Ship image # Ship caption # Ship country # Ship ordered # Ship flag # Ship laid down # Ship launched # Ship purchased # Ship commissioned # Ship decommissioned # Ship in service # Ship out of service # Ship struck # Ship homeport # Ship motto # Ship nickname
They are unique to each ship and thus should be entered as in a normal table. Ship image is the photo of the ship that appears at the top of the table and should use Wikipedia image markup. Ship caption is the caption for that image. Ship flag is the ensign/jack of the navy/ies that the ship serve(d) with and again should use the appropriate Wikipedia image markup.
===Ship Status Variables===
For the variable ship fate a variety of templates have been created to provide consistency and linkage for ships. The variables defined include:
# active in service # target # sunk enemy action # wrecked # ordered # building # museum ship # scrapped # in reserve # unknown # transferred # exploded # awaiting disposal # sold for commercial service # scuttled
As with the class common feature templates, ship fate is followed a by numbered individual ship variable which can be used to flesh out the broad categories, such as when a ship was wrecked, where is a muesum ship, who built it etc.
Please let me know how I need to make that tutorial clearer. 12:10, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:Some ships are Ordered and some [have contracts for them] Awarded . The [http://www.nvr.navy.mil US Naval Vessel Register] lists Award Date. I suppose the two are equivalent, but if it s easy to provide for the option, you might as well.
:As I understood the guidelines, the caption for the infobox picture is optional, though the image itself should have alternate text.
:For ships with multinational careers, is it possible to lay them out See, e.g. , USS Sea Fox (SS-402). Or should each career get its own page, however stubby
:For clarity, how about a List of ship tables, listing all the CLASSNAME_class_TYPE ship tables done or to be done; each page having a list of all the elements that need to be constructed:
::So far as I am aware, it is usual practice to provide ships that had significant careers in two different navies with different pages for each navy. For vessels like destroyer escorts and escort carriers that saw service in both the USN and RN during WWII, but only just with the USN, I have been putting them into one table and on one page. The example you quote above almost certainly deserves two separate pages, since USS Sea Fox had a career of over 20 years in the Turkish Navy. 22:53, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
==Going Live==
I ve made one more small change to the template table. I have inserted a row for a ship s nickname. Since there has been no more feedback for nearly a month, and since I left messages on the talk pages of all those who said they participate in this WikiProject letting them know what I ve been planning, I ve decided that people must be fairly happy with what I ve done. I have therefore started the process of taking the table out of beta stage and live onto the main encyclopedia. I have now started to replace the Nimitz class aircraft carrier tables with a version of the template table. 21:18, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:Looks good. There s some whitespace quirks--space below, or above and below some entries in the table.
:Supposing someone wanted to add yet another line to the table, like Well deck capacity: for Dock Landing Ships, to pick an example I ve recently been doing. Would that cause an unsightly line with to appear in all other pages using the table until someone went through them and set them to CHARACTERISTIC=no It d be more robust if they were all absent by default. : 23:14, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
::Yes it would cause something nasty to appear in the table. That s precisely why I wanted to check whether there were any other rows that people wanted to add to the table before taking it live. There actually is a row for capacity already in the table. It was primarily intended for naval cargo ships and the like, but it could be easily adapted for well deck capacity I think. So, please let me know whether there is anything else that needs to be added to it before any more get put up. At the moment it is manageable to change each one, since there are only a few experimental and example tables around, and the 10 Nimitz class examples that I have put up. Go much beyond that, and the job of altering all those tables would be simply impossible.
::As for the whitespace, I really don t know why it does that. With the wiki markup I ve used it shouldn t do it. One thing I have discovered is necessary is that when putting data into the ship templates, like for example all the radars and sonars that modern vessels have, in order to get rid of whitespace within table cells, it is necessary to make sure that all the entries are on the same line, not separated. It makes editing them a little less good, but it makes the table appear a good deal better. 21:54, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:::I ve been thinking about this. I don t particularly care for some of it. For example, not all ships of the same class share the same characteristics. This is particularly true of early vessels and those built by multiple shipyards. As for adding something to the table, I would like to see an optional Captured since many early ships were acquired this way. Bottom line: this simply looks harder than what I m currently doing. 23:22, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
::::I have tried to accomodate this. The main idea of the tables is that major variants in the class could be covered by templates, like say short-hull and long-hull Essex -class carriers or Flight I, Flight II and Flight IIA in the case of Arleigh Burke -class destroyers. Beyond that, the individual ship options could be used to fill in things unique to each ship. So, if one vessel ended up fitted with an experimental radar, for example, that could be covered in the individual ship part of the table.
::::The point about captured as a row is a very good one. It s not applicable to modern vessels, but it certainly is necessary for many sail-powered warships. I am curious as to why you did not reply during the last month I left a message on your talk page, and judging by your user contributions you have been active during that time. That was after all the whole point of leaving a message on the talk page of all the participants of the WikiProject and developing it on the talk page of the project. I wanted this to be something that others could have an input into and a say in the development of. That doesn t seem to have been the case, with one exception, unfortunately. 00:10, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:::::If you take a look at the Cassin class destroyer of destroyers, you ll see that every one has different characteristics. Now, granted, it s only four ships, but many early classes of destroyers that have yet to be done are probably like this (6-8 ships, different shipyards, non-standard chars). So, it s not a point of having major variants covered, but rather a change from ship to ship within the class.
:::::I appreciate that this part of the project is a priority for you, but you can hopefully understand that it s not something that is/was high on my list. We all have our pet projects, and I ve prefered to spend my time elsewhere. So, sorry for the delay in the input, but I hope it s helpful in any case. 18:17, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
::::::Well, with the Cassin -class destroyers the best way to deal with it inside the framework of this table would be to use the individual ships part of the table. I think I ve covered pretty much all the things that are likely to vary majorly from one ship to another with that. So, if you did want to use this sort of construction on those destroyers and other classes like them, the best way to do it would be to go with none for the template to use and then fill in each table individually. Of course you needn t use the new-style markup at all, which would solve matters. ;) I guess that this is more suited to modern ships where standards are more homogenous, but I would contend it is still useful. 21:59, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
= French Naming Convention =
Hello ! I have tried to suggest a naming convention for French ships, also addressing the problems which non-French-speaking people (and some French-speaking people, sot that matters... :p) usually meet with the articles and particules. I ve tried to do it trying to e consistant with the naming convention which I had observed for the ships of the Royal Navy on Wikipedia. However, since I am not a real member of this project, I would appreciate if someone could give it a quick check, to make sure it is really consistant with what is said here ( ).
:Discussion at 13:22, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)
Oh, as for the Free French Forces and modern usage of the flag with the cross of Loraine, I think that the flag is the unit flag, not the national one (uses the regular three-striped blue-white-red flag for the national flag). There is a photograph of the Aconit stealth frigate flying the cross of Lorraine , if someone would like to link to it for illustration :)
Cheers ! 06:50, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:Please correct any mistakes at 13:22, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)
= A ship s article stubiness =
I ve noticed that some ships have been labeled as stubs, but don t meet the traditional , were marked as stubs when they clearly had blocks of information, but also clearly missing years of history. (3) Still other ships are marked as stubs while they (the ships themselves) are under construction.
#2 seems odd and not fully justified and #3 looks blatantly wrong. If the purpose of labelling a ship s article a stub is to encourage editors to work to expand it, I d prefer that we focus on those in the first category. After all, how much can you say about a ship that hasn t even been launched 14:15, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
= Huh! What s going on with that ensign =
I ve started to upload versions of certain flags in the Wikipedia that do not have copyright problems attached to them and have clear source information. One of those flags is a PNG version of the British Red Ensign. When I was clearing out links to the GIF version I came across a distinct problem in the standard table. If anyone has any clue what causes the system to this 21:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:Please disregard. I fouled up with the code for the SVG. I d forgotten to make areas explicitly white and I left them with no colour. That s fine on a white background but does tend to show up on a blue background rather! 21:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)|
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