Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive04

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  1. January 2004 to April 2005
  2. April 2005 to January 2006
  3. January 2006 to June 2006
  4. June 2006 to September 2006
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[edit] British steamer found

Found mention of a British steamer in this article John Newland Maffitt (1819-1886)#Later Life called the Widgeon but when I went to redlink it, it brought me to the bird. What should I do? I thought I should make it a redlink by doing a disambiguation, i.e. Widgeon but I didn't know the naming convention for British steamers, or if this is even important enough to redlink? -plange 03:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

A year would be conventional: [[Widgeon (18??)|''Widgeon'']]. The year she was launched if known, or if not, then purchased or commissioned or some other equivalent of a birthdate. But unless you've reason to think there's something notable about the ship, I suggest simply leaving it unlinked, as Widgeon.
—wwoods 06:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I concur with the non-notable thoughts on this one. Most merchant ships live uneventful lives - like most of us. Jinian 20:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
LOL, yep, until they get captured by some commerce raider :-) I had gone ahead and delinked it... -plange 21:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with Ships by Country

After doing the Forrest Sherman class destroyers I feel like I've run into a problem. I added the Forrest Shermans to Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy. That's not so much a country cat as a Navy cat. There is no Category:Destroyers of the United States.

Now, that doesn't look like a problem, but here's where the issue comes in: In some cases, navies change names. For example, the navy of Germany was called the Kriegsmarine for World War II only. That makes a theoretical Category:Battleships of the Kriegsmarine exactly equivalent to the era cat Category:World War II battleships of Germany, which isn't helpful. I think it would be helpful, in the Category:Ships by country structure, to be able to find all ships of Germany and not have to decide between the Kaiserliche Marine, the Kriegsmarine and the Deutsche Marine. It's called Ships by country, after all. However, in the past whenever I've wanted to change ship categories to be by country instead of by navy I've run into a lot of resistance.

Guys, we really need to talk about this. How can we make the Ships by country structure useful? It's a mess right now, with stuff like Category:Naval ships of Chile and Category:Chilean Navy ships having no overlapping content even though Chile has only had one navy. I realize that "Naval ships of (country)" and "(Country's navy) ships" are not identical in meaning. However, we're talking about Ships by country here. I think we should have one master cat, like Category:Warships of (country), with subcats for different navies where necessary.

Here's my proposal. Category:Warships of the United States will be a master cat, and will contain subcategories for types of ships (destroyers, sailing frigates, ironclads, etc). Those subcategories will be divided where necessary: Ironclads of the USN and Ironclads of the CSN, for example. However, Category:Battleships of the United States will not need subcats for different navies, because all US battleships have been in the USN. This will work well across different navies as well. In the case of Germany, there will be no need for navy subcats because it's been one navy, changing names, rather than two navies existing at the same time. If you only want to see Kriegsmarine ships, you've got Category:World War II naval ships of Germany for that.

If you don't like this, please come up with a decent proposal in response which will clean up Category:Ships by country and make it usable. It is an absolute mess now, and something must be done. TomTheHand 21:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

In the case of Germany, there will be no need for navy subcats because it's been one navy, changing names, rather than two navies existing at the same time. What about NVA (eg east german) ships? --Victor12 21:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Very true; I stand corrected. In those cases, we will do the same as for ironclads of the United States. We'll have subcategories for each navy, in those specific cases, but Category:Battleships of Germany will not need to be divided. TomTheHand 21:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with your proposal, mainly because I think era type categories are vague and do not fit to every navy, thus I think ships of x Navy is a better way of categorization. As for era categories, they are correctly applied only in the cases of major naval powers (USA, Germany, Japan, UK, Russia), but they are not as useful for other lesser navies. For instance what sense does it make to have a WWII ships category for Latin American navies or a Cold War ships category for African navies? They don't reflect meaningful development stages for those forces. Furthermore as ships in this navies tend to be few (and those with articles on Wikipedia are even fewer) and have long service lifes you end up with more categories than vessels to categorize --Victor12 21:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I understand what you disagree with. I want to avoid categorization by navy where possible, and instead I want to use categorization by country. I'm not trying to eliminate categorization by navy and replace it with categorization by era. To use Chile as an example, I would like to have all Chilean warships under Category:Warships of Chile rather than split between Category:Naval ships of Chile and Category:Chilean Navy ships. TomTheHand 22:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Why not merge them under Chilean Navy Ships? That way you can include auxiliaries and other non-combatants. --Victor12 22:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Because of the problems I detailed above. The category is intended to go under Category:Ships by country. If it is named after the navy, it causes problems when navies change names. I'd be open to merging into Naval ships of Chile to include auxiliaries, but I want to eliminate categorization by navy because it makes Ships by country almost useless. TomTheHand 22:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
And that would be categorized under Chilean Navy??? --Victor12 22:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
No. There would be no Category:Chilean Navy ships category. The stuff that's spread across Chilean Navy ships and Naval ships of Chile would all be merged into Naval ships of Chile, which would be found under Ships of Chile, which would be found under Ships by country. TomTheHand 22:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I know, but there is a Chilean Navy category (or at least there should be one), would your Naval ships of Chile category be still under the Chilean Navy category or outside it? --Victor12 22:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
OH! I see what you're saying. Well... I would guess that Naval ships of Chile should go under the Chilean Navy cat, as well as under Ships of Chile. TomTheHand 23:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to put my proposal in table form. Please look at it here: Ship category proposal TomTheHand 22:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have any input on this? Victor12, what do you think about categorizing Naval ships of Chile under Chilean Navy as well as Ships of Chile? Or would you prefer Chilean Navy ships?

I'm sorry for being so annoying about this, but fixing the Ships by country cat is going to require a ton of category moves no matter what plan we go with. As a result, I need support before I begin, because we'll need to vote on the renames. If you're willing to support my proposal, please let me know. If not, what changes would need to be made to get your support? If about three people support the proposal and would be willing to vote on cat moves, I'll feel confident in starting. TomTheHand 19:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer Chilean navy ships, that way it will be more congruent to have it under the Chilean Navy category. As for Naval Ships of Chile and the whole country caegories mess you could just make Chilean Navy Ships a subcategory of Naval Ships of Chile. That's what I have done for Peruvian Navy Ships. Check Category:Peruvian Navy ships. --Victor12 19:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's probably silly to have Chilean Navy ships be the sole subcategory of Naval ships of Chile and so I'd prefer to get rid of one or the other. I'm fine with getting rid of Naval ships of Chile and simply have Chilean Navy ships be listed under Ships of Chile.
However, that leads to the problem I have with listing things by navy. What do we do about the Kaiserliche Marine, Reichsmarine, and Kriegsmarine? Do we just say "German Navy", which isn't really correct? Do we have them separate? It's essentially one organization that went through several name changes. TomTheHand 19:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
So maybe it's not so silly to have Naval Ships of ... and ...Navy ships after all. Specially since it's not always the same organization. That's the case, for instance of the NVA navy in the case of Germany. I'd rather have Naval ships of Germany and under that Kaiserliche Marine ships, NVA navy ships, and such. --Victor12 23:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're saying, Victor12. Could you explain how you want the categories to be laid out? What should be under what? I agree that the West German and East German navies should be in separate categories, since they are separate entities, but the Kaiserliche Marine, Reichsmarine, and Kriegsmarine were essentially one entity undergoing name changes and should be in one category. TomTheHand 06:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Maybe something like this:
*German naval Ships
** Hanseatic League ships
** Kaiserliche Marine ships
** Reichsmarine ships
** Kriegsmarine ships
** Bundesmarine ships
** Volksmarine ships
and such... --Victor12 00:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I really think such a separation would be better accomplished through the "Ships by era" category, and the "Ships by country" structure would be better suited to helping people who simply want to find German ships. I think the above separation reduces the value of both Ships by country and Ships by era. TomTheHand 03:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it should be Naval Ships of (Insert Country Here), as opposed to (Insert Country Here)-an Navy Ships. The first way is very simple and clear. There is no room for debate as to a proper name for each. In the big picture, they both convey the same infomation, but Naval ships of will end up being an easier conversion and avoid un-needed "disagreements". --Spot87 00:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Can I assume that the proposal has been accepted and can be started put into pratice? --Spot87 00:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I wish ;-) I don't think Victor12 agrees with the proposal. I think he'd rather have a "(Country's navy) ships" subcategory of every "Naval ships of (country)" cat. Jinian seems to generally agree with the proposal, though I asked him for some clarification to be sure. You and I are for it. There hasn't been any other input. TomTheHand 18:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Well I still oppose the move, mainly because it implies a greater reliance of ships by era categories which are quite problematic in my opinion. However either way we go it'll be much better than the current status quo. What we need is more opinions on the matter. What about the rest of members of this Wikiproject? --Victor12 19:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Victor12, I think I just realized why you oppose the proposal. My proposal page is unclear. I want to have eras, classes, and ship articles all directly underneath (ship type) of (country). I'm not trying to have a hierarchy of (ship type) -> (era) -> (class) -> (specific ship). Instead, I think that once you get down to (ship type) of (country), you should be able to see eras, classes, and specific ships all at once. I could do a small category as a trial so you could see what I'm talking about, if it would help.
I believe Jinian brought up the same issue, and the problem is just that I had trouble communicating my proposal. I didn't know how to illustrate it to properly show what I wanted.
How does it sound now? TomTheHand 19:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
It sounds better, but still you would have ship articles repeated over several categories, wouldn't you? For instance under Naval ships of, but also under X era ships of, X class ships of, X type of ships of, etc. Wouldn't that be a little redundant? --Victor12 13:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Should I assume that it would be alright for me to start implementing this? (Ship type) of (country) will not be subdivided into eras, it will just contain links to eras. It will still contain all the (ship types) of (country). I'll start today if nobody has any protests. TomTheHand 13:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should start with a small category, as you proposed. --Victor12 13:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I will do a small category and then come back and solicit comments. TomTheHand 13:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I did a small trial category. Please look at Category:Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom and let me know what you think. It was created from scratch, so if it needs to be, it can be deleted by robots to set things back to how they were. Contrast with Category:Royal Navy battlecruisers, which was not created with any single coherent plan. TomTheHand 14:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You;'ve got duplication - all the Invincibles already exist under Invincible class battlecruisers, so they don't need a separate listing under "Bat..of Un..dom" GraemeLeggett 15:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Intentional, to allow someone to see both the assorted classes of battlecruisers and the individual battlecruisers. They're not intermingled (classes are cats, ships are articles) so I think it's reasonably easy to read. I believe it's a good thing, and more useful than the duplication on the ship class pages (ex. Category:Battleship classes) which was implemented according to consensus. TomTheHand 15:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
After looking at the trial category that was done, I agree that this is the best solution to the problem. The way that it is set up is very clear and gives the reader the best way at looking at the infomation. I would support the immediate adoption of this proposal. There are some naming issues in regards to countries, but those will appear in every situation anyway. --Spot87 16:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I just realized another problem that will need to be addressed: changing country names! How would we address the England -> Great Britain -> United Kingdom issue? I would probably universally use (ship type) of the United Kingdom category names, and in specific instances include a note at the top of the page stating that this category contains ships of the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and/or England. In the case of Germany, I would probably only use "Germany" for the navy since 1871 and refer to earlier ships by the specific state/power to which they belonged. Overall, problems with this should be rare, as we'll have many more modern ship articles than ancient ones. TomTheHand 15:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You'll still have that split at 1925 so some well known RN ships will appear in both, it would be easier to list the three nations in the cat header as "da da da..ships of the United Kingdom (Kingdom of GB, GB and I, GB and NI) 1707 to present" GraemeLeggett 15:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think that might be what I was trying to say... use "ships of the United Kingdom" all the time, and include something in the cat header specifying that it includes GB, etc as well. TomTheHand 15:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Having seen the sample cat, I agree with the proposal, it's quite clear and straightforward. The duplication of ships under two cats (naval ships of... and under their own class) makes it easier for user to find ships by name when they don't know the class. I think this proposal should be implemented across the board. --Victor12 22:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok! I've put Category:Royal Navy battlecruisers up for deletion here. Please vote on it if you support this proposal; we've got to get some momentum going to make this reorg happen. I will be applying this organization scheme in the future to ship articles that I touch, and I will also be proposing a lot of deletions, renames, and merges. I will post about them here. Please vote in them! TomTheHand 13:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I also put Category:Royal Navy destroyers up for merge into Category:Destroyers of the United Kingdom here. Please vote in that one as well. I don't plan to do mass deletions/renamings, but I will do a couple at a time. TomTheHand 14:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Please vote on this proposed merge as well as the above deletion! TomTheHand 16:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two items that I believe are problems

I'm bringing over to wikiproject ships the text I just added to Image talk:IIH.png. My opinion is both of these things should be addressed.

  • I just accidently ran into this when looking up CSS Charleston. In my opinion, I think this makes the infobox look unprofessional. My first thought was that the infobox was using an image from a 3rd-party image server somewhere on the internet, and the image no longer existed. I think instead this image should be a 100% pure transparent image of either the same size or 1x1 pixel to hide the existence from the users. Remember that Wikipedia is for the readers, not for the editors. In this case, having a glaring INSERT IMAGE HERE at the top of the article turns the article into a memo for future editors. --Stephane Charette 05:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Looking through some of the related articles that use this image, I note that some have infoboxes with text such as insert caption here and (insert link to larger image here). This is similar to the image problem described above, and makes it difficult for the reader to interpret the article/infobox as authorative, since it makes it look more like we're viewing the article in the middle of an edit session. Two quick examples of this would be USS Takanis Bay (CVE-89) and USS Munda (CVE-104). --Stephane Charette 05:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Yep, I noticed that too the other day and thought it ugly. I didn't use it when I created CSS Archer and others. Sometimes there just won't be an image.plange 06:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The image is used to quickly identify which articles still need images. It's very handy for those of us who do maintenance on the Project. However, I'd be happy with something that looked nicer or was more transparent. Also, I think the text "insert caption here" should be removed. Jinian 20:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
What about for ships that will never have a photo? There just simply isn't one. We have some of those in the CSN plange 21:35, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
What are people's thoughts on my above observation? plange 20:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, on the one hand, I agree with you that the "Insert Image Here" looks bad, but on the other hand, I think a line drawing or something could (should?) theoretically be provided for ships without images even if no photo could ever exist. A quick and dirty fix could be to insert a "|Ship image=" line into the Ship table of articles where the IIH should be removed. That would remove the IIH and just leave a blank space up there. TomTheHand 20:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for listing officers and crew?

I've just been making a bulleted list but then it occurred to me to ask here and see if anyone has done this on other ship articles and has a nice table, etc.? See CSS Jamestown -plange 18:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a better question would be, is this appropriate encyclopedic information to be included? Some ships were in commission for decades with some very obscure commanders. I certainly wouldn't want to make this standard for every ship, just because we have the data. Not sure how relevant the commanders for Jamestown are to the history of the ship. Jinian 20:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I think it's relevant, at least for what I'm writing about (CSN) since it only had a 4 year span it wouldn't be out of control. I know if I was looking up the Jamestown for a paper I would expect to see its commanders, and maybe even some of its more notable officers.plange 21:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it simpler to just work it into the text? A change of command is a fairly obvious thing to mention in the usual narrative flow of things, and any officer notable enough to be listed seperately would probably be significant enough to mention in the text. Shimgray | talk | 18:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I guess I am looking at it more like an infobox where the user can quickly see the info without having to wade through the article. plange 18:23, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
commentbox
comment text If only we had a infobox for everything, then we wouldn't have to write articles
signature Gdr 18:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
wow, sorry I asked the question. Didn't think I'd get ridiculed for it. That's obviously not what I'm wanting to do Gdrplange 18:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category merges/renames/deletions

I thought it might be a good idea to start a new subject heading to list merges/renames/deletions. These are all related to the above proposal for reorganizing Ships by country. If you support the proposal, please vote on all of these individually. If you do not support the proposal and vote against these, please help to come up with a better proposal for the reorganization! Unconstructive criticism is unhelpful and just helps maintain the mess that we have now.

Added Friday, July 14, 2006:

Added Monday, July 17, 2006:

[edit] Further discussion on categorization of Category:Ships by country

A couple of people have now voted "oppose" to merges and renames related to fixing Category:Ships by country. I'd like to start up some discussion to figure out why. I hope you guys who voted oppose will join in.

GraemeLeggett said the following:

  • Oppose categorisation works well at moment, no need to fix it.

Look at Category:Royal Navy battlecruisers, which contains four class categories, one era category, five ship articles, and six ship class articles. It is a complete mess of people throwing random stuff in there; it does not "work well." There is no logical scheme applied to it at all.

So what do you oppose about the proposal? Do you oppose what should go in them (Class cats, eras and ship articles, as seen at Category:Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom)? If so, what should be placed in the category instead?

Or do you oppose naming categories by country instead of by navy? There's plenty of room for debate here, but there are serious problems to be solved in either case. Please give a proposal for how Category:Ships by country should be structured. My proposal is as follows:

Ships by country >> Ships of (country name) >> Naval ships of (country name) >> (Ship type) of (country name) >> {optional navy disambiguation, for civil wars and such} >> Class categories, era categories, and ship articles.

TomTheHand 18:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussions on Talk:Royal Navy#Categories and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/British military history task force#Categories indicates that the problem is with the rename, not the categorization proposal. Here are my issues with "Royal Navy":

  1. Anglocentricism - Every monarchy has a "Royal Navy." The British Royal Navy is just the biggest and most important one. I've noticed that User:Jooler has been going around replacing "British Royal Navy" with simply "Royal Navy." This is an example of that Anglocentrism: the UK's Royal Navy is the only one, and there's no need to clarify.
  2. Lack of clarity - Not everyone knows that the "Royal Navy" is the navy of the UK.
  3. Lack of consistency - Naming categories after the navy involved makes it harder to find the navy you want if you don't know its name. Naming categories after the country makes it easy for everyone.
  4. Problems when navies change names - How do you deal with this situation? Germany's navy went through at least five names in the 20th century alone.

I acknowledge that there is an issue with historical accuracy with the "United Kingdom" categories before 1800. However, I don't believe that issue outweighs all of the disadvantages of categorizing by navy.

We rarely use the official name of a navy. For example, the Russian Navy's official name translates to Military Maritime Fleet. The navy of Italy is called Marina Militare, or Military Navy. The French Navy is the Marine Nationale, or National Navy. I doubt you'd want to use these names, and I don't see why the UK's navy is an exception to the rule. TomTheHand 19:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Less bothered by "correctness", more concerned about "accessability". If I want to read about the navy of say, Switzerland (it did have one! with a British Admiral! we could sell spaghetti to Italy (did that too)), I wouldn't know the French/ German/ italian name for it, so I'd go through the country name. Not sure who this helps.
BTW, how many English speaking countries are kingdoms with a "Royal Navy"? ONE. So why use the prefix "British" - it's tautology. Just as daft as referring to the "American FBI" or "American NASA" or "Italian Regia Marina". Does "HMS" also get changed? If the Danes or Dutch or Thais refer to their own navies as "Royal Navy" in their own languages, that is fine. Folks at 137 20:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
British Royal Navy seems to most to be a tautologism which may be why jooler changed it however if it is not clear then a reader can either following the link (its what they are there for) or "British" can be reinserted. In your own words "biggest and most important one" to which "most famous" can justifiably be added. I think the cases for anglocentrism and clarity are not proven, others may diasgree.
I personally use categories for jumping sideways through articles not as a starting point for looking for things so I have personally don't get the consistency issue.
For some nations/countries "ships of X" may be necessary for instance where there is a distinct change in the nation eg the Imperial Germany/Nazi Germany/Modern Germany split or eg Ships of the Ottoman Empire/ships of Turkey though for the former the Navy name change tracks the state change too. GraemeLeggett 20:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Alright, so you'd prefer to have Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, etc in separate cats? I see the logic in it, but I still feel like era cats are the place to do that kind of thing. If consensus is to do it that way, I'll implement it that way. TomTheHand 13:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


I agree with you that accessibility is the thing to aim for. I don't think people should have to know that Italy's navy used to be know as the Regia Marina, but changed to Marina Militare in 1946, in order to be able to find a ship. Categories should be laid out for ease of navigation for people who are seeking information, not people who already know all about it. The Royal Navy is better known than the Regia Marina, but that doesn't make the problem disappear, it just means fewer people will have it.
The problem I see with the reasoning in your second paragraph is that we call the Dutch Navy the Royal Netherlands Navy. We don't refer to it as Koninklijke Marine. While "Royal Navy" alone would generally be assumed (by people who know the topic and are native English speakers) to be the navy of the UK, it's still ethnocentric and potentially unclear to non-native speakers. It isn't just as daft as your examples. There are other Royal Navies. As you brought up, there's the Danes, the Dutch, and the Thais. There's also the Norwegians and the Swedes off the top of my head. There are not other NASAs.
I believe people from the UK are rightfully proud of their navy and as a result are very insistent on it being called by its proper name. However, it's extremely inconsistent; we refer to very few navies by their native name. We should be doing one or the other. TomTheHand 21:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

My take on this (and please correct me, if I get it wrong -- My connection is more on the merchant navy side of things) is that of nationality -- AFAIK, the Royal Navy is the British navy, and not that of the United Kingdom (although it's duties include protection of Northern Ireland (so the rest of the UK), but also the Isle of Man (not in the UK, but part of the British Isles), the Channel Islands, the Falklands, etc. This is asside from it's other duties, such as at present off Beiruit.

I think my issue stems from there being no concept of the UK having ownership -- partly because the UK refers to two nations -- Great Britain and Northern Irleand, so I instinctively think of things being British (of Great Britain) or Irish (of Ireland, Northern or Southern)

As a side issue, Google seems to agree that the Royal Navy is the British one. (the 15th or so result being the "Royal Canadian Navy" - ok, so that's still the same monarch) Looking at other monarchs, the closest being "The Royal Norwegian Navy" Ratarsed 20:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

We might be dealing with a cultural gap here, as I'm American and I'm not entirely clear on the relationship between the UK, its component nations, and its territories. However, the Royal Navy article says the Royal Navy is the navy of the United Kingdom, and the British Armed Forces article says they are the armed forces of the United Kingdom. Even though, say, the Falkland Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, they are a territory of the United Kingdom.
I absolutely agree with you that the British Royal Navy is the largest and most popular one. However, I still have the same issues with it: it's ethnocentric, less accessible when searching (especially when you don't know much about navies), and inconsistent. TomTheHand 21:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I do believe that ethnicity is the issue here; yes, I'm British (well, English), and yes, I live in the UK. But then again, the Royal Navy is still the navy of the Channel Islands (which themselves are not part of the UK, nor are they UK territories npor part of Great Britain). I guess the issue with the Royal Navy is a hangover from the days of the British Empire -- that and the Navy is much older than the United Kingdom itself (18th century vs. 1927). My concern here is that the Royal Navy is not attached to a single soveriegn state or country.
As an aside, what is the intention for dealing with vessels serving under the NATO banner?Ratarsed 21:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Interesting question. I didn't realize that NATO has its own navy. Do you have an example of a vessel serving under the NATO banner, and not under the banner of a particular navy? TomTheHand 21:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
That's my point there -- Vessels of other navies will participate as NATO (NATO, do however have a few independant aircraft -- a fleet of AWACS craft, but that's a bigger aside, still) -- however, if I'm interested in the vessels that have served as part of a NATO operation, would I expect to see them listed by Navy?
Well, if I were to create a category for a particular NATO operation, I would probably not subdivide it by navy. For example, I could create a subcategory of Category:Kosovo War called Category:Ships of the Kosovo War but I would probably not subdivide that by nation. There would be a manageable number of ships and I'd feel it unnecessary to subdivide it further. If there were many hundreds of ships involved, and it would clean things up signficantly to subdivide by nation, I would do so. For a non-NATO example, Category:World War II destroyers is subdivided by nation.
However, what I'm trying to work out in this thread is how to categorize ships by country, rather than by an operation or era. I believe Category:Ships by era is already pretty solid, and it categorizes by country name, not by navy name. TomTheHand 22:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I have not been "going around" changing anything. I removed one instance of British prefixing "Royal Navy" because as people have already pointed out it is a tautology. Jooler 21:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I (TomTheHand) had the following discussion with Jooler on my talk page and wanted to move it here for further discussion:

There is nothing wrong with the current categorisation of Royal Navy ships. The Royal Navy covers ships for England, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other system would lead to anachronistic declarations. Jooler 21:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand that you prefer Royal Navy. Could you please tell me what you think about the issues I brought up, instead of saying "there is nothing wrong?" How do you think things should be categorized?
Some ideas:
  1. By the native name of the navy, like United States Navy, Royal Navy, and Regia Marina. And Kriegsmarine. And Koninklijke Marine. And Военно Морской Флот. And Πολεμικό Ναυτικό.
  2. By the native name of the navy, translated into English, like Hellenic Navy, Royal Danish Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. And National Navy. And Military Maritime Fleet. And Military Navy.
  3. By the native name for navies you think are cool, like Royal Navy, and just (nationality) (navy) for other navies, like the French Navy, the Soviet Navy, and the Belgian Navy.
Got a plan I can apply that's actually good? Naming after the country avoids all of these problems. TomTheHand 21:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
You can name them whatever you like I don't care. Jooler 21:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest you name them after the equivalent page used for the Navy itself. No-one would be so daft as to consider moving Royal Navy to anything else. Jooler 21:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't address the above problems, or the other problems with categorization by navy: it makes things harder to find and causes big problems when a navy changes names, among other issues. I don't think we should have separate categories for all the different names Germany's navy has gone through. Do you? TomTheHand 21:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand is why it needs to homogenous? Royal Navy is universally understood to be the English/British Navy, that should suffice. Jooler 22:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree about being universally understood; while you and I know that "Royal Navy", written in English with no qualifier, is definitely the Royal Navy, I guarantee you that half of the people in my (American) office would be unsure at best. I think things could be even worse on a non-native English speaker. I believe the average person, with little knowledge of naval history, would benefit from being able to look things up by country instead of by navy.
I believe homogeneity is important in categorization because it greatly assists people who are actually trying to use the categories to look stuff up. Someone who's surfing categories needs to know whether they're looking at navies, countries, or what. It's difficult and unhelpful to see a mishmash of whatever everyone felt like throwing in. For example, I think Category:World War I battleships benefits from its homogeneity. Do you not use categories to look things up? It helps a lot of the categories are consistent in what they contain and how it's named. TomTheHand 02:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The ignorance of the masses has never been a good reason for anything other than education. Jooler 07:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)'
I couldn't agree more; that's why I'm here at Wikipedia, trying to make the best encyclopedia possible, and trying to make the information in it accessible to the ignorant masses. TomTheHand 11:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals for naming categories in Ships by country

Could we list proposals for Ships by country below and discuss our support of them? Jooler had a very reasonable proposal for naming the categories: base it on the navy's article name. If you have a proposal, please list it.

  1. By country name, like Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom or Destroyers of Germany.
    Runs into problems when the country's name is not consistent, like when Great Britain and Northern Ireland formed the United Kingdom. Also runs into problems in civil wars, but it's easy enough to do a disambiguation: have Ironclads of the USN and Ironclads of the CSN subcats of the Ironclads of the US main cat. I support and prefer this proposal. TomTheHand 22:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  2. By navy name, like Royal Navy battlecruisers or Destroyers of the United States Navy. Choose navy name based on the navy's article, like Royal Navy, Hellenic Navy, or French Navy.
    Harder to find what you need if you don't know the navy's name. Raise your hand if you knew Greece's navy was called the Hellenic Navy. Extra credit for all of you! Also runs into problems when a navy changes names, like the many names of the German navy. I'm strongly opposed to having separate categories for all the different names of Germany's navy. That's what era cats are for. If we can come up with a solution to the problem of navy name changes, and consensus is to implement this proposal, I'm fine with it. TomTheHand 22:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
    Note, if consensus is to implement this, my suggestion for dealing with the many names of Germany's navy is to simply to call it German Navy. The only time I'd want to split is for 1949-1990 for the separate navies of West Germany and East Germany. I'd go for a similar solution in similar cases. TomTheHand 22:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
    My vote would sit in this camp (and yes, I did know that Hellenic is an adjective for Greece) -- I'm sure a compromise could be reached that uses mulitple parent categories at some levels, if needs be (to cover navies attached to more than one country). Ratarsed 06:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I prefer option 1 on grounds of accesability to the "masses". I also knew that "Hellenic" = Greek, but that doesn't affect my opinion. Of course, country names can also be an issue: those people who don't link "Royal Navy" with Britain might also confuse England, Great Britain and United Kingdom, for example, but any problems can be resolved in any case by redirects or disambigs. Folks at 137 09:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Agreed with the Ships by Country option. Leaving only one or two navies with their original names is violation of NPOV and increase of systemic bias; Using original names everywhere makes the categories useless. Both accessibility, neutrality and consistency are improved by the first option. CP/M (Wikipedia Neutrality Project) 23:47, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

What about doing both in parallel? That way you could look up by "Canada" if you don't know that their navy was the Royal Canadian Navy until 1968, and the Canadian Forces Maritime Command after that. You could look up by "Germany" if you weren't sure which navy name to look up. It wouldn't require any renaming, and would make things easy to find both for naval history buffs and for the "ignorant masses." TomTheHand 13:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

But how many categories would ship articles have? Ship by country, ship by navy, ship by era, ship by type, etc... aren't those too many. --Victor12 14:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont think that 5 or even 6 categories for a ship article would be too many. --Spot87 17:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there should be any limit, what is the point in a limit for its own sake? Emoscopes Talk 17:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I can see how way too many categories could be confusing, but I think if each category adds value then it's alright. I don't know, I could see either side... does listing both the country and the navy add sufficient value? I think it clears up this dispute and solves certain real problems with using just one or the other. I would still prefer to just do country, but if we don't do both we might wind up doing neither and having things remain a mess. TomTheHand 17:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
"does listing both the country and the navy add sufficient value?" - in short, yes, as countries have often had more than one navy, e.g. during times of civil war (i.e the Union Navy and the Confederate Navy) and on the flipside one Navy has its roots in more than one country (i.e the (British) Royal Navy descends from the English Navy and has also been the navy of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.) Hard and fast rules would surely only cause problems where pedantry such as these examples is concerned. Emoscopes Talk 18:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Just to give an example of a possible problem with this approach, look at USS Thomas (DD-182). She served with four navies and so already carries a large number of categories. Would it be alright to add an additional one for each country? TomTheHand 12:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Her large number of categories is fine by me. If you're widely traveled, you're going to have a long record. Lou Sander 12:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make sense to divide the article? That would clear things up, you would have a USS Thomas page, HMS St Albans, KNM St Albans and Dostoinyi. There seems to be enough material at least for the first three of this series. --Victor12 14:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
That's an excellent point, and probably a good solution to this particular problem. Some ships that have passed through many hands won't have articles long enough to divide, but they'll probably be the exception rather than the rule. I can accept a small number of articles with many cats. TomTheHand 15:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise proposal

Alright, each side seems to have significant support and significant opposition. I seriously don't see us reaching a single solution. Above, I suggested that we do both, and each ship should have a navy cat and a country cat. That proposal seems to have some support from both sides. Does it have enough to become our plan? Please post your support or opposition to implementing both at the same time.

Also, if we do decide we should do both, we should come up with a consistent plan for naming navy categories. Native names are probably silly, even if they're transliterated. Translated native names are probably a bad plan as well, because many countries simply call their navy the "Royal Navy" or "National Navy." Jooler suggested naming categories after the article, which I think is alright. CP/M's point about neutrality is well taken, but I think using the article names is as neutral as we can come while still remaining useful, and if there's a neutrality issue about having the article about the Marine Nationale located at French Navy then the issue can be resolved there and the solution can propagate down to the categories.

As a minor side issue, we should also name the navy categories consistently, either in the "Royal Navy destroyers" format or the "Destroyers of the Royal Navy" format. There seems to be consistency within nations but not across nations. I realize most people probably don't have a strong preference, but it's going to be necessary to perform category renames, which is going to require votes. If you're apathetic, it would be appreciated if you'd vote for whatever consensus is; if you're violently opposed to one format or the other, please speak now instead of after the renames are proposed. TomTheHand 13:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. This will also solve problems of fleets changing names, like German. Another possible way for fleet category naming could be (Country)(Navy name).CP/M (Wikipedia Neutrality Project) 13:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it is preferable, and probably will be easier to reach a compromise, if we aim for consistency within navies rather than between them. I also would like to see an agreement made re. whether it should be (e.g.) "Royal Navy destroyers" or "Destroyers of the Royal Navy". In this latter case at least we should be able to agree a uniform format for all navies. Emoscopes Talk 13:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
That's true; consistency within navies would be a good first goal. For example, Category:United States Navy aircraft carriers is inconsistent with the other USN cats, which are named like Category:Battleships of the United States Navy. Perhaps I should try for consistency within navies before trying to propose consistency between them. TomTheHand 14:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm currently adding and improving a lot of articles about Royal Navy destroyers, but find that there is a well established category "Royal Navy destroyers" with sub-categories "World War I destroyers of the United Kingdom", "Cold War Destroyers of the United Kingdom" etc. So not only is there no consistency in what the navy is rendered as, there is none as to which way round it goes - most confusing! Emoscopes Talk 14:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
We had some discussion above as to what the various categories should actually contain, and my plan is to make these categories like Category:Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom (which was my test category for this whole proposal). I think it's useful for the categories to contain eras, class categories, and articles. TomTheHand 14:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Part of the issue is due to the fact that some categories are not clearly mutually exclusive (see Category confusion above). As an example, look at the category hierarchy for World War II destroyers, battleships, and aircraft carriers of both the UK and USA:
Ships
Naval ships
So while UK and US destroyers are in the Ships category, battleships are in the Naval ships category, and aircraft carriers are split between the two. When you add in other classes of ships (destroyers, mine sweepers, etc.) and other WWII combatants (France, Germany, Japan, etc.), it turns into a nearly incomprehensible mishmash. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
What a mess. I would propose the following revision to the top portion:
Ships
I think all warships should be found under "naval ships" and we should regard warships sorted under regular "ships" as a mistake to be fixed. TomTheHand 16:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm in favour of a standard, almost any standard, rather than a mess. But the standard should be adaptable. On balance, I prefer the hierarchy: nation/ historical period /ship type/ class (ie United States WWII battleships (New Jersey class); but I won't cry myself to sleep if something else is the consensus. Another issue may be where there is dispute or change in the type of a ship, eg, the looong debate over how to describe the Scharnhorst class (or is it Gneisenau?) or whether the Scheers are "pocket battleships" or "heavy cruisers". Maybe we merely allow for all routes to an article. BTW: big thanks to Tom for his efforts and willingness to stick his neck out - brave man! Folks at 137 16:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a few thoughts. First, while I do like the hierarchy you've mentioned, I also like having ships be available at different points in the hierarchy. I'll point to my prototype Category:Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom again. I think it's good to have all battlecruisers of the UK available in one place, but also good to be able to drill down the hierarchy and see only WWI or WWII battlecruisers. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to make ships available further up in the hierarchy; a single cat with all destroyers ever built by anyone would be unhelpful.
In some disputes, like with the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau class, I've listed the ships as both, as in Category:Gneisenau class battlecruisers. They're findable under battleships or battlecruisers. As far as the Deutschlands go, I refuse to create a category called "pocket battleships," and I refuse to categorize them as "battleships," so they're found under cruisers. TomTheHand 16:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Re. Category:Battlecruisers of the United Kingdom, this creates a problem similar to the "pocket battleship" one, in that the Furious and Glorious classes are usually referred to as "large light cruisers", they really don't merit being battlecruisers, weren't designed as such and never served as such. Emoscopes Talk 17:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. I see what you're saying, but I think it's more of a Gneisenau problem than a Deutschland one. I'd be happy to list them as cruisers as well, but many people do refer to them as battlecruisers. Nobody who knows anything about ships calls the Deutschland-class "battleships;" there's always the "pocket" qualifier and nobody really tries to equate them to a real battleship. On the other hand, the Furious, Courageous, and Glorious were every bit as large as a battlecruiser and shared battlecruiser traits. TomTheHand 17:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Those of you who are savvy with the subject will use the (currently) correct descriptions - and it will work fine. Let's consider those who are still discovering - I think we have to allow for a "fuzziness" for definitions as well as guidance to the "correct" ones. A 12 year old boy, for example, who's researching German battleships for fun may desire info about warships that are correctly categorised elsewhere, as above. Enabling him to recognise the differences is a part of the education. Maybe under "battleships" (a common term), we include a pointer to these other ships either individually or as a category. Folks at 137 17:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for accessability, but not for it to be accessably incorrect! It's hard to draw the line between being technically correct and not to split hairs so much that it makes the hierachies unnaccessably obscure to the lay person. My feeling would be to to include the Courageouses and Gniesenaus of the world in with battlecruisers, but makes sure that at the top of the relevant article there is a short note giving the technically correct classification. Another nitpick would be that of the Hawkins class cruiser, they are usually lumped in with heavy cruisers, but actually were designed and built before that particular term came into vogue after the Washington Treaty of 1921. I wouldn't have any problems putting them in a heavy cruiser category, but I wouldn't refer to them as such in the article. Emoscopes Talk 17:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not arguing for accessibility at the expense of correctness; I actually think that there is a very reasonable case for calling the Gneisenaus "battleships" and the Courageouses "battlecruisers." There are perfectly intelligent and well-educated people with knowledge of naval history on both sides. I don't believe there's any need for us to take sides in the debate; unlike debates over the article titles, we can easily list the ships under both categories. TomTheHand 18:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

A ship category disjucture earlier today generated this following linked query, and the presence now of effective interwiki linking as can be seen in those cited links: Problem of 3 BB Categories So while I'm not going to weigh in directly on such a heartfelt discussion, but would like to point out that what you do should take into account the international effects (and what you affect) with respect to the commons and via the commons all the various language sister projects which are in the process of being tied more much closely using interwiki cross-category links. (Finding those neat pictures will eventually get much easier, and extra help is always needed, perhaps especially on the commons!)

Then again, I should point out that certain commonly used search tools on the commons default to a mere three categories of depth in searching for an intersection of two criteria specified as category names... so minimizing tree depth is a really good thing idea. Also note, on the commons, an image of a particular battlecruiser is most likely to not only be categorized under it's specific daughter category, but also in the higher tree categories as well. Interlinking and being able to find things easily is more important than nitpicks about absolutely correct minimal categorization.

I believe it would be helpful for you all to know some of the other tools that have come out of the effort which began in categories containing maps. Take a peek at {{w2}}, {{w2c}}, {{Cat see also}}, {{Category redirect2}} for example, and {{Commonscat4}} and template:WikiPcat for a usage glimpse of the interwiki templates (All are listed in Category:Wikipedia navigation templates, which is a horrible name, but suits until we finalize all the names in the system, including templates. See: User Talk:Fabartus and especially here for ongoing discussions towards making the interwiki linking a meta-project.)

If some of you were to add the relevant interwiki templates when you rework these categories, it would be much appreciated. More to the point, I'd suggest tying your learned discussion to take into account the commons heirarchy now, while making your decisions. These interwiki's can aid you in getting a picture of both trees. Note it is far easier to 'delete' a commons category than the Cfd procedure here on en.wp, so you all might take some time to tag and get a feel for the lay of the land while resolving the top-down heirarchy you are discussing herein. When in doubt as to whether 'things are equalized', use a '1' suffixed template, which tags with a slightly different category signifying more work is needed to vett the new structure until it can be said to be 'equalized'.

(We're currently working on cutting the list of templates down by adding if-then-else 'smarts' to do more, and there are enough trial variations and usage built in to give guidance some guidance in advance of a formal guideline. See both sister's Category:F class submarines and both their two parents for few optional Main Article wrinkles using brief calls
     Like: {{WikiPcat1|{{PAGENAME}}|F class submarine}}
     and... {{Commonscat1Ra|F class submarine}} (Note the offset order of the Main article link... the templates default to a main article name matching the category name, and we'll probably adjust that sort of thing to be consistant.)

Gotta run. Good luck to all. // FrankB 17:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to begin implementing the compromise proposal, adding both a country tag and a navy tag, starting tomorrow unless someone objects here before then. When I have to create country categories, I will name them in the (ship type) of (country) format, like "Destroyers of Germany". When I have to create navy categories, I will name them based on the name of our article for the navy. I will name them in the (ship type) of (navy) format, like "Destroyers of the Kriegsmarine", because I feel it reads best and fits well with the existing categories like (era name) (ship type) of (country). If anyone has any objections, please post here and I won't do anything until we reach a consensus. Again, if nobody has any objections, I will begin tomorrow. TomTheHand 17:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I gave it two days, and there were no objections, so I'm going to start with this. TomTheHand 14:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm with you on the compromise, and would like to thank you for your patience and persistence in this matter! Good work! Emoscopes Talk 14:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Emoscopes. If anyone has any objections in the future, please let me know either here or on my talk and I'll stop so we can further discuss the issue. TomTheHand 14:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Hyphen in formatting

There is a serious lack of consistancy throughout the site on the use of hyphen when it comes to ship classes. I'm seeing, for example, "Cleveland-class" as well as "Cleveland class"...both with and without the hyphen. Has there been a policy set which provides the proper format? It would be nice to introduce some level of normalcy in this situation (both for real world vessels as well as fictional and sci-fi ships). -- Huntster T • @ • C 13:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I surfed around navy.mil a little bit and not even they do it consistently! Consistency would be nice but I wouldn't know which way to go. Our ship class articles (see Category:Ship classes and its subcategories) are consistently named without a hyphen. However, our ship class templates (like Template:Nimitz class aircraft carrier) are consistently named without hyphens but consistently use hyphens in the template box itself. I don't have a particular preference. I guess whichever way would require less work would be the way to go. TomTheHand 14:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships);
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. Note the separation of submarine as a separate link; this is not required, but does allow the reader to look up the general term directly instead of being plunged into the technical discussion of a ship class.
hope that helps. Emoscopes Talk 14:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all, great info. -- Huntster T • @ • C 22:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest using a pipetrick exclamation point to indicate a redirect link, which should be categorized equivilent to the actual article. If such notation is used, when and where something is inconsistant shows up like a bandaged sore thumb while wearing a black tux. It would be an easy matter then to reconcile things with the naming convention just cited. You can't stop people from creating the links... only control same. // FrankB 16:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I have discussed the hyphen issue a lot on Wikipedia, it is not just the navy that is confused. Mercedes uses a hyphen (S-Class) officially but BMW does not (3 Series). People get confused because they think of 'spelling rules' rather than 'purpose'. Hyphens are tools to resolve ambiguity (compare "black-cab drivers come under attack" with "black cab-drivers come under attack").
Quotes from styleguides in User_talk:Bobblewik/style#Hyphens_and_dashes:

  • Do not use a hyphen unless it serves a purpose
  • be sparing with hyphens
  • If you take the hyphen seriously, you will surely go mad.
  • Winston Churchill apparently said: One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided as far as possible

Ship class names should not have a hyphen unless they are part of ambiguous text. bobblewik 10:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wording of stub template

This is a question I have also left on Template talk:UK-mil-ship-stub, with regards to the phrasing of the UK-mil-ship-stub template. Currently, it reads "military ship", my feeling is that it should read "naval ship"; military being "Of or relating to land forces." I know the Army run a few vessels, but as this stub is used almost exclusively with regards to naval vessels, I feel that this is somewhat incorrect. Emoscopes Talk 15:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

sorted now Emoscopes Talk 10:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pennant Numbers in the RN

I was wondering what the protocol is on Pennant numbers on Wikipedia, if any. The pennant number article uses the simplest version, with no full stop/period between the Flag Superior and the Number. This seems to be the convention on many websites and in print, as well as being what appeared on the hulls of the warships themselves. By contrast, there are numerous articles on Wikipedia which cite the pennant number with the afore mentioned full stop/period.

If there isn't already an official convention on the matter, I propose that one be put in place.

-Harlsbottom 00:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have just recently expanded and updated the pennant number article and I have discussed this there. I would strongly be in favour of a convention for wikipedia not to use the period. They haven't been painted on since the 1920s, Royal Navy official publications and the vast majority of books do not use them. Emoscopes Talk 10:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I would certainly agree with your assessment. I'm in touch with a number of authors on the matter, and that's how they've done it as well. How does one go about making the change official?

-Harlsbottom 12:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I presume by getting it added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). Emoscopes Talk 13:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Since you're obviously on the ball with this, can you edit the infobox on the british battleships of WWII so that the Pennant Number can be included? I've tried numerous times, but it never works. I have a list of numbers from Queen Elizabeth onwards. -Harlsbottom 13:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I've done this on the Vanguard article previously, the edit concerned is here - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Vanguard_%2823%29&diff=65123367&oldid=65122989
You basically want to add these three lines somewhere appropriate;
|-
|Pennant:
|number here
Emoscopes Talk 11:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Civilian liner question: SS versus RMS?

I am in the midst of a project to document all the White Star Line ships, and have found an area of inconsistency that I'd like to overcome, and I would like to solicit interested folks' opinions. Article names for British liners are sometimes preceded with an "RMS" rather than an "SS". According to the article Royal Mail Ship as well as other non-wiki info I can find, RMS is really only a temporary designation for when mail is actually being carried onboard (kind of like Air Force One is really only that when the President is onboard). Any other time, the ship should properly be referred to as "SS". It seems that RMS usage has taken on the "popular" conception that it is a standard reference to a British ship (a misconception, no doubt, aided by the infamy of the RMS Titanic, since she was under that designation when she went down). Though it seems that the preference at Wikipedia is to use the title which would be most "commonly" used by the public (a problem that is easily overcome by redirect pages), I am concerned as a historian that by doing so we are giving false legitimacy to a misconception. Thus, except for special situations like Titanic, I propose that "SS" be used as the standard Wikipedia format, and I'd like to see if there's a consensus amongst the project folks. Concur? Disconcur? Akradecki 03:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, a toughie. Even if the designation was temporary, if it's the best-known, I'd say it's still legit to use. Not unlike what we do with ships that have had several name changes; any of the names are technically correct, even if the ship carried it for only a day, so we just pick the most familiar from among them. So for instance if the ship was an "RMS" throughout 90% of its heyday, then "RMS" seems like it would be far more common than "SS". You could clarify in each article by saying "launched as SS Foo", and mention date of first mail carriage. If mail usage was occasional, then "SS" would be more common and thus preferred. Anyway, does anybody really want to push "SS Titanic" as the preferred title? :-) Stan 04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Stan; Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) states that the article should be given the most common name that is still unambiguous, so if a ship was primarily known with the prefix RMS its article should be titled as such (with a redirect from SS if it doesn't cause a conflict with another ship) TomTheHand 13:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Olympias (trireme)

Someone please cleanup this article, especially the infobox.

It is financed by Hellenic Navy (Greece) so the navy infobox apply. However, since it is a trireme, it has no powerplant and armour to speak of. SYSS Mouse 03:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

hard code a infobox for this particular example? GraemeLeggett 14:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes in specifying caliber of gun?

In a phrase like "8 inch gun", is it preferable to have a dash or a space between 8 and inch? I favor spaces and I think standardization is a good idea but I wanted to discuss it here. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) states that with units of measurement, a space should be used (preferably non-breaking). Should that be applied to our gun calibers as well? TomTheHand 18:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The units master, User:Bobblewik replaces spaces with a hard coded one Emoscopes Talk 21:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, he doesn't; he prefers regular spaces, but maintains a non-breaking space version of his code for people like me (he apparently gets lots of requests, because the MoS specifies non-breaking spaces, but I think he thinks they're silly). TomTheHand 21:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "She", "Her" (referring to ships as feminine)

Has there been a consensus on using feminine pronouns in the articles to refer to the ship? I reverted an "it"ification of the USS Arizona (BB-39) article last night. I listed the rv as for no consensus cited. Also the anonymous editor changed broke to raised for an admirals flag, which strikes me as just dumbing down.

Some reasons to keep the feminine:

  • Thousands? of years of nautical tradition
  • Wikipedia language variant guidelines: "nautical" is a dialect of English and its usages should not be arbitrarily changed to some other dialect of English.
  • Frequently, passages are direct quotes from DANFS.

The opposing view seems to be centered on that any use of the feminine pronoun is somehow harmful. Maybe I'm ingorant of some specific and uniformly opressive connotation of calling a ship a she. But like the word "ignorant" I'm not willing to give it up because it can be used in a derogatory manner. Everything can be used in a derogatory fashion.

Observations of women who've "gone down to the sea in ships" would be particulary welcome. I'll be pinging a few I know including a CPO and an M.D.--J Clear 13:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Since "she" is completely common in U.S. Navy, in this case it's definitely the appropriate pronoun. In my opinion, use of "it" is normal or possible in articles about ship classes, or about foreign ships, or when just referring to a ship in a more generic article. However, in no case for individual American ships. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 14:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I tend to use "she/her" and see no harm in this (what precisely would the objection be?). It strikes me that this argument is strikingly similiar to the "the" discussion we had some time ago. Talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive01#.22The.22_before_the_ship.27s_name We've discussed this very topic before as well Talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive02#Calling_ships_she with no consensus.
Sorry I missed the archive. Darned archiving. What? Don't people like 600 line talk pages? Has a FAQ been started on the project page?--J Clear 23:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I propose that we adopt a guideline similar to what we did with the "the". "The" is not needed before the name of a ship (but neither is it wrong) Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ships)#Referring_to_ships. Jinian 21:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
"The" is never wrong for "The Name", but if you have a prefix it can cause problems - "The USS Name" is fine, but "The HMS Name" doesn't make sense. Shimgray | talk | 21:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Another point in favor, from the American Heritage Dictionary: "2. Used in place of it to refer to certain inanimate things, such as ships and nations, traditionally perceived as female: “The sea is mother-death and she is a mighty female” (Anne Sexton)."--J Clear 23:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody have an authority to cite *against* feminine pronouns? The complainers seem to be amateurs looking for sexism in every phrase, not actual real-life feminists. (Seems stylish to still use masculine pronouns for Russian though - WP doesn't *have* to be the blandest text ever written...) Stan 05:22, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Consistency. Formally, in normal English, as well as in probably all other languages, ships are inanimate and inanimate objects are "it". Feminine is a long tradition in navies, but, after all, we don't insert all of the naval jargon in articles, so "it" is correct as well. However, when the article is related to a certain country, it's recommended to use corresponding dialect, so I think we could establish the following:

  • In articles about a specific US or UK ship, feminine is preferable.
  • In articles about US or UK ship classes, both feminine and neuter are acceptable.
  • In general engineering or other topics and in articles about ships and classes outside of US and UK, neuter is preferable.
  • Feminine should only be used for specific ships, not ship classes.

Any thoughts or objections? This generally reflects the current use both in Wikipedia and in other sources. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 09:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

We can't legislate everything: some things ought to be left to the taste and discretion of editors. Gdr 15:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to it, and I'm female. It's naval tradition in the US. I think when I've been writing though I use "it" but it's because I don't come from a naval tradition and didn't think about it, just seemed natural to me at the time. I can change to using "she" plange 19:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:United States class aircraft carriers

WP:CFD on United Staes class aircraft carrier category Category:United States class aircraft carriers, that contains the sole example, USS United States (CVA-58).

USS US had just her keel laid, and the fzip, scrapped, no other planned ship made it to a keel, or material collection, nothing else was named... as far as I can tell. Why does this need a category? There will never be another article about a US class carrier.

70.51.8.235 05:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

An article on the class itself would be appropriate, and moving the article to Category:Unique aircraft carriers wouldn't be appropriate because she was not unique. She was a member of a five-ship class, all of which were cancelled. If one were built and the rest were cancelled, I'd feel a little differently. TomTheHand 13:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the difference between a totally cancelled class and a class that made it to one example, and then was cancelled. There would either be one ship article, with the class folded into it, or a class article, with any underconstruction ships folded into it. 132.205.93.19 18:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
In the case of the sole ship of a class, where the rest of the class was cancelled, that ship is unique and belongs in Category:Unique ships or a subcat. If an entire class is cancelled, it doesn't go in Unique ships; the class and/or ships are not unique.
See Category:Montana class battleships or Category:South Dakota class battleships (1920) for examples of classes which were cancelled but which still have multiple articles. TomTheHand 19:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
From what I see, all those articles should be folded into the class article. Your point about it not being a "unique example" would just indicate that this should be categorized in say Category:Proposed ship classes that were never built. 132.205.93.19 19:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
That may be so, but that structure doesn't exist yet; it'd probably be a good thing to create in the future. TomTheHand 20:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hazegray and navsource AWOL?

hazegray.org and navsource.org seem to have gone AWOL. No DNS resolution. Near as I can tell I can't reach their DNS name servers (same name servers for both). Nor can I reach them by IP (from another ISPs cache). Anybody know what's going on?--J Clear 01:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, they're back, like magic. I'd still like to know what happened. I couldn't get through last night either.--J Clear 02:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been having intermittent problems with NavSource yesterday and today, most recently within the past hour. Don't know about HazeGray. Lou Sander 03:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to:

HMS Enterprize (1709) and HMS Enterprize (1743)? Can someone tell me when and why they were deleted or moved, without redirecting them? Pedant 03:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the deletion log, the first article apparently had a prod tag added to it and nobody noticed or objected in the required time period. It was deleted last May. If you'd like, you could try posting on Wikipedia:Deletion review and ask to have it restored. The second article doesn't have a history in the deletion log, so I've got no idea what happened to it. TomTheHand 03:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The first one was deleted as a copyvio of [1]; feel free to use that as a source for a new one. Doesn't seem to ever have been a page at the second one. Shimgray | talk | 13:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom

Just a quick heads up that I have proposed a merger of the lists List of aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy and List of escort carriers of the Royal Navy. Emoscopes Talk 13:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming navy categories

In the discussion above, Further discussion on categorization of Category:Ships by country, we worked out a compromise where ships would be categorized both by country and by navy. I said that I would begin classifying articles I touch in the future in that way, and I'd be naming new categories in the format (ship type) of (navy) (like Category:Battleships of the United States Navy). This seems to be most consistent with the way Ships by country and Ships by era are named, and it also seems to be consistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories), though the naming conventions only address ships by country, not ships by navy.

However, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing, and I'm wondering if these categories should be named in the (navy) (ship type) format instead (like Category:Royal Navy battleships). Many categories are already named that way, it's compact, and it looks good. Either way, a ton of renaming will need to occur. What do you guys think? I think I've presented both sides and I'm having real difficulty choosing between the two. We'll need a real consensus on this one, because we'll have to propose renames on WP:CFD. TomTheHand 18:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I can see the usefulness of both ways. One might be interested in just battleships, or just Royal Navy ships. So this would not lead to a strong argument for boldy defying wiki Naming conventions policy (and it is a policy, not a guide). Assuming both cannot be supported, it would seem like the "Miscellaneous ... of country" policy rule would apply, with a Navy being a representative of a country. So Category: Fooships of Bar Navy. My USD0.02, YMMV.--J Clear 00:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Underlying rationales for using "of" include that adjectival forms of country names are often ambiguous with ethnicities (Swedish community in Finland for instance), or are ambiguous in other ways ("American", "British"). Since "navyname shiptype" is grammatically acceptable, no adjective needed, that isn't a motivation. On following naming conventions, the policy for ships is generally accepted to originate from here, this project having been around for a long time and having a good reputation. So if we agree here on something that is a little different from the usual, and have reasonable rationales for it, that will become the policy. In this case, I have a slight preference for "navyname shiptype", both for brevity's sake, and as a visual distinction from "shiptype of countryname". Stan 12:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
One point to consider would be that formal names for a country's navy are a relatively recent inventions; older warships would still need to be listed by country name. Another point is that names often overlap (how many countries have a "Royal Navy"?), so you'd be forced into either using non-English terms exclusively, or falling back to country adjectives. Kirill Lokshin 13:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
We had discussed this a bit above (see here) and decided that (as a compromise) ships should be categorized by both country name and navy name. As a result, we have both Category:Cruisers of the United Kingdom and Category:Royal Navy cruisers. On the matter of name overlap and other related issues, we decided to name categories after the applicable article on the navy, so Royal Thai Navy, Royal Netherlands Navy, etc. Also as a result of that guideline, we'll use Russian Navy instead of Военно Морской Флот, and so on.
Do you have an opinion on the (ship type) of (navy) vs. (navy) (ship type) issue? TomTheHand 14:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the (ship type) of (navy) version is a bit easier to understand, as all that you need to do to create a properly named sub-category is to substitute the navy name for the country name, and a parallel naming convention is maintained through both trees (i.e. "Ships of the Royal Navy" → "Cruisers of the Royal Navy" and "Cruisers of the United Kingdom" → "Cruisers of the Royal Navy"); but I don't do much work with ships, so there might be subtleties I'm missing here. Kirill Lokshin 15:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I kind of like (ship type) of (navy). Lou Sander 15:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that a not-exactly-parallel naming conventions would be better to distinguish between by country/by navy categorization. Also, something like "Foo Navy Bars" sounds simpler. Navy's ships are a bit different from coutry's, because ships are what constitutes a navy, not just its property. So I think the simpler way is better for this situation, like "Ship elements", at least for categories. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 15:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for responding! I hope more people come by and weigh in. At the moment, J Clear, Kirill Lokshin, and Lou Sander seem to favor (ship type) of (navy), while CP/M and Stan favor (navy) (ship type). This kind of division is rough, because it'll be difficult to get any renames through at CFD. Perhaps a clear consensus will emerge in coming hours/days.

I value consistency of naming far more than any other concern, and so I would vote for any blanket rename that establishes consistency. Consistency doesn't just improve readability. It also allows greater use of templates to categorize, which makes category maintenance much, much easier. Does anyone else feel the same way? Alternatively, is anyone vehemently opposed to either naming scheme? TomTheHand 18:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I probably favor (navy)(shiptype) slightly, my comments above were how I thought wiki policy might apply. I'm definitely in favor of consistancy. As to by country/by navy, I think you have to go by "navy", unless you want to lump USN, USCG, MARAD, NOAA, EPA, USA[rmy] and even USAF ships together.--J Clear 22:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with you about having to go by navy, for several reasons. First, ships from the various branches of service would very rarely be lumped together. The Coast Guard never had a battleship, for example. Second, for many searchers, it would be helpful to be able to search for ships of the United States without having to know which branch the ship served in. Third, categorization by navy is very confusing for people who don't know the name of the navy. For the United States Navy, it's easy. For the Royal Navy, it's a little harder; you and I know that the Royal Navy is the navy of the United Kingdom, but not everybody does. For the Hellenic Navy or the Regia Marina, it's even harder. Fourth, there are cases when you may prefer to have the ships lumped together. Germany's navy went through five names in the twentieth century, and it is useful to be able to see all cruisers of Germany at a glance.
For all these reasons, I think categorizing by country is the better solution, but I see categorizing by both as a good compromise. TomTheHand 22:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to give this discussion another little prod. Can we come up with a compromise? Would people be willing to vote for either side as long as consistency is achieved, or are some people horrified by one arrangement or the other? TomTheHand 17:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll vote for either variant, if that is our consensus. While I have a preference for shorter way, consistency (single cat) is more important than details. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 13:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I realise I am late to the party :) If one more voicr would help here it is. If positions are entrenched maybe a vote is in order. My view is that we should list by country to get a consistent solution that will fit more situations. Inge 19:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your view is appreciated, and you're by no means late to the party. However, we're already categorizing both by country and by navy because it seems clear that there is no way to achieve consensus to do just one. What we're discussing is how to name the navy categories: (ship type) of (navy), like Category:Battleships of the United States Navy, or (navy) (ship type), like Category:Royal Navy battleships. Do you have an opinion on that issue? TomTheHand 20:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
For many of the reasons listed above and for reasons of simplicity and user friendliness, I would have to go with (ship type) of (navy). Isn't categorising by both too much of a comprimise and just adds more work? --Harlsbottom 12:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, too much work, for an issue where everybody expressing an opinion seems to be OK with it whichever way it goes. The "of" choice has more votes, might as well go with it. It occurs to me that there is an additional complication in that commons uses a similar category structure that is interwiki'ed here, so changes want to occur in both places. Stan 12:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see a concensus and I'll vote for it, it's currently a mess and I'd rather have an agreed format that I may have a minor nitpick with than see 3 or 4 half-baked systems running at once as is the case now. After a lot of though, I'm in favour of the (ship type) of (country name), basically because I have realised that, especially with auxiluaries and support vessels, these ships aren't always operated by the Navy. For instance, I can't really put quite a few operational British vessels into the category "Support Ships of the Royal Navy" as they are Royal Fleet Auxiliaries. The (country) format is a catchall for all naval services of that nation, and I see no reason why we should discriminate between a ship such as a destroyer which may only be operated by i.e the Royal Navy and a vessel such as an LSL, which may be RFA, RASC or RN! As far as I can see it, the country system is the best "1 size fits all" option Emoscopes Talk 13:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I take it that you mean there would be categories such as "Battleships of the United States," and "Battleships of Japan," and "Battleships of the United Kingdom," etc. Also perhaps "Transport ships of the United States," etc., whether those ships were operated by the U.S. Navy, the Military Sealift Command, the United States Postal Service, or any other governmental or quasi-governmental agency of the United States of America. As long as we could avoid complexities such as "Landing Ships, Tank, Diesel Powered of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland," I would be in favor of that scheme. Lou Sander 14:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly what I'm for, Lou. Emoscopes Talk 15:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This is also the format used for naming of flags i.e naval ensigns, e.g it is "Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom", not "Royal Navy Ensign" or any other format. Another reason to follow this form? Emoscopes Talk 12:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey guys, sorry, I've been out of town the whole weekend. Glad to see all the discussion. I originally started this thread to talk about the naming format of navy categories, but it's turned into a discussion of whether we should categorize by country or navy in general. I'll weigh in on that issue.
I feel very strongly that we must categorize by country, though I am not opposed to listing by navy in addition. I've listed my reasoning above; I'll repeat it on request but leave it out right now for brevity.
A month or two ago, I tried to drum up consensus for renaming navy categories and merging them into country categories. It looked like there was consensus here, but when I proposed merges and renames on WP:CFD they were shot down hard. There is significant opposition to the merging of navy categories into country categories, especially from Royal Navy fans. The compromise that we worked out was to list both, which does have some use: it's silly for the US / USN, but useful for Germany, with its many navy names.
I will not propose a new round of renames on CFD, and I will continue to categorize ships by both country and navy according to the previous consensus on the subject. However, if someone else proposes them, I will vote in support of eliminating (renaming/merging/deleting) navy cats in favor of country cats. I will oppose attempts to eliminate country cats in favor of navy cats. If someone does propose the renames, please post links to the CFD on this page.
If a new consensus emerges for the elimination of navy categories and merging with country categories, I will obviously stop categorizing by navy, and I'll be happier for it. TomTheHand 12:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean to kill this discussion! Is anyone planning to propose some merges? I'd support a measure to merge navy categories into country categories, as Emoscopes suggests above. I don't want to propose the merges myself, because I tried it a few months ago and failed and I think some people got upset with me. I'm not confident that any proposed merges would succeed now, but if anyone believes that it could be pulled off, I encourage you to go for it. TomTheHand 19:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm with you, TomTheHand, quite frankly, most of the categories for the Royal Navy are a complete and utter mess. We really need some guidelines of what goes into what category where before we go to the all the effort of attempting a recategorisation though. Emoscopes Talk 19:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
In fact I've been working on a complete proposal for ship categorization. I'm going to post a new topic below so that people not following this thread can see it. Please check it out. TomTheHand 20:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AKA's probably in the wrong class

There's a discussion of this subject HERE. I'd appreciate anybody's review and comment. Lou Sander 14:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shipbuilders

I've been building a database of ships lately, and when tabulating shipbuilders with the aid of Wikipedia I've come across "irregularities" which don't help accuracy;

For example, for a vessel built at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in Quincy, MA, I have seen "Fore River Ship Building Corporation" or "Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, MA". For a vessel built in 1919 "Fore River..." wouldn't apply due to the yard having been sold under that name in 1913, and the difference between Squantum and Quincy is no doubt a matter of opinion.

I'm not so sure about your examples. Squantum is not on the Fore River, but a few miles north, along the Neponset R. Possibly different shipyards, that were later consolidated.--J Clear 03:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

What I'm asking is whether it is worth drawing up a list of shipbuilders specifying what names were used at a time a vessel was built, with redirect links to most recent name. I'd like to see not necessarily a greater consistency (as in some cases names changed often) but I believe that there will be a large number of shipbuilders which could be made more consistent. Comment welcome. --Harlsbottom 01:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it WOULD be beneficial to have a list of shipbuilders, along with the different names they've been known by. There really aren't very many of them in the world, and they DO change names and ownership pretty frequently. I think that specialist companies probably have pretty complete lists, but those lists and companies sometimes aren't easy to find.
I could have used such a list when I posted or edited articles about the 117 Amphibious cargo ships of the United States, which were built in 12 different yards over a period of forty years or so. Six yards built 102 of the ships, but the yard names were inconsistently styled in the source material. I finally figured out that all those names really only referred to six different shipyards, so I was able to be consistent in writing the articles. Seven different yards built the other 15 ships, but due to the small number at each yard I'm still not quite certain of their real names and locations. Lou Sander 02:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've come across this exact problem for British naval ships, that is the constant changing of yard names, mergers etc. I always try to correct the yard to the name at the time the ship was built, although there isn't always a separate page so I often end up directing the wikilink to the most appropriate page. Emoscopes Talk 07:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

British shipyards, while not as serious as some of the American ones, are just as infuriating sometimes. The case of Armstrong, Whitworth & Company. Also known as Elswick, also known as Vickers Armstrong, also known as Walker Shipyard or even the Walker Navy Yard. Unbelievable at times.
If someone has a good idea for a title please come forth, because I can't think of one at all. Something similar to Guide to the various names of shipbuilders, perhaps? --Harlsbottom 11:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd be happy to contribute a British section to such a page, I've made determined efforts to get the correct names and locations and put them into articles. I usually put the full name and location in e.g Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan for the first ship in a list buitl at that yard, with following examples under a contracted form, e.g. just "Fairfields". I favour the form "Full company name", "yard location" in the first instance, followed by an unlinked contraction in subsequent use in the same article. This helps for examples like the case of Vickers Armstrong. There was a Barrow-in-Furness and a High Walker yard (ex- Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth, respectively) and I usually refer to these as Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness and Vickers Armstrong, High Walker respectively. (note that High Walker is piped from Walker-on-Tyne.)

Emoscopes Talk 12:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've started a little page here just to test a layout and to collate some ideas. I intend to go name by name (discounting unnecessary variants). Any contributions/modifications in the interim are highly desirable. BTW, I do agree with the manner in which you mention the name of the builder, Emoscopes. --Harlsbottom 14:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

For example, for a vessel built at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in Quincy, MA, I have seen "Fore River Ship Building Corporation" or "Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, MA". For a vessel built in 1919 "Fore River..." wouldn't apply due to the yard having been sold under that name in 1913, and the difference between Squantum and Quincy is no doubt a matter of opinion.

Actually, the Fore River shipyard and the Squantum shipyard were different facilities in Quincy, though both were owned by Bethlehem.[2] The Squantum "Victory Yard" was only in existence from 1917 to 1919, building 35 destroyers. —wwoods 16:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'll be sure to include it (it also means that I have a load of entries to edit on the Wickes & Clemson class DDs now! --Harlsbottom 16:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Please include German shipyards: there's info [here]. Also please add the marine warfare task force tag. Good hunting! The proposed layout looks a good first cut - perhaps add any specialisms and links to specific articles. Folks at 137 11:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I know the owner of GWPDA.org - I must confess I didn't realsie he had a list of German shipyards on there. I'll be sure to accomodate them. --Harlsbottom 14:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
About 19 U.S. shipyards built Liberty ships during WWII. Some of the yards operated only for a few years. One can find a meaningful amount of info on each one at www.liberty-ship.com. You must select "The Yards" from the box at the upper left of the home page. Lou Sander 09:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talkpage banner?

Is there a banner for this wikiproject? 24.126.199.129 08:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3"/50

I just created a very modest stub at 3"/50 caliber gun. I couldn't find an existing article on it, and I've seen it on a lot of WWII vintage ship articles with no link. Anyway now it's there, so as you go back to improve you favorite ship articles, bear it in mind. And of course being a stub that article could use attention itself as I'm about done for now.--J Clear 02:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of World War II British naval radar

Hi guys, I've compiled a list of World War II British naval radar sets at, oddly enough, List of World War II British naval radar. I've arranged the page so you can pipe links from articles into the relevant sub-section using an anchor (E.g. to link to Type 279, [[List of World War II British naval radar#Type279|Type 279]]). I chose the page name carefully after much checking, as it fits in with the general scheme of things in the electronic warfare articles. Emoscopes Talk 11:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out that the link actually is [[List of World War II British naval radar#Type 279|Type 279]] - note the space in the anchor. Only mentioning it because I used the example above editting the KGV page and found it didn't work right. Martocticvs 16:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, well spotted that man! my bad. Just to reitterate, this is the format; [[List of World War II British naval radar#Type 279|Type 279]] Emoscopes Talk 16:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historic naval flags

It's customary to add the appropriate national or naval flag to various articles, eg ships. What's best: the current version or one appropriate to the ship's historic period? For example: in WWII, Australian and Canadian warships flew the "white ensign" used by the RN. Their own ensigns came into use in the 1960s - so which is best to use? Other affected nations include Italy, Germany, USA (two more stars so no big deal!). Changes have been made to articles to show current flags (eg, HMS Nabob (D77)), so an agreed convention would help. There also seems no set rule about whether to use ensigns (Royal Navy - white ensign; Dutch Navy - naval jack (a nice distinctive one)), other than one that is distinctively naval. Folks at 137 08:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I would say what is best would be to use the correct flag for the time, for e.g Canada, Australia although they used the White Ensign, they had unique jacks (e.g. Image:Canadian Blue Ensign.svg, wouldn't that be the appropriate flag? Of course things get complicated where a vessel serves through more than one flag period, but I guess we can just put both up to keep everyone happy. I would take issue with the Nabob article as it uses the modern Canadian Jack, but never served under that flag. Emoscopes Talk 08:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The flag should be appropiate for the period. If the period of service covered a change from one flag to another eg Blue Ensign to modern ensign in 1965 then the most recent should take precedence. PS I've edited Nabobs ensign. GraemeLeggett 11:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of inconsistency with the use of the "don't tread on me" jack in USN ships articles. A quick survey of Benjamin Franklin class submarine showed a random mix of the 50 star and DTOM Jacks. With the Kamfish, the only one that might actually have flow the DTOM jack, having the 50 star one. Looking at the history of the Carver it appears some of this was due to a bot replacement or a png with an svg jack in March. Does the ship project have a bot programmer who could set the jack correctly based on decomissioning date? While there's possibly some exceptions to that rule, it probably would be better than the current situation. --J Clear 14:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Kamfish was decomissioned about two months before the DTOM flag went into effect. --J Clear 14:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
RN White Ensign, 1707-1800
Enlarge
RN White Ensign, 1707-1800
With the current discussion about ensigns and jacks going on, I had a think about this again, and discovered that there wasn't a pre-1801 RN white ensign available - so I created and uploaded one. It's not quite right yet (though it is accurate in terms of overall proportions and colours), but I can fix that later easily enough. Martocticvs 15:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Much appreciated; thanks Martocticvs! TomTheHand 17:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I might be wrong here, but didn't the Royal Navy use the Blue, White and Red Ensigns for different squadrons (blue, white and red) up until 1864? Are we going to accomodate for this? Emoscopes Talk 22:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes they did, but that was a matter of internal organisation really. The colour of a squadron was determined by the rank of admiral commanding it, ie a squadron under a vice admiral of the blue would fly blue ensigns. The red ensign was used by the navy also, but it was at the same time the merchant ensign, which caused some confusion at the time, and it would only do so now as well. The white ensign is the recognised symbol of the RN today, and as it was used in all periods when it was the British Royal Navy, I think it's reasonable to use it as a blanket ensign. Also ships of the time would likely have worn all 3 colours at one point or other in their careers. Martocticvs 22:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
What are people's opinions about the ensign to use for the 1620-1707 period for British ships? Because it is before the Scottish Navy merged with the English Royal Navy, the ensign for any Scottish vesel is clearly , but English ships of the time were using the red, white and blue as in later periods. My personal preference is for , as it was the senior of the three, and is the one seen on paintings of ships of the time most often. The white ensign of the time you hardly ever (if at all - I can't think of one anyway) see on paintings of ships from the period, although it would be more consistent with the 2 later periods. Martocticvs 14:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Navyphotos.co.uk

Iv'e been looking round this website ( http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/ ) and it has come to my attention that some of the photos here are supplied by external sources and also appear in many books I have. I would be careful about the exact copyright status of these images as they may just be scans out of books. Emoscopes Talk 17:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Or the books are using those photos. From the publisher's point of view, free is good, doesn't cut into profit margin. At least four of my own photos uploaded to commons have been reused in print publications, for instance. You can usually detect scans from books by the halftone screen - it leaves a distinctive fuzzy crosshatch pattern across the image. Stan 23:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RN Ships of the line category

I was just looking through the RN ships of the line category, and there are a couple of entries labelled as 'French ship xxxxxx'. These were ships that served in the Royal Navy, but were either captured from the French Navy, or captured from the Royal Navy by the French. Seeing as this is a category for RN ships, would it not make more sense for the ships to be listed there under their names in the RN? I'll use the example of the Swiftsure - this was a ship built for the RN, and launched as HMS Swiftsure, serving in the RN for 13 years before being captured by the French, and serving with the French navy for just 4 years, retaining the name Swiftsure. When recaptured she was renamed by the RN. I understand why perhaps it is entered as a French ship, thanks to her participation at Trafalgar under the French flag, but as she was also a British ship under the name for far longer, it makes sense to me that she has a page HMS Swiftsure (1787), which can perhaps redirect to the current version? I'm not sure if redirect pages can have categories though... any thoughts? Martocticvs 21:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There's no harm in a ship page having categories for more than 1 navy if it served in both. For a subject as obscure as an 18th century ship of the line, I would go with redirecting to the existing page to simplify matters. Emoscopes Talk 22:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Well my thinking was to create the redirect page with the RN category, and remove the RN category from the existing page, that way both the French and RN ships of the line category pages will be accurate... Martocticvs 22:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea, Iv'e no idea if that works, but I guess you can try! Emoscopes Talk 22:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Got it to work - I think that makes things a bit neater overall. Martocticvs 23:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
It's may be working if you're driving from the category page to a ship. However it doesn't work if you get to Swiftsure from some other place, then want to follow up to the category as you'll only see the French category. Also the article needs the HMS Swiftsure name in bold at the beginning, which brings up the question of the article name. Which name for the ship was most notable? Perhaps the article needs a neutral name like just Swiftsure, which could have all applicable categories and still avoid "fouling" the category lists.--J Clear 00:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe not so good now. That's a very good point. I think these sorts of ships are a little problematic - what would be best is if there was a way to include a page in a category, but not have it show up in the category list - or even better to have it show up on a category page under a different name but I don't think that's possible. In the case of Swiftsure we couldn't just call the page Swiftsure, as there is already something under that name (although it is another ship and so probably doesn't conform to the naming conventions?) Martocticvs 10:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
How about [[Ship of the line Swiftsure (1787)]] which could be redirected to from [[HMS Swiftsure (1787)]] and [[French ship Swiftsure]] ? Emoscopes Talk 12:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I've run into the same issue many times over the course of my categorization work, and I considered the same solution, but I rejected it because you won't be able to navigate from the article to the proper categories. You can't get from French ship Swiftsure to Category:Royal Navy ships of the line to look up additional RN ships, which I think you should be able to do. TomTheHand 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if it might work better if there was a sub-category under the ships of the line categories - something along the lines of Captured ships of the line - that way the main article could be on a page with a more neutral name under the captured categories of each nation, and the nation-specific redirect pages could carry the correct names for that nation. So HMS Swiftsure (1787) has the RN SOL category, and French ship Swiftsure has the French SOL category, and they both redirect to say, Swiftsure (Royal Navy 1787, France 1801), which would have the captured ships categories. That way you'd still be able to access the SOL categories by going up a level, it just means it involves an extra click... Martocticvs 13:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I think a more universal solution would be better. Often a ship is simply sold to a new navy, not captured. I'm also not particularly bothered by French ship Swiftsure being categorized under RN Ships of the Line... I just don't see it being a problem, and I think that the "solutions" just add complexity. This would be a LOT of work for little or no benefit. TomTheHand 14:01, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah you're right - I've reverted the category changes, but I've left the redirect page as that at least does make sense. Martocticvs 20:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, and good catch; every ship that served under more than one navy and/or under more than one name should definitely have redirects from each of its names to the primary article. Those redirects can eventually become starting points for new articles; when a ship has a long history and multiple owners it's often beneficial to split the article up and have separate articles for each owner. TomTheHand 21:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for ship categorization

I've been working on a proposal for the WikiProject's ship categorization policy. Please check it out: User:TomTheHand/WP:SHIPS categorization proposal. It reflects the consensus achieved over the past few months and puts it all in one place. If we can generally agree that it's good, I'd suggest that we create a new page under WP:SHIPS and link from the main page to it, since it's a little bit long to place on our main page. TomTheHand 20:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone have any input on this? The proposal is what has evolved out of the categorization project I've been working on for about three and a half months. There are a couple of things about it that I don't quite agree with. I don't think navy categories are necessary; I think just country categories are more than adequate. Also, I think it's redundant to place ship class articles into both "ships by class" categories and ship class categories - for example, Fletcher class destroyer goes into Category:Destroyer classes and Category:Fletcher class destroyers, which ALSO goes into Category:Destroyer classes. I think it should be a hierarchy - Fletcher class destroyer goes into Category:Fletcher class destroyers, which goes into Category:Destroyer classes. Still, this is the compromise proposal that has developed over the course of the project in discussions here. TomTheHand 13:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
agree, its much easier to navigate a hierarchy than a web. Emoscopes Talk 14:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer to see a pretty solid majority before I change the way I categorize ship class articles; though you and I would prefer the straight hierarchy there was some serious dissent back in May-June when we first discussed this. Everyone, please weigh in on this! I'll change it if enough of us agree.
On the subject of navy categories, I'd like to see a few successful merges/renames go through before I change the proposal. Because it requires merges and renames, the proposal needs to get the support of the wider Wikipedia community, and so whatever we agree to here doesn't necessarily matter. There was a solid majority here when I first suggested the merge, but an overwhelming opposition when I proposed it on CFD. TomTheHand 14:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
agree I just woke up, so I don't comprehend every detail of the proposal referred to above. However, it seems well thought out and well organized, and TomTheHand is a pretty reliable fellow. Lou Sander 14:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As a few of us seem to be opposed to categorizing by both country and navy, what if I removed the "by navy" guidance from the proposal and stopped categorizing that way? I won't try to remove existing navy categories or merge them into country cats, but I'll stop categorizing that way, since it seems silly for me to do it when I don't like it. People who like the navy cats can use them if they want. Would that be a good idea, for the sake of cleaner, more straightforward categorization, or is it a childish way to get what I want? TomTheHand 13:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's childish. You aren't un-doing someone else's work, you just aren't doing something you don't agree with and that isn't int he MoS or whatever. If you go by country, when I'm tidying articles I'd be happy to go along with you. If anyone wants to come along later and add by navy categories, they are more than welcome to, but if there is one consistent, navigatable hierachry I'm sure it will catch on. Emoscopes Talk 13:15, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've been bold and placed the proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Categorization, then linked from the main WP:SHIPS page. The old categorization section was pretty out of date, so I believe this one is an improvement, but if changes need to be made to it, let's make them! TomTheHand 18:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

nothing in there I can find fault with. I'm in. Emoscopes Talk 18:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Didn't find fault, but did tweak the verbiage a bit and add other bad examples. Please check that they fit.--J Clear 01:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm about to go through Royal Navy sloops, and I shall test out your instructions listed above because the current situation is an utter shamble of dead ends, orphaned categories and uncategorised pages. Emoscopes Talk 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Great! I have not actually done much pre-20th century categorization, so hopefully everything holds up. Something to watch out for with Royal Navy sloops is the Great Britain vs. United Kingdom issue, and some ships might have to be classified as both or something. TomTheHand 00:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I was only going through 20th Century sloops, so haven't stumbled across that problem. Category:Sloops of the United Kingdom is what I've set up, hope I've got it right, I tried to follow your instructions as per User:TomTheHand/WP:SHIPS categorization proposal. Emoscopes Talk 01:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gun article names

Recently there has been an attempt at metrification of the names of guns used in naval artillery. It was being dicussed over at User talk:Bobblewik#Move of 16"/50 (copied below):

I'm not sure that I agree with your move of 16"/50. The article was placed there because the official designation of the gun is the 16"/50 Mark 7; the move places it at an artificial construct of a name. Of course metric measurements should be given in the article, but the article title should be the gun's proper name, not a description of it. 16"/50 Mark 7 naval gun might work better, or a name which works the nationality in: United States 16"/50 Mark 7 naval gun, perhaps? Another example of an article named after the weapon's proper name is 40 cm/45 Type 94. Graeme Leggett noted that the title should probably include nationality and "naval gun", and I agree, but I believe using the gun's official name is important. If we applied your scheme, we'd have 460 mm (18.1 inch)/45 caliber Type 94 naval gun, which is a completely artificial construct that does not reflect the gun's actual name. TomTheHand 14:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


OK. I was not sure which name to use. I did look around online and within Wikipedia for some convention but did not find anything definitive. You make some good points, I also note [3], which makes me think of other issues. I am open to several options.
I would like to consider this in detail with you but I have to dash. Talk later. bobblewik 14:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, eager to hear from you later. TomTheHand 14:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I have done some research. There is a lot of inconsistency out there. The 'name of gun' reasoning is valid but does always apply when it comes to units. It seems that where a name includes a unit of measurement, people frequently make understandable format variations related to that unit. For example, e.g. the same weapon may be described as 'fifty-cal' and 'half-inch'.
In text, the double quote (") for inch is clearly common when associated with the calibre, although the term 'inch' is frequently used when the caliber is absent (as in 'the 4.5 inch gun'). The term 'inch' is often used in speech. The abbreviation 'in' is also routinely used in text although probably never in speech. I also see that 'caliber' (US) and 'calibre' (UK etc) are sometimes given in full, sometimes abbreviated as 'cal', and sometimes absent.
I am persuaded by your 'name of gun' reasoning that conversions between non-metric and metric are not required unless it is part of the name. So that makes it simpler. Although I am only talking about article names here. Within the article, the millimetre values are needed for reader comprehension and for comparison with ships of other navies.
I think I prefer '16 in' and/or '16 inch' rather than '16"'. I am not sure what to think about '50' but it always seemed odd to me to have a number without a unit. If we used '50 cal', then that would mean we would not have to worry about US and UK spellings for the same thing. That would give me a preference for '16 inch/50 cal' or '16 in/50 cal'. However, I will back down if you insist that '16"/50' is how it should be. :(
I would welcome it if you took this discussion to another talk page (Manual of Style or Ships project?) where some other people could discuss it. My initial reason for moving the pages is that I saw inconsistency. Furthermore, I have started work on a new monobook tool (User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/general.js) to tidy up the *huge* inconsistency within articles. I would welcome input from others. bobblewik 19:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


Ratios don't have units. The 50 refers to the ratio of barrel length to bore diameter, which is the naval definition of "caliber". The guns in question are referred to as 16"/50 caliber at times. The .50 caliber heavy machine gun uses the other definition of caliber, meaning barrel bore inside diameter. In older US Army manuals, caliber implied the diameter in inches (e.g. TM 9-1005-211-34 Direct and General Support Maintenance Manual - Pistol, Caliber .45, Automatic, M1911A1).--J Clear 22:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the units of measurement (mm or inches) cancel each other. But the term 'caliber' is a description of what the ratio involves, not a unit of measurement per se. It is described as 'x calibers' just the same as a horse race is won by 'three lengths' (a ratio of distance to horse length) rather than simply 'three'. It just so happens that in gun terminology the description of what the ratio is may be ommitted. I note the following format: [5-inch Mark 45 54-caliber lightweight gun], [3-inch/23-caliber gun]
Seems like I said this recently elsewhere, but: 1) List of artillery has a lot of good info, and lists a lot of guns. If we made sure every naval gun was on the list, it might be easier to achieve uniformity in naming. 2) I strongly oppose metrification of English units in the names of articles on naval guns. 3) I like the name format 5"/38 caliber gun. I wouldn't mind if the format were 5 inch/38 caliber gun or something like that, but I'd sure want to see a redirect entry for the 5"/38 format. Lou Sander 14:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Does one need the qualifier "/" if "caliber / calibre" is being included also? I thought that the "/" (or L/) was just shorthand for that? Also, should there be a space between the 5 inch and the "/"? Emoscopes Talk 14:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similar discussion

It seems I managed to start an almost identical discussion on a different project, here.

This was my thoughts; I was interested in starting some articles on British naval guns, so took a quick inventory of what is already out there. So far we have;

Obviously, there seems to be no systematic method for naming articles. The official designation of these guns is;

  • BL 15 inch Mark I
  • BL 13.5 inch (various marks)
  • QF 4.5 inch (various marks), until 1950s, when surviving guns became simply 4.5 inch Mark 5, Mark 6, Mark 8.
  • QF 2 pounder (various marks)

I would like to propose some agreed method to name the articles. There is already a fairly systematic naming system for (British) Army guns, e.g Ordnance QF 2 pounder and Ordnance QF 6 pounder, this simply follows the official designation (but drops the gun weight in hundredweights). The Royal Navy designation system is unique as far as I know, I therefore do not think that titles need disambiguated with the word "British". I also think including the mark is over-specific, as apart from the 15 inch and 16 inch guns, most guns went through a large number of marks. For this reason, and the fact that the Royal Navy does not include it in the official designation, I also do not think the calibre should be included; there are, for instance, L/55 and L/45 guns on the page 4.5 inch (114 mm) gun, which should we use? I personally amn't keen either on including millimetres in the title. These guns were never reported with a metric equivalent, or known by such (the sole exception being the foreign Oerlikon 20 mm (QF 20 mm) and Bofors 40 mm (QF 40 mm)). We do not have a page [[Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 inch) cannon]], likewise we do not include millimetre and inches in the title of the 2 pounder gun article. It also just makes the title that bit more complicated than it really needs to be.

My preferred choice for a titling system would therefore be [[designation, calibre in inches / shell weight in pounds, naval gun]], e.g. [[BL 15 inch naval gun]]. The only shortcoming I can see with this system is where we have a case where a modern, unrelated weapon, is added into a page for historic guns due to a shared calibre - this is the case with the 4.5 inch (114 mm) gun page. However it would be my intention to move this to a page of it's own anyway. Emoscopes Talk 01:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Do all the guns have an acceptable preceeding designation? Or are there cases where using it would be inappropriate? Kirill Lokshin 13:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
All weapons have a preceding designation, BL or QF (breech loading / quick firing). There are also historic designations such as RML (rifled muzzle loading) which are a bit out of my field of expertise. Mountings also had a separate Mark and designation (e.g. HA, CP, P, BD, UD, HA/LA). I've summarised and attempted to explain all these on the page British ordnance terms in order that I can pipe the abbreviations to the appropriate anchor in there. Emoscopes Talk 13:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right that the examples you mention are poorly titled: the first three are horribly over-engineered, and the fourth overdoes the ambiguity. ("2-pounder" made me think of the tank gun, at least.) While a certain degree of horizontal consistency is a good thing, over-doing it could lead to titles that are neither official, and more to the point, aren't common names. I'd be highly inclined to go with the latter principle, to a reasonable degree "averaged" over generally similarly named classes, and taking precision into account. Alai 14:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm inclined to go on a systematic system based on official designations. For instance, if we had a page QF 4 inch naval gun and anchors within that e.g #Mark XVI you could pipe a link in to the correct gun, e.g. [[QF 4 inch naval gun#Mark XVI|QF 4 inch Mark XVI]]. This would work in all cases for British naval guns, as far as I know. Emoscopes Talk 14:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Given that that name gets zero google hits, it seems an unlikely contender for the "common name", and so is inconsistent with existing naming guidelines (unless you have better sources on the commonness of that reference than that admittedly crude measure). You should really either a) pick the most commonly used name (probably "4 inch naval gun", I'm guessing), b) pick the most commonly used name that's not ambiguous (dunno in this case), or c), my least favoured option, propose a naming convention (and I mean an actual naming convention, not just a wikiproject style note) to fix a particular conventions that instantiates and/or overrides NC(CN). (Probably this is my least favourite option because of the horrendous mess the "US roads" people have just made of such an exercise.) Alai 02:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not surprised it gets no hits, I've yet to come across any websites that use the correct designations. A simple look at some contemporary gun manuals, or photographs of the breeches of British naval guns would confirm the "correct" designation. (e.g BL 6 inch Mark XXIII, or from The Gunnery Pocket Book, B.R. 224/45 BL 6 inch Mark XXIII, QF 4 inch Mark XVI). If you aren't keen on keeping the QF or BL in there, that would then require a national disambigation, as my original thought was that the British designations would identify the weapon as British (although probably only to those "in the know", now I think of it). However it is worth noting that the BL 4.7 inch and the QF 4.7 inch gun are quite different pieces. I don't wish to impose a WP naming convention, it seems like such a lot of effort for a relatively specialist subject, and most contrivuting authors are involved in these projects so I feel it is best to keep it here as a style guide. Emoscopes Talk 02:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Given that my legal name gets 10 Google hits and my nickname gets 2,800, would that override naming a wiki bio other than my legal name (assuming I were notable, of course)? Does the RN have any official web sites describing the gun?--J Clear 02:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Were you notable, I'd assume your legal name (or some variation on it -- Bill Clinton, not "William Jefferson Clinton", note) would get more hits, and/or that'd you'd be "commonly known" by the nickname. I admit that google is a very crude test, and in no way definitive: if you have examples of the "correct" name being used in formal writing and other reference works, that's great. But the existing NC is based on usage, not on officialness. Alai 05:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Will anyone have a problem with me renaming the following?

I'll run it through a suggested move before hand regardless, just wanted to see if this general format is acceptable. Emoscopes Talk

I'd favour "British 15 inch naval gun" because then you can also do "US 15 inch naval gun" I would also do "Japanese 40 cm naval gun" rather than 40 cm/45 Type 94 because with the latter at a glance you have no idea what its about. Not to say that the first line of British 15 inch naval gun wouldm't say Breech Loading 15 inch somewhere in it. GraemeLeggett 08:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
My rationale for including BL / QF etc. is that somewhere down the line we may need to dab between (say) QF and BL 4.7 inch guns or BL and RML 10 inch guns (I know it's unlikely, but it could potentially happen). Would we then have British QF 4.7 inch gun and British BL 4.7 inch gun? Emoscopes Talk 10:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
In that case the British 4.7 inch naval gun would serve as overview or disambiguation page. The QF and BL article names could be created as redirects at any time of course. GraemeLeggett 12:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
A couple of points I'd like to make. First, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) states that In general, country-specific articles should be named using the form: "(item) of (country)." That's instead of "(nationality adjective) (item)." Second, while I'm fine with renaming 40 cm/45 Type 94 to include a nationality and "naval gun", it should not be called "Japanese 40 cm naval gun" because it was not a 40 cm gun. It was a 46 cm gun with a deceptive name. I think its name needs to be used rather than a description, though I suppose we could put it at "46 cm naval gun of Japan" if we insist on using a description. TomTheHand 12:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Would that give us QF 4 inch naval gun of the United Kingdom or QF 4 inch gun of Britian ? Emoscopes Talk 13:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC) After all, Britain isn't a country.
I believe that'd give us QF 4 inch naval gun of the United Kingdom, which is ridiculously long. *sigh* I understand the reasoning behind the "of (country)" preference, but it does lengthen things. I don't think we usually need to append "(of country)," though. To me "QF" implies that the weapon is British; the American equivalent is "RF" for rapid-firing. TomTheHand 15:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
You've misread the application of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) - its a subset of "Places". Don't forget that RF and QF may imply things for you but not necessarily for the majority. GraemeLeggett 16:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I've been coming round to that way of thinking myself, I'm far more against putting "Quick Firing 4 inch naval gun" in than I am against dropping "QF". Still is it not rather obvious that it is part of the designation? So where does that leave us at? Emoscopes Talk 16:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe I have misread it. Examples they give of its application are "History of Portugal" and "Wars of Great Britain". An example from the talk page is "Olympic athletes of Canada." The reasoning behind it (found on the talk page) applies to all topics. I guess I don't understand what you mean by 'a subset of "Places"'. TomTheHand 16:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

Suggest articles should be named for the name of the gun in the era it was used. Otherwise we're going to get in to problems with the british 2 pounder and 44 lb. carronades. My feeling is that metrification doesn't apply to names. I'm not going to Amazon and look up The Longest Yard (91.44 cm). Metric values should appear early in the introduction on the gun article. Suggest using format 5"/38 caliber (127 mm x 4.8 m) in other articles.--J Clear 01:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I apologize for not taking the conversation over here as Bobblewik suggested... I got involved in a bunch of other things and it slipped my mind. I think articles should be titled based on the name given to the gun by the navy that used it, translated into English if necessary. However, we need to consult some sources on this to make sure we get the right name. I think that the 16"/50 Mark 7 was referred to as exactly that, and I don't think the word "caliber" should be used in the title, though it should be used in the article intro. I think "naval gun" should be in the title, and I'd like to work the nationality in as well. "United States 16"/50 Mark 7 naval gun" is kind of what I'd like to see. TomTheHand 02:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, like I say above, noone would think of looking up a 0.79 inch Oerlikon Cannon, it was never known as such, just as (for example) the British BL 15 inch was never known as the BL 381 mm gun. What is to be achieved by metrification of article titles? I still think it's important, for British guns, to keep the designation in there. there are a few cases where this disambiguation may be neccessary (e.g. RML 10 inch or BL 10 inch, QF 6 inch or BL 6 inch, QF 4.7 inch or BL 4.7 inch). Emoscopes Talk 02:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

We also need to establish a standard for " vs. inch in naval gun articles. If there is a strong consensus here that " is the way the guns were named historically, I think at least for the purposes of naming them, we should use that way. I don't have an issue with spelling inch out in the internals of the article using general MoS. But we do need to come up with a consensus to dscourage arbitrary moves.--J Clear 02:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

see my references above, "inch" is definitely the term used for Royal Navy guns. Emoscopes Talk 02:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As a further argument toward using the historical name, I don't see anyone renaming Royal Mile anytime soon.--J Clear 02:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Furthering the use of the historical name again, take the 4.5 inch / 114 mm gun. It actually has a bore of 4.45 inches, but the Royal Navy seemingly only rounded up to 1 decimal place at the time, so it was known as the 4.5 inch gun. This was carried over with the conversion to metric, and it is reported as the 114 mm gun now, not the 113 mm gun, its true bore. Emoscopes Talk 02:30, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
1) Don't forget the List of artillery, which measures everything in mm, shows 'em from small to large, and lists the name of the gun, many of 'em in inches. 2) It seems pretty silly (or worse) to me to convert inches to mm in the name of the article. Hey, a 3"/50 was known as a 3"/50, not some hybridized English and metric thing. And a 40mm was known as a 40mm, not some combination of inches and mm. 3) I'm agnostic as to using "inches" or the symbol for inches, but it should be consistent, and there should be redirects. I'm kind of partial to using the symbol in the names, though. 4) Let's not forget that most of these guns are no longer around, so we're not doing anybody any favors by doing metric/English conversions -- use the familiar original names. Lou Sander 02:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I am pro using inch in the title, rather than the double apostrophe. In some cases an article may need to be more generic until expanded and so the (made up example) title could be German 175 mm naval gun which ticks most all the boxes under naming conventions. GraemeLeggett 08:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Might I suggest that we only include the calibre lengths (in a format yet to be agreed upon) where the calibre is in the designation and the article refers to one specific mark or family of guns. 1/ it obfuscates the article title, and when you are adding wikilinks it's a bugger to try and get complicated article titles correct. 2/ Reitterate my argument that often a series of guns (e.g British 4.5 inch) will have a number of different calibres. Emoscopes Talk 11:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we should only include the length in calibers when it's actually in the official designation of the gun and the article is about that specific gun (not a whole family of the same bore diameter). I think double apostrophe is actually used in official designations of US guns, so I don't think inch should be used there. I also don't think "caliber" should be used; I think we should be going for something like '5"/38 naval gun' with a complete description and explanation in the intro. TomTheHand 15:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
IMHO, we should leave "caliber" in the article name. It' an important descriptor of what the "38" refers to. Without it, folks might be mystified. Lou Sander 15:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal 2

From the views expressed above, I would propose that we have some sort of a concensus on the following issues;

  1. Prefix guns by country Suffix guns by country, in brackets, where appropriate for dab purposes, e.g "[[4 inch naval gun (United Kingdom)|]]" (or Prefix by company where appropriate, e.g. Oerlikon, Bofors, Hispano, Hotchkiss, Skoda)
  2. Suffix guns by "naval gun" where appropriate, e.g. not for weapons used widely on land / sea / air such as the Oerlikon and Bofors guns
  3. Report units in the system by which they were officially known, e.g. Imperial/US for British and US weapons, metric for European weapons.
  4. Report units in the format by which they were officially known, e.g. " for US, inch for British
  5. Only include calibres where they are part of the gun designation, or to disambiguate from a similar weapon (yet to agree whether we need the word "caliber"), e.g. US 5"/38
  6. Include any other official designation style for disambiguation, e.g QF or BL prefix for British weapons, Marks where there are separate articles for different weapons

A few examples for illustration;

your thoughts? Emoscopes Talk 16:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I mostly agree that there's consensus on the above, except prefixing the article name with the country. I think that to do so would make the articles terribly difficult to find. Redirect pages could fix this, but still the article name would be artificial, IMHO. Lou Sander 16:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
See my above comments about WP:NC(CN), except even moreso. Arbitrarily prefixing a country name (or an adjective: you appear to not be consistent about that) is going to make the name less commonly-used, not moreso. Determine the common name, with some regard to consistency over a related series of guns; disambiguate by country, or otherwise as further needed, parenthetically. Bear in mind that articles are supposed to be at names, as they'd be linked to in other articles, not "official designations", and much less, descriptions. Alai 16:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I can see how prefixing the country name might be confusing, but at the same time I think it may be useful/necessary for disambiguation. I... guess maybe they should be left off unless needed to disambiguate between two different countries' guns with similar names. TomTheHand 16:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
If there are two guns commonly called (let's say) "4 inch naval gun", then "4 inch naval gun (United Kingdom)" and "4 inch naval gun (Somewhere Else)" is clearer as to what's the common name, and what's being added to that specially for disambiguation. (If it's somewhat commonly called by some unambiguous name, that's less clear-cut.) It's also somewhat more convenient if you want to link to "[[4 inch naval gun (United Kingdom)|]]" in another article. But this all supposes what the common name is... Alai 17:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Great idea, Alai. One of my arguments for adding BL / QF in the first place was to avoid needint to dab by country, but this "optional extra" you suggest should solve any potential problems that arise. Emoscopes Talk 18:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm in favor of omitting the country unless there is an ambiguity.--J Clear 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Official" names of guns

These aren't necessarily easy to find. I found one source HERE, though. Note the inclusion of the word "caliber," which I recall from long ago was typical. the reference uses "inch" instead of the double quote, but I have a feeling that form wasn't universal. I'm going to keep looking for some sort of "official" reference. Lou Sander 13:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify something: J Clear wrote: I don't see anyone renaming Royal Mile anytime soon..
Good example of how everything is not quite what it seems. It is a Scottish mile long. bobblewik 18:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I was half worried when I pointed that out that you'd rename it to Royal Mile (1.8 km).--J Clear 22:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Touché. :)
bobblewik 18:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gun designations

Without wishing to re-ignite a settled debate, has a convention for gun naming been agreed? Is it recorded somewhere? Does any Wiki list reflect this, yet? I'd like to link warship articles to the guns they use and I need some guidance. Folks at 137 11:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming "modern ships" categories

Ok, we've discussed this issue several times before but never taken action. I've always said "I'll do it later." Well, later is now!

The Category:Modern ships structure is used to categorize ships that are in service right now. I think it's a good, useful structure, but many times we've discussed how "Modern ships" isn't really the best title. It's very vague. To some it implies that the ships are up-to-date and high-tech, which may or may not be the case. To others it implies that the ships are of the 20th century ("modern era"), which also may or may not be the case. We need a new name that really means "ships that are in service right now." "Contemporary" has been suggested in the past, and I think that's a good one, but it has that relative-ness that I don't like. Contemporary with what? I guess when it's not specified one should assume right now, but I'd be more comfortable with a term that specifically means "right now." My best ideas are "Currently serving ships" and "Present-day ships." If we can come up with some kind of consensus I'll propose the big move over on CFD.

There's another issue as well. We have a "Cold War ships" cat and a "Modern ships" cat, but nothing to cover the period between the end of the Cold War and now. If a ship decommissioned in 2003, that's over a decade of post-Cold War service, but she doesn't belong in a "currently serving ships" category. Anyone have a good name for a category to cover the period between the end of the Cold War and today? "Post Cold War" is the best I can come up with. I would probably say that the "Post Cold War" category should only contain ships that left service since 1991, or it'll end up too redundant to "Modern ships".

Again, I apologize for bringing this up for the nth time, but I'll really propose the renames this time once we work this out. TomTheHand 18:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Active ships? Commissioned ships? A ship doesn't neccesarily need to be in an era category, I don't see the point in inventing one for "recent" ships just because they don't have one, but I see the utility in a category for currently serving ships. Emoscopes Talk 19:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I like "Active", so unless there's opposition within the next day or so I'll propose the renames using "Active." It's possible that a different name will be proposed once this is sent over to CFD and that will wind up being used, but as long as we end up with something more accurate than "Modern" I'll be satisfied. TomTheHand 16:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, probably "Active" is the best way. Concerning ships decommissioned in 1991-2006... Well, if they were built during the Cold War, they can be called Cold War ships. I don't think we have a lot of ships built after 1991 and already decommissioned. But probably this category will become necessary in the future. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 16:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I would go with 'Active' as well - just because a ship is de-commissioned doesn't mean it is out of use permanently. Ships are de-commissioned whenever they return to port and their captain goes elsewhere. They may be immediately re-commissioned under a new captain, or it might be several days or weeks before that happens - that could lead to some annoying fiddling around with the category tags to keep things up to date if the cat was called 'Commissioned ships'. Martocticvs 22:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consistency in infobox

I am trying to make the units in the infobox more consistent.

If anyone wants to help, feel free to use my monobook tool User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/general.js. Let me know if you would like help getting it to work. bobblewik 23:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

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