Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive02

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

Archives
January 2004 to April 2005 April 2005 to January 2006 January 2006 to June 2006 June 2006 to September 2006 September 2006 to November 2006 November 2006 to January 2007

1 Huh?! What's going on with that ensign?
2 Blue flags on blue background
3 Ensigns and Jacks With Copyright Problems
4 Pictures from navyphotos
5 Maritine War Graves
6 Better table?
7 Are metric measures not permitted?
8 Using new jack for old ships
9 Improvement drive
10 Unclear USN speak
11 USS Grapple
12 The Saint/St. Louis
13 Image copyright
14 Classification
15 Different Image Copyright Question
16 Ship classification of Pansarskepp
17 Some action at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion
18 Calling ships she
19 Categorization
20 Wikiproject Cruise Lines
21 Index articles; disambiguation or signpost?
22 Improvement on my table code
23 Some ship cleanup
24 Categorization by class
25 Categorization by era (modern)
26 Words
27 Ship index pages
28 List of LSTs
29 Template idea for DANFS references
30 Color in the Ship table Template

Huh?! What's going on with that ensign?

I've started to upload versions of certain flags in the Wikipedia that do not have copyright problems attached to them and have clear source information. One of those flags is a PNG version of the British Red Ensign. When I was clearing out links to the GIF version I came across a distinct problem in the standard table. If anyone has any clue what causes the system to this User:David_Newton/Sandbox#Flag_and_Ensign_Experiments when the flag is rendered with identical code inside and outside of a table I would greatly appreciate some insight. David Newton 21:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please disregard. I fouled up with the code for the SVG. I'd forgotten to make areas explicitly white and I left them with no colour. That's fine on a white background but does tend to show up on a blue background rather! David Newton 21:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Blue flags on blue background

InsertCaptionHere

Problem:

Solution?

Alternate solution?

—wwoods 22:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Concur that it's a problem. I don't mind the solution as long as no one starts believing that the white border is part of the flag. Not sure how else to address it though. Jinian 14:21, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Would it help to change the background colour, e.g. to the lightsteelblue used by the Template:Infobox Military Unit. JimmyTheOne 23:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I attempted to solve the problem by putting a white border around the image itself in Image:US_unionjack34.png, Image:US_unionjack35.png and Image:US_unionjack36.png. I will remove the borders if this is bad practice. PAR 20:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's another way of putting a border around an image. The border is thinner, which is good, but maybe gray would be a more subliminal color? I don't know the numerical code to replace the one in that template.

"... align=center| {{border| [[Image:British-Government-Ensign.svg|60px|British Blue Ensign]]}}"

Although I agree that the best solution would be images with the border built-in.

—wwoods 05:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Ensigns and Jacks With Copyright Problems

There are a number of ensigns and jacks which are linked to in the ensigns table that are a problem from the point of view of copyright. They either do not have source information, or they are fair use images that should not be used if at all possible. I'm compiling a list of the ensigns/jacks concerned and what is wrong with them. We can then go through and fix what is wrong.

Images Still Extant As Problems

Image:Argentinajacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Canada naval jack.png - no licence information
Image:Colombiaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Colombian Naval Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
Image:Ecuadorian Naval Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
Image:Ecuadorensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Elsalvadorensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Kmensign.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
Image:Kaiserliche Kriegsflagge.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
Image:Guatemalaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Hondurasensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Ie-jack.gif - clained PD but no source information
Image:Regia Marina Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no licence information but probably public domain
Image:Marina Militare Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no licence information but probably public domain
Image:Mexicojacksmall.png - no source or licence information
Image:Nicaraguaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Perujacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:SA Navy Flag.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Scn-ensign.png - no source or licence information
Image:RSN Ensign.gif - from World Flag Database, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
Image:Thaiensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap, and copyrighted image in much larger format uploaded at start of January 2006.
Image:Armymajor.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap
Image:Dtomjack large.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source or licence information
Image:Ukraine-ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source or licence information
Image:Uruguayjacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Image:Venezuelaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information

Images Deleted and Superseded

Image:Ranensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done. Since deleted as a redundant image.
Image:Chilejacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Chineseensign.gif - no licence or source information since speedy deleted by an admin
Image:Confederate Naval Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, source does not have copyright information about image since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject.
Image:Kdmpennant.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Freefrenchensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Fgnjack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles
Image:Reichskriegsflagge.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Indian jack.png - not clear what licence flag it is from is licensed under - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Japaneseensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Rnznensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done Since deleted as a redundant image.
Image:Netherlands jack.png - no licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Rujack.png - no licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Ruensign.png - no licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Soviet Navy Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Supennant.png - no source or licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Rfaensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:Rmasensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
Image:rnensign.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done
Image:Usnjack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done

Images Deleted Without Replacement

Image:Argentina navy flag.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject
Image:Canada aux jack.png - no licence information since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject

Images Superseded Which Need Purging From Articles

Image:Braziljacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles
Image:Frajack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles

Images With Problems Sorted Out

Image:Kkkensign.png - no licence or source information - since made clear that a Wikipedia user created the material.
Image:Csnjack.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source information since made clear that User:The Epopt created the image and released it into the public domain.

As you can see there is a significant problem with the ensigns and jacks in the table. I am guilty of some of this as I uploaded some of the ones where fair use is claimed. However, I have been working over the past few days to get rid of some of the images like that. So far I've dealt with the British, Australian and New Zealand ensigns. I've also uploaded properly licensed and sourced versions of the RAF ensign, British blue and red ensigns. I've also covered some of the Australian and New Zealand flags that were problematic. David Newton 00:22, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Malo and I have changed all pages using Image:Usnjack.png except a couple of user_pages. —wwoods 00:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Pictures from navyphotos

Jimmy Wales has decreed that

All images which are for non-commercial only use and by permission only are not acceptable for Wikipedia and will be deleted. [1]

As you can see at Category:Images used with permission, this decree mainly affects articles about ships of the Royal Navy which use a lot of images from http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/ with permission (see Template:Copyrighted-navyphotos).

Is there anything we can do? I note that the template says "This image is copyrighted by the maintainer of the Web site http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/ [i.e. David Page] and used with permission" but in most cases that's not true; David Page merely scanned the photos or uploaded them from other contributors as described at [2]. In most cases the true copyright holder is unknown and probably unknowable. Gdr 17:41, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

I'm curious: what is the status now on the use of navyphotos images? Could fair use be used? SoLando 04:45, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Maritine War Graves

In a followup on a recent edit to war graves, User:Mark.murphy pointed me the current list of UK Maritine War Graves at http://www.mod.uk/consultations/maritime_graves/controlled_sites.htm

This looks like the basis of an article that might interest peolple here, but I would have thought there should be a wider, international list of ship wrecks as war graves. -- Solipsist 22:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Better table?

Playing with various tables, I found this bit better looking than the current Ship infobox tables. It's currently used in RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 and RMS Queen Mary 2 articles. What do you think? (below). _<added> You could replace the initial tables header with the new one and it will look virtually the same except that I included the vertical stay on top so it's easier to read, that will add a bit more labour of pasting it after "|-". _</added> -- WB July 5, 2005 09:26 (UTC)

	Career
RMS Queen Elizabeth 2
The QE2 cruise liner in Southampton Docks England, 1976
Ordered:	?
Laid down:	July 5, 1965
Launched:	September 20, 1967
Christened:	September 20, 1967 by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II
Maiden Voyage:	May 2, 1969
Fate:	in service
General Characteristics
Displacement:	70,327 gross tonnes
Length:	293.5 m (963 ft)
Beam:	32.03 m (105.1 ft)
Draft:	9.87 m (32.4 ft)
Height:	?
Power:	10,625 kW at 400 rpm
Propulsion:	9 MAN 9-cylinder medium speed turbo-charged diesel engines turning two five-bladed propellers
Speed:	33 knots (20 knots in reverse)
Complement:	1,756 passengers 1,892 (all berths) passengers 1,015 officers and crew
Cost:	£29,091,000

Are metric measures not permitted?

I received the following on my talk page:

About measures in the Sven Foyn article

One thing is "kW" for horsepower, another is "km/h" for knots. This is an article about a person that lived and died a hundred years ago, and the measures you use were not used at that time. When it comes to "km/h" at sea, its still not used. Ulflarsen 23:22, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Some editors don't want metric units to be provided for metric readers, even if dual. This is particularly relevant to ship articles. Please take part in the discussion at: Suggested rewrite of 'units' section in Manual of Style. Bobblewik (talk) 09:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Using new jack for old ships

Not surprisingly, some random editors have started changing the jack on USN ships from the 18th century to the First Navy Jack. We need some consistency on this. Should every ship that ever served in the United States Navy have the current (whatever that may be) jack in the ship table? Or should each ship have the jack that she actually flew?

Personally, I vote for the jacks reflecting what the ship actually flew. The first Boston never flew the DTOM jack, so why should it be identified that way?

Ultimately, though, consensus on this is more important, so we can make the decision once. I'm flexible if the rest of the project wants to use the current jack (and then we should use a template, because the DTOM jack is anticipated to be temporary only). Jinian 12:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to drop a though here, I'd like to say that there are instances where the choice of the flag reflects actual information. For instance, the Redoutable wears the Blue-White-Red flag of the Republic and the Empire, but the Soleil Royal would wear the white fleur-de-lys flag of the Monarchy. This is necessary for some other countries than the USA, and to make the whole thing consistant, might be generalised to the whole encyclopedia. Rama 14:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I have a question regarding the use of the USN jacks: which jack should we use for ships in the mothball fleet? Technically, US Reserve fleet ships are still in the war on terrorism, but they haven't actually fought. Thoughts on this from anyone? TomStar81 00:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I was making changes to civil war era ship articles before David Newton alerted me to this project. What I have done is assume that the proper jack is the one that the ship flew, and accordingly have used Image:US_unionjack36.png - the 36-star union jack of 1844-1865 on many civil war era union ships. Also availiable are the 34 and 35 star versions.

Improvement drive

The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.--Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Unclear USN speak

The article Iowa class battleship is on peer review. What do these lines mean?

"nine 16 inch (406 mm) 50 and six 5 inch (127 mm) 38 guns"

"5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns"

How can they be 5 inch caliber and 38 caliber at the same time? Rmhermen 13:56, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

the gun's barrel is 5 inches inside diameter, and 38 times that in length (190 inches, 15.83 feet) ➥the Epopt 15:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

It is common (as seen in the first example above) to state the caliber multiple without saying what it refers to i.e.:

5 inch (127 mm) 38 guns.

This might be acceptable in the artillery domain, but it is not helpful to our readers, as was demonstrated by the question.

Perhaps it would help if we were more explicit. The '38 caliber' really means '38 calibers', '38 caliber multiples' or '38 times the caliber'. So we could have a more explicit format:

5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber-multiple guns.
5 inch (127 mm) 38 calibers guns.

Of these two, I prefer the second. What do other people think? Bobblewik 16:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

USS Grapple

This ship was deployed for hurricane relief. Unfortunately we don not have an article on it yet. Could anyone here put one up? Rmhermen 14:44, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Done. Note that the ship you need is at USS Grapple (ARS-53). Jinian 13:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Rmhermen 17:29, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

The Saint/St. Louis

There are two identical articles :

My two questions are:
1. How are we supposed to write, in general, regarding a (ship) name : "Saint" or "St." ?
2. What title is better and should stay : "MS" or "SS" ? (and of course "Saint" or "St." ?). The Wikipedians are welcome to help editting it.
Danny-w 11:07, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

(question moved here from project page)

For the prefix question, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships), which says, "If more than one prefix was used, choose the best-known and create a redirect from the other." For the Saint/St question, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names): "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." Here's a table of Google hits for the possible forms:

	MS	SS
St. Louis	527	15,500
Saint Louis	514	623

I think it's pretty clear that SS St. Louis is the proper name for the article and MS Saint Louis should be redirected and merged. Gdr 12:41, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Done ➥the Epopt 14:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Image copyright

I've been working a longtime on ship articles as a personal project and officially added my name to the Wikiproject name just now. I had a quick question though regarding a copyright issue I encountered. as noted in the template below...if a sailor in the US Navy took an photograph while he was on duty, it is considered a work of the US Government and considered in the public domain correct? What if that sailor marks it as copyrighted? --ScottyBoy900Q 04:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

This image is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
Subject to disclaimers.

On duty, yes, because while on duty one is merely an agent of the government. Off duty, the sailor would presumably own the copyright, just as if the sailor had written a novel in his/her spare time. I suppose in some cases we (and the Navy, for that matter), have to take the sailor's word about on/off status, unless the photo were of a dateable event and you had access to the duty logs. :-) Stan 17:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

More suitable defaults might be the following, unless the person doing the uploading knows that the work (which I interpret to mean the original photograph) really was taken by a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy during the course of official duties. That's not true of all photographs at NARA or the Naval Historical Center; some come originally from private collections; some come from other branches of the military. I suggest it's safer to assert what you know based on your own source rather than what you guess based on your source's apparent source. Of the tags available today, I think these two come closest. (P.S. Why does the first of these tags contain a different image than the same tag in Wikipedia Commons?) -- Mccomb 13:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

These templates are a good option in many cases. Commons is a separate project, so any consistency has to be achieved by personal effort on somebody's part. (The dream is that someday all PD images end up over there, so no need for these templates in en:, but that's a ways off.) Stan 18:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Classification

I've been retooling the infobars for the United States Navy's battleship classes, and hit a snag with the Nevada class battleships: Should they be classified as battleships, or should they be classified as super dreadnoughts? There is an entry on the battleship page for super dreadnoughts, so its not a huge difference, but I am trying to get this factually right. TomStar81 22:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Different Image Copyright Question

Ok...here's a different copyright question. There is a very nice gentleman who has been emailing me who is a little upset some of the images off of his website were used on wikipedia. I actually uploaded the images myself, so that is why he has contacted me. The problem here is that the images are public doman and are available through the US Naval Historical Center (NHC). This gentleman is the one who actually scanned the images in at the Naval Hist. Center for use on his site (http://www.destroyerhistory.org). He is claiming that the images that are on his site, even thoguh he obtained them through the Public Domain at the NHC, are actually not able to be used here because he considers them to be his personal work. In his words:

"Yes, that image and most other images on my site exist in various forms at the Naval Historical Center or the National Archives, where anyone can go and scan them, but as I am the one who has done it at my own expense, I regard the IMAGES as mine, to give away if I wish but not to have taken from me."

So as we have been e-mailing each other, I invited (and highly reccommended) him to visit the Ships WikiProject site to comment here directly. Is his argument valid that even though the images on his site are in the Public Domain and marked on his own site as taken from government records...because he scanned them though they are considered his personal work? I was under the impression that the actual photographer/artist was the only one who could claim ownership of the image (and in this case the artist/owner happens to be an agent of the US Navy)--ScottyBoy900Q 21:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC).

His argument is absurd. A slavish copy (which scanning certainly is) does not take a work from the public domain and give its copyright to an individual. (He would retain the copyright to, for example, a photograph of an artfully arranged pile of public domain images.) While we would like to be friendly, the bottom line is that the image is in the public domain, and is free for our use. If I scan, OCR, and print out the complete works of Shakespeare, does that give me the right to prevent anyone else from ever printing Shakespeare's works? ➥the Epopt 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I can see why he is upset about it. He has been very nice in his e-mails, but he is just upset that he spent so much time actually going to the NHC to scan the pictures for his website, and I simply uploaded it here without going through the hassle. --ScottyBoy900Q 01:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless the scanner has done any creative modifications to the images he can't claim copyright. Direct scans don't qualify as such. What I gathered, the scanner isn't claiming copyright on the whole pictures, just the scans. This is a bit tricky though, because under some circumstances, like taking a photo of the Mona Lisa, you can claim copyright on that particular photo. I would advice trying to settle this by asking for forgiveness, since it seems that the scanner might have given permission to use the scans if asked at first. --Laisak 01:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, he actually said he would have given permission. The reason I did not ask was simply because the image tag on his website simply credited the photo to the Navy Historical Center and mentioned nothing about asking for permission to use images already in the Public Domain. That's it. --ScottyBoy900Q 01:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Copyright issues and Wikipedia talk:Copyrights if you can find a previous case similar to this. Although in my opinion he has no legal case, it would really be a shame if this scanner would get the impression of Wikipedia users as "picture robbers". If a friendly settlement is achieved you could even try to persuade him to become a contributor here. --Laisak 02:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Earlier today I noticed a savvy German site that had scans of PD material, with the thumbnail looking normal, but the full-size image blazoned with the website URL across it. Kind of a sneaky way to ensure that no one else wants to use the images you scanned in... We should be nice and mention the person in the images we pick up from his website, add a little thank-you for doing the physical scanning work. A reply to him could mention that, and point out WP's Alexa ranking, server capacity, etc, which make it a better and more visible choice as image home than anything most individuals can cobble together. Stan 05:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm the "gentleman" about whom this conversation started, here with (I hope) happy solutions (see examples for images scanned at NARA and images from the Naval Historical Center using text in the Summary to clarify the tags I think best apply). A useful approach? -- Mccomb 18:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks! We're always happy to credit people who perform the labors, and if the link gets you a few extra hits, well that's just fine by me. Stan 05:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Ship classification of Pansarskepp

I'm overly confused about the Pansarskepp type of ships. There is so many names to call them, Swedish: Pansarskepp, Finnish: Panssarilaiva, Dutch: pantserschip, German: Panzerschiff (Pocket battleship), but what are they called in english? I've seen "coastal defence ship", "coastal battleship", "coastal cruiser" and variations of those. So what is the correct english name? I'm trying to figure out what to call the Sverige class cruiser and Ilmarinen (ship). --Laisak 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, from what I figured out is that the generic translation would be "armoured ship", but the thing is these ships are very different from each other. Anyone think there should be an article armoured ship where all these different kinds of ships would be illustrated? --Laisak 18:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Some action at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion

One user made some drastic renaming on the ship categories without consulting Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. Please check out what's happening and comment on if the changes should remain. --Laisak 01:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Calling ships she

I was looking over the USS Missouri page and noticed that it called the ship she instead of it. I know calling ships "she" is common practice, but not for encyclopedic sources. Has there been any consensus about this? MechBrowman 01:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I've used "she" consistently where possible, with exceptions such as "it" when talking about a wreck or hulk. An unscientific test suggests Encarta uses "it", whilst Britannica uses "it" and "she" interchangeably in the same article. Shimgray | talk | 21:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

When writing the RMS Titanic article, it sounded so much better when "she" was removed from the article. It just sounds to familiar for what Wikipedia style encourages. However, I might have gained this view because of the passion many resources and TItanic enthusists have for the Titanic. Its almost fannish by calling the Titanic "she", and it seems awkward with other ships also. MechBrowman 23:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a rather long discussion on Missouris discussion page about using "she" and "it" with regard to ships. You may want to check it out. PS: I was the one who wrote the entire Missouri article using "she", just in case you were curious ;) TomStar81 20:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Categorization

The categories for the naval ships are a mess. We have Country Navy ships, Ships of the Country Navy, Naval ships of Country and Country naval ships. Why not one style? And then, we have "Battleships of Country Navy" and "Country Navy battleships".

Apparently, someone User:Joshbaumgartner went straight to CfD with these and different votes went in different directions. Can we reach a consensus here and then go to CfD to straighten them out? I don't have a preference, but would like to see consistency. Jinian 16:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually Joshbaumgartner skipped the whole CfD process. It was User:TexasAndroid who put them there to try to verify the changes by Josh, but in the end it all went sour. I personally support the Naval ships of Fooland format since the parent category is Category:Naval ships and it follows the format of Category:Ships by country which is Ships of Fooland. There should be no exceptions on Royal Navies. I think they make the whole thing very confusing. --Laisak 14:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I take full credit for not doing CfDs earlier, not a mistake I've continued since User:TexasAndroid brought it up to me. Generally Ships of foo has become accepted through CfD, although there have been some that have not passed for a variety of reasons. Generally Ships of foo is accepted, while when categorizing by the proper name of a navy (or other operator), Proper Navy Name ships has been the result. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) did not have a clear country categorization scheme for ships, but this has since been addressed by CfD, and it has been added to the Misc. of country category. This is the same format that covers military equipment. Joshbaumgartner 19:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject Cruise Lines

I feel that there ought to be a Wikiproject for cruise lines; Wikiproject Ships seems to be more-or-less an appropriate parent project for this, even though it set out to be primarily about navies. Anyone interested? — Rickyrab | Talk 03:44, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Index articles; disambiguation or signpost?

I noticed a new category of page, the Signpost article.

Already, USS Merrimack has been labeled as a signpost article. As usual, I don't care as long as we're consistent. Right now, I'm daunted by the idea of reclassing all of the ship index articles as signposts vice disambig - although I suppose someone could always create a bot. Jinian 14:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

According to the definition of "signposts", ship disambiggers don't quality, because all the ships at "USS Foobar" are called that. I've had it in the back of my mind for a long time to create a ship-specific subcategory of disambiguations with a special template, note the subcats of Category:Disambiguation to see others doing this already. Stan 20:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I have listed Category:Signpost articles (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (signpost articles)) on Categories for deletion. Thanks/wangi 21:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone has made a mess of USS Merrimack in the name of MoS:DP. Sigh. Gdr 18:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Please Gdr, assume good faith. Everyone else my reply to Gdr's question is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Please don't make a mess of articles in the name of MoS:DP. Thanks/wangi 18:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Improvement on my table code

Some of you might have noticed that some of the ships that contained the code for that table with optional rows that I wrote earlier this year were displaying things rather oddly earlier today. That is because I have radically altered and simplified the code for the table. Someone has managed to implement a decent IF syntax in the MediaWiki template language so including optional rows in a template is now much easier than it was earlier this year. I have re-written the table code to take advantage of this fact and I have spent last evening and this morning fixing the ship tables that refer to the code.

The basic situation with the appearance and functionality of the code is the same. Optional rows are still optional and compulsory rows will still appear all the time. The difference is that previously there were explicit variables to turn each optional row on and off and now all that needs to happen to have an optional row not appear in a table is to leave it blank. If you leave a compulsory row blank the table will default to a value of Unknown for text and the IIH.png image for image portions. The only explicit variables that are now needed are to set the spelling between draft and draught, depending on whether the ship is British or another nationality. Leaving that blank will default to US spelling and putting anything in it will go to British spelling. I have also got rid of all the references to Individual ship variables since it is now possible to put a template in for common features that the whole class shares and then add information unique to each ship directly after that.

I'll put up a formal tutorial in how to use the table soon, but it is a lot more intuitive than the old version. David Newton 13:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've now posted a tutorial of hown to use the new version to the talk page of the template. The template can be found at Template:Ship table. David Newton 15:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Some ship cleanup

Hi there! I'm working on some Wikipedia:backlogged categories and ran across these with various cleanup tags. I hope the experts might here have a look at these, and once you're satisfied they conform to your Project style and quality, remove the cleanup tags. Thanks! — Catherine\^talk 06:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Categorization by class

It is common for ships to be categorized by class, and then for the class category to be categorized in the same manner as an individual ship article. However, a problem has arose in that while a class category (Category:Colossus class aircraft carriers for example) may accurately fit in to multiple era/type/country categories (per categorization guidelines), not all individual ships in the class may belong in those categories. Using the example, the Colossus class is clearly a World War II design (most served for a short period at the end of it), as well as clearly being a Cold War carrier of note, with many having served into the early 60s. However, Warrior was not completed until after the war, making her not a World War II carrier, yet the Colossus category is in the World War II as well as Cold War categories. User:Jinian brought up the example of the Nimitz carriers, and the Reagan in particular which is not a Cold War carrier, although the Nimitz class is clearly of Cold War importance. I wanted to get some input on whether to worry about this issue or not, and what solution to impose:

Do nothing: Leave the ships that are part of a class categorized as such and categorize the classes as best fits the class as a whole. Where individual ships need to be accessable from categories outside of what the class is categorized in, such categories can be added directly to the individual ship pages. For instance, while the Colossus class may be categorized in the United Kingdom path, those that served with other countries can have such categories added individually.
Eliminate class categories: Categorize all class and ship pages directly in the appropriate era/type/country cats. I don't think this is a good idea, as class categories are useful.
Dual list individual ships: Categorize all individual ship articles both in their class as well as listing them in the appropriate era/type/country category(ies) as is done with non-classed ships. This violates the general guidelines for categories regarding vertical categorization, in that an article should not be categorized in both a category and its parent category. However, I think that in this case, and given that many ships are not categorized by class, this is possibly a better solution. It has the added advantage that the researcher can either find a ship by class or without knowing the class with equal ease.
Other solutions: Any other ideas?

Joshbaumgartner 20:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me chime in here about why I first weighed in on this subject. The aircraft carriers are categorized *only* by their era. For example, Reagan is in Category:Nimitz class aircraft carriers which is in Category:Modern aircraft carriers of the United States which is in Category:Aircraft carriers of the United States. This is different from every other type of ship in the United States Navy. For example, Miller is in Category:Fletcher class destroyers which is in both Category:Cold War destroyers of the United States and Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy.

The era categorization must be better than it is if it's going to be the only way to categorize these ships. If, instead, we were to put Category:Nimitz class aircraft carriers in the parent category Category:Aircraft carriers of the United States, then I would be less concerned about where it is now. However, when I made that change, you (Josh) reverted that. And that brings us up to date. Jinian 20:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Per previous discussion, Category:United States Navy aircraft carriers has been created. I am in the process of populating it by working down throught the list of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy, while at the same time putting each entry in the list of aircraft carriers and where appropriate in the list of World War II ships. This is taking some time, and I'm through CVL-26 at the moment. This is more than bot work as I am fleshing out the list entries as well as making sure the class categories are corrected as well. Hopefully when finished, this will have fully addressed the above concerns. Joshbaumgartner 20:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Having an article in both cat and and supercat is so contrary to normal en: practice that every random is going to come along and undo it unless you come up with a better explanation and describe it on the categories' pages. (Personally I wouldn't mind ditching the class categories, they're too small to be very useful.) On names like "modern", one could do like the aviation people and use specific year - "1945-1990" suggests "modern" and "Cold War" while being precise and neutral. Stan 14:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm concerned about the first point you've made, and I don't even know that adding a notation to the cat page will save us from the problem of people 'cleaning up' the extra categorizations. Perhaps comments should be inserted in the wiki code to bracket those categorizations that are in line with WP:Ships guidelines, thereby alerting any editor as to why they are there, and causing them to think twice before deleting them thinking they are helping clean things up. I agree that a lot of the class categories are not overly useful, but I think for some of the more famous ones, especially those know well as a class, for example Nimitz or Essex, it is useful. However, if we are going to have some it is hard not to have class categories for all, since if they have articles, they have at least some notoriety. As for the eras, I have already tried to add years to all of the era categorizations to give people a guideline of what years they cover (I haven't gotten them all though). I use the word approximately though, because it is important that editors be allowed to fudge a bit on whether or not an article belongs in the category. By naming the category with the year, we are essentially forcing all ships within those years to be listed. For example, the US mothballed a huge number of ships after WWII, but the decommissionings often were during 1946 or even 47. If the category is for all ships serving 1945-1990, these ships would have to be listed, but obviously they had no meaningful role in the Cold War era, which is the intended period covered. By naming by era, not by year, and by providing approximate year guidelines, an editor should feel no need to include those ships in the Cold War category unless they really did have significant service during that period. I also don't want to do what they have done with airplanes for a couple of reasons. One, aircraft are by decade, which bears little resemblance to important periods of ship design and operation. Second, aircraft are listed by first flight date. If we for example listed by launch or commissioning date, then many ships would be listed in one period while most of their major contributions (if not their greatest ones) will be in other periods that they are not listed in. Especially given the longer service life of ships versus aircraft, many times a ship is built in one era but yet makes significant contributions in the next (Iowa class battleships for example). Joshbaumgartner 05:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Categorization by era (modern)

As one of the three pillars of the era/type/country categorization for ships, we have some relatively well defined eras (WWI, WWII, etc.) but there remains a problem with the most recent period. The Cold War era wraps up around 1990, which leaves a lot of ships in the period between then and now, with many categorized as modern as a solution. However, it has been pointed out that modern isn't a very good name for an era, and I agree. Is there a better way to categorize these ships? It is akward to have them without categorizations while all other vessels do. I don't know that modern doesn't work, but I would like to have a little better solution. Joshbaumgartner 21:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Words

Is a "battlewagon" the same thing as a "battleship"? TomStar81 20:35, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've only ever seen it used as a slang term for battleship, FWIW. Shimgray | talk | 22:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, that helps to explain why I have been having trouble with this one passage. It keeps refering to "battlewagons", which I thought were armed helicopters. This makes much more sense. Thanks! TomStar81 00:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it as off-hand slang for both battleships and tanks, helicopters is a new one to me. It is I suppose a pretty direct translation of the German Kampfwagen, which is used as more or less equivalent to combat vehicle (i.e. Panzerkampfwagen = tank, or armored combat vehicle). Joshbaumgartner 17:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Ship index pages

Ship index pages like HMS Resolution, USS Enterprise have for some time been tagged with {{disambig}}. However, the development of a very strict format for disambiguation pages (see MoS:DP) means that there is a group of editors who are likely to apply this style blindly to all disambiguation pages, including ship index articles.

If you look at the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Some proposed wording for MoS:DP, I've tried to explain why this is unfortunate, but I'm not getting anywhere. So it may become necessary to change all these ship index articles so that they no longer use the template {{disambig}}, but something new.

Comments, please. Gdr 18:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The consensus at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) appears to be that ship index pages are not disambiguation pages and should not have the {{disambig}} template. I think this is unfortunate but it may be necessary. So I propose that we change {{disambig}} to some new template, say {{shipindex}}. (I don't think it's necessary to say anything so it should start out blank but it will be useful to be able to find ship index articles using Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Shipindex, and if there's a problem we can always add some text to it.

Again, comments? If there are no objections I'll start on the template switch at the weekend using User:Gdrbot. Gdr 18:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that ship index pages are not true disambiguation pages in the strictest sensea, and the new template isn't a bad idea. Joshbaumgartner 20:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Taking the disambig template off our index pages does seem like the most robust resolution of this odd dispute. Maybe someone can set a bot to change all the USS and RN pages in one swell foop? (Oh, you already thought of that.)

—wwoods 02:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Concur with your plan. I think we can put something in the {{shipindex}} template to indicate that one can disambig the link, if that makes sense. Jinian 13:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I switched over all the Royal Navy and United States Navy ship index articles to use {{shipindex}}, about 1,200 articles in all. I put the USN pages in Category:United States Navy ship names. Gdr 18:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I undid the Von Steuben since that includes the Prussian officer as well. And I added some content to "shipindex", just a reword of the disambig template.GraemeLeggett 12:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I switched about 82 ship index pages that the Gdrbot missed. What about USGC cutters? There are only 3, but the template says "navy". I don't want to step on any toes. There are other interesting comments on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Ship index pages regarding the effectiveness of this latest change. Chris the speller 01:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I removed the phrase, "in a navy". —wwoods 02:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Anchors aweigh! I changed the three (cutter) ship index pages. Of course, "navy" as in "vessels for sea warfare and defense" probably covered it anyway. I just wanted to check. Chris the speller 03:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

List of LSTs

Somebody has nominated the List of LSTs on AFD. I would appreciate it if those who feel they can would stop deletion of the list by voting for keeping it. David Newton 22:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Template idea for DANFS references

It occurred to me while reviewing some of the "source citing" discussion that it might be useful to have the reference sections of DANFS-based articles include a direct link back to the original text that is online at history.navy.mil these days. A template set up like {{FishBase family}} would make it easy to include both URL and printable information. I'm personally on an image drive, so won't have time to work on such a template, but thought I'd throw out the idea. Stan 18:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Color in the Ship table Template

In the course of the Template:Ship table changes lately being made due to WP:AUM concerns, I added an option to set the color of the crossbars in the template display. It was used to change the crossbar color to gray on the Confederate ship tables. (Its not operative at present, but could be). It's easily implemented, and can be done in an unobtrusive way. I wanted to find what other peoples views were on this subject.

That being said, most people's response is "whats wrong with blue?". Well, its called "Yankee blue" down south (USA) and "bluecoats" is a venomous term for Union soldiers. People were killed over the color trousers they wore for years after the war was over. Its like saying "British, Irish, what's the difference?". To me, an American, there's not much difference, they all have a funny accent and poor spelling. But to someone from England or Ireland, there is one huge hell of a difference, and I have come to appreciate that. Please, appreciate that there is one huge hell of a difference between blue and gray to a Civil War buff. PAR 20:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you for real? —A damn yankee (Talk) 20:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. PAR 02:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

As a British person I find the idea of this somewhat anachronistic, but it would cause some people concern. Are any of the other members of the WikiProject from the former CSA, and if so what are your opinions on the matter? The main question we have to answer is about NPOV so far as I can see. PAR seems to find the use of the dark blue that has been the rule of the WikiProject's ship tables for several years to be expressing a POV. On the other hand I don't see how using a grey colour for CSN ships would be any less POV-infested. I would also point out that templates and tables like this are supposed to identify an article and, one might say, give it the branding of the WikiProject responsible for creating the article. I don't see what's really wrong with our current brand. David Newton 14:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that this chap above means "colour", right ? Rama 16:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

ARRGGHH I'm surrounded! I am a newcomer to this project and, prior to this, I have not been aware of this community of interested people, so please forgive me if I act without knowledge of past history. David Newton has put it succinctly, yes, my point is that blue is POV for civil war ships for someone who still responds emotionally to the American Civil War (I do not, but I have friends who do, on both sides.) But further, its inappropriate, in a sense. It's like saying "For the War of the Roses article, lets just use one rose to describe the two badges, because, after all, they are the same, aren't they?. To worry about the color is a bit anachronistic." I am not familiar with the need for the color to identify an article, so I can't comment on that with any authority. PAR 20:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The Anaconda Plan in action.:-) Seriously, that war's been over for quite a while. I'm a Yankee myself, but I have the impression that Southerners have been proudly wearing "Navy Blue" (and on formal occasions, "Army Blue") for more than a century.

—wwoods 21:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. Regarding the British Civil War (War of the Roses), I am sure that many decendants of the house of Lancaster have proudly fought side by side with the descendants of the house of York. That is no reason to describe the badge of both houses using the same color rose. I've had this discussion with other people before, and I seem to be systematically unable to communicate two things, for which I apologize:

The blue and the gray are not just random colors in the American Civil War, any more than the white and the red were just random colors in the War of the Roses. They are colors which are tightly and objectively tied to the individual combatants. I don't wish the badges of the combatants in the War of the Roses to be the same color, nor do I want Union blue to be associated with the Confederacy. (e.g. - Google "the blue and the gray")
I say this having no emotional ties to the houses of Lancaster, York, the political American north, or the political south. (I do have friends with emotional ties on both sides which is what made me aware of the difference.) I don't mean for my emotional illustrations of the differences to imply that I am a Confederate sympathizer still fighting the war, just to emphasize that they exist, and for a reason. The thing that got me involved here is that an ancestor of mine served aboard the USS General Price, to which I have contributed, so if I did have any ancient allegiance, it would be to the north.

That said, shouldn't we be discussing whether the addition of color to the template is appropriate? I think I have an objective reason for making the Confederate templates gray, and David Newton has an objective reason not to, but I don't know how to balance the two, nor if those are the only considerations. PAR 00:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

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