Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive06

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Archive
Archives
  1. January 2004 to April 2005
  2. April 2005 to January 2006
  3. January 2006 to June 2006
  4. June 2006 to September 2006
  5. September 2006 to November 2006
  6. November 2006 to January 2007

Contents

Index Pages

I'd like to make a suggestion about index pages. How about creating rediretions for ship index pages with "(ship index)" attached, similar to "(disambiguation)" redirect pages for links to disambiguation pages? Then links intentionally linking to ship indices can link via these redirects, which would help sort out links which should link to specific ships. --Kusunose 06:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this helps sorting. At least for the current collection of links, someone would still have to determine which are intentionally directed to the "ship index", which is essentially the same task as determining which are inadvertant and should be dab'd to a particular ship article. You've increased the work since you not only have to fix links that need to be dab'd, but need to change links that are legitimately to the "ship index". Going forward, lazy or uninformed editors are still going to link to USS Foobar in both cases. Is there really that big a problem out there? --J Clear 18:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Double category membership

I (TomTheHand) am copying this from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Categorization so more people can see it:

My impression is that if an article is a member of a sub cat it should not be a member of the main category. For Example, USS Spruance (DD-963) is a member of Category:Spruance class destroyers and Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy, I believe it should only be a member of Category:Spruance class destroyers since it is a sub cat of Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy. Is this correct or is the existing dual membership correct? If not, I plan on doing an AWB run to remove a bunch from dual membership, but I wanted to check here first. I'm basing this on: "Articles should not usually be in both a category and its subcategory. For example Golden Gate Bridge is in Category:Suspension bridges, so it should not also be in Category:Bridges."(Wikipedia:Categorization#Some general guidelines) --Dual Freq 01:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The dual categorization is correct. Though there is a general guideline that if an article is a member of a subcat it shouldn't be a member of the main cat, duplication is appropriate when it makes it easier to find articles instead of harder (by making the category structure more complicated). In the case you mention, Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy can be used by people who don't know or don't want to bother with class names and just want to see all American destroyers. Category:Spruance class destroyers can be used by people who specifically want to see all the ships in the Spruance class. When you look at Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy you can clearly see class names at the top and specific ships at the bottom, so it's easy to use. TomTheHand 03:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess I can respect that, it just seems that it would clutter the main category to put ships in both. I've probably moved some others in the past few months to conform with normal categorization guidelines and with the idea that if someone is reading the Spruance article and clicks the class category that cat will link them to the destroyer cat via the link at the bottom and they can surf backwards through the category system. Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy contains over 200 articles and wraps to a second page making it a pretty decent example of overcrowding. If someone has a specific ship name in mind, but doesn't know the class they might be looking a long time. Especially if they don't know a cruiser from a destroyer or frigate. Seems like the best bet would be for them to type the name into the search rather than scroll through several categories looking for the ship name. It makes even less sense to load the main category when you look at the List of United States Navy destroyers article, it provides the same capability dual category membership provides. I envisioned each ship in a single category and the Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy showing only sub cats and only the destroyer names that didn't fit into the sub cats. I was scolded on double cat membership a while back, maybe over on Commons, but I was informed it was a no-no to have an article in the same category twice via a sub cat. Anyway, I guess I'll leave things be if that's what this wikiproject is doing.

Maybe it could be clarified on this page, the line "A subcategory of Category:Ships by country" seems to indicate that since Category:Spruance class destroyers is a sub-cat of Category:United States Navy ships Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy is unneeded. The example is USS Enterprise (CVN-65), but it is a ship that is not a member of a class so that didn't help me understand that WP:SHIPS was looking for dual category membership. Sorry to bug you on this. --Dual Freq 04:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

You might want to post on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships to get further opinions on this; I don't know how many people watch this page. I don't actually think that someone who was looking for the name of a ship would be looking for a long time. The ship articles are in alphabetical order, and there are only two pages of them.
I think it's useful to dual list the articles, but if the consensus on the main talk is to stop doing this, I'll stop. TomTheHand 13:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I've put more thought into it and what you're saying makes a lot of sense; it might be better to use list articles to put all ships in one place. Still, it's hard for me to change my mind because I've spent so long thinking this way and categorizing articles like this. I'm pasting this to the main WP:SHIPS talk to get more input. TomTheHand 14:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
To me, the logic in dual-membership is that say you are looking for a specific ship, you might not know it is a member of the spruance class, so you might just navigate into the Category:Destroyers of the United States category, and from there, if there were only subcats by class, you would be at a dead end unless you navigated all the potential class subcats. Therefore I see a useful logic in a ship being a member of both the highest and lowest levesl of the category hierarchy. Emoscopes Talk 15:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it's necessary to provide a solution for people who may not know what class a ship is, but I think Dual Freq is suggesting that they would be better helped by List of United States Navy destroyers and other equivalent list articles. While I think smaller categories like Category:Battleships of the United States are clean and useful, I'm actually pretty bothered by the way Category:Destroyers of the United States Navy splits across two pages. I'd be fine with it if it listed all subcats on page 1, started on the ship articles, and finished up the ship articles on page 2, but the way it splits subcats between the two pages seems confusing to me. Category:Cruisers of the United States Navy does it too, and we're going to have the same problem with Category:Submarines of the United States once it's populated. TomTheHand 16:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes I agree in with that, having a wikilink to the relevant list of ships in the header of the category (I believe there are templates for this) would be good. the list also has the advantage of including redlinked ships that will not be in categories as the article is yet to be created. Emoscopes Talk 16:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so is this going to be the plan for the future? Individual ship articles should not be members of their respective country categories, and should be accessible in the Category:Ships by country structure only by going through the class categories first? Access to ships without knowing their class will be provided through list articles, like List of United States Navy destroyers. TomTheHand 15:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to know as well so I can be sure my edits are in line with this project. If the project decides to remove double categorization, it's going to take quite a bit of time to fix all of the articles that are doubled up. For an article to belong to a category only one time seems best inline with wikipedia's main categorization guidelines. --Dual Freq 01:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Categorization and subcategories, double categorization is a-ok as long as it makes it easier to find articles; I think that should be our sole consideration. It would be really good to get more input, guys! Dual Freq, Emoscopes and I are the only ones who've put in their two cents so far. TomTheHand 13:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, well it looks like the three of us are the only ones who are going to give an opinion, and we all agree that as long as a complete list article exists, and the ship article is a member of a class category which is a member of a country category, there is no need for the ship article to also belong to the country category. I'll adjust the categorization guidelines.

Dual Freq, I have a couple of requests as you AWB around, removing cats: first, could you also try to insert a link to the appropriate list article? Second, could you make sure that the ship article is a member of a class article before removing the country? TomTheHand 15:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

So a "See also" link to the list article in each ship article? As a test, I just did USS Spruance (DD-963), removing the Destryoers of US cat and adding a see also to the list. Is this the style we are looking for? --Dual Freq 23:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that was exactly what I was talking about. Thanks! TomTheHand 13:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, I imagine that if country categories don't belong directly on ship articles, navy categories probably don't either; are we in agreement about that or should I leave navy categories alone? TomTheHand 15:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you give me an example of the navy category? --Dual Freq 23:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Category:Cruisers of the United States vs. Category:Cruisers of the United States Navy, or Category:Aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom vs. Category:Royal Navy aircraft carriers. TomTheHand 13:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, another thing to watch out for: When a ship is sold to another navy, I'll put that country's cat on it. For example, USS Bang (SS-385) was sold to Spain, so I put a Submarines of Spain cat on it. I don't think it's appropriate to put that cat on the class category, because only one or two Balao-class subs out of over a hundred were sold to Spain. In that case, I think the Submarines of Spain cat should remain on the ship article. TomTheHand 16:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Lately, I've been putting the other-navy cat on the redirect. So in this case I'd have put it on "SPS Cosme Garcia (S34)". —wwoods 19:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
We've had discussions on the subject of categories on redirects before and I think we decided that it's not a very good idea; while it allows you to go from Category:Submarines of Spain to USS Bang (SS-385) through the SPS Cosme Garcia (S34) redirect, it makes it impossible to go in the opposite direction (from the ship article to Submarines of Spain). TomTheHand 19:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi folks, I just noticed this as Tom showed up on my watchlist (the Bowfin). I've been kind of busy with other things. For what it's worth, I do agree that the right decision has been arrived at. ... aa:talk 16:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Non-expert question

I know very little about these articles, but it seems like Oiler (ship), Replenishment oiler, and Underway replenishment oiler overlap a bit. Could some of these be merged? If they shouldn't be merged, it would be very good to briefly mention what distinctions might exist between them. --Interiot 20:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, let's try to come up with a sort of summary of what we know about these ships and then decide what kinds of articles should exist about them.
The US Navy operates or has operated five types of ships that start with AO (auxiliary oiler). Here's a list of them, and my understanding of what they do, which may be wrong:
  1. AO (oiler) - exclusively carries liquid fuels, such as fuel oil and jet fuel
  2. AOG (gasoline tanker) - not used today, but used during WWII when it was necessary to transport gasoline for piston-engined aircraft
  3. AOR (replenishment oiler) - carries liquids as well as dry goods to replenish ships
  4. AOE (fast combat support ship) - like an AOR but larger, with more capacity, and faster
  5. AOT (transport oiler) - pretty much a civilian tanker in USN service
Now, looking at the above articles, it seems Replenishment oiler is about AORs. AOR literally stands for Auxiliary Oiler, Replenishment, so that explains that. Confusingly,Underway replenishment oiler is about AO's, even though they don't have the dry goods replenishment capability that gives AOR's their R. They're simple oilers, but they are able to refuel ships while underway, AKA "Underway replenishment."
Ok, so what's it boil down to? I think Underway replenishment oiler needs to be merged into oiler (ship), and an "underway replenishment" sub-section should be added. Much of the info on underway replenishment oiler needs to be merged to Henry J. Kaiser class oiler because it's specific to that class.
I think Replenishment oiler might need to be merged into oiler (ship) as well, in a subsection dealing with combination fuel/dry goods replenishment ships. Once again, a lot of the information needs to be merged onto the US class-specific page. Replenishment oiler is too US-centric; that's what we call them, but other navies operate ships that are identical in function but they have their own names for them. TomTheHand 20:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I was going to bring this up. I think that the hull-designation codes should have their own page, where specific USN vessels can be discussed, and then there should be general info pages on each of these types of vessels. (We can agree common names, there will be lots of variations). I've been working a lot on bringing the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries of equivalent types to some sort of common standard, and have found that the only place to link to is the nearest USN equivalent, rather than a page about replenishment oilers in general. Emoscopes Talk 21:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
further to this, the British equivalent names for these vessel types are;
  • AO - Fleet tanker
  • AOG - Spirits tanker (defunct)
  • AOR - Replenishment oiler / tanker
  • AOT - Support tanker
Emoscopes Talk 21:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea of a separate page (article?) on hull designations. There is good information available about this for USN ships -- I've seen it but I can't lay my hands on it this second. Lou Sander 22:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
There also seems to be no common standard for when a hull-code is used as the standard name for a type of vessel. For instance, the article for LCTs is called Landing craft tank, but that for LSTs is called Tank landing ship. Again, that for LPHs is called Landing Platform, Helicopter and that for LSDs is called Dock Landing Ship. So, for AORs would we go for Auxiliary Oiler Replenisher, Replenishment Oiler or something else? Emoscopes Talk 22:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Referring to the MoS, we should 1) spell out acronyms and 2) only capitalise in titles for proper nouns. Whether that makes Landing ship tank or Tank landing ship correct is debatable, to my mind the latter is the natural way of describing the ship and therefore preferable, as the former is an artefact of the hull-classification symbol. Emoscopes Talk 22:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we should use the most natural and descriptive title for the article and not base it directly on the USN's hull classification symbol. TomTheHand 15:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Destroyers - done

I just wanted to share my own personal Happy Dance that we (not the royal "we", but the collective "we") have completed all of the USN destroyers. Obviously this was the work of the community and it feels good to see the list of nearly 1000 ships -- all with pretty blue links. Woohoo! Jinian 21:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Great job, in addition to that, only 3 destroyer leaders, USS Worden (DLG-18), USS England (DLG-22) and USS Halsey (DLG-23) remain and the whole page will be blue. FYI, commons:Category:Leahy class cruiser has images of all 3. --Dual Freq 22:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Well done, all hands. —wwoods 02:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I second the Well Done (or Bravo Zulu, as it is sometimes said). A little housekeeping might be in order. All or part of the very long list of USN destroyers would benefit by being shown in two (or three?) columns, as are many of the ships shown HERE. I don't know how to do it efficiently myself, but maybe somebody else could bear a hand. Lou Sander 15:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I noticed List of United States Navy cruisers has ships listed by hull number and by name in another column, maybe that could be duplicated. Is there a preferred standard for list pages? --Dual Freq 15:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC) (Update:I've just sorted the list similar to the USN cruiser list, revert if you don't like it. It only took a few minutes to do) --Dual Freq 15:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
FWIW, that page is almost all bluelinks as well, with the exception of two early cruisers and three or four more WWII-era cancelled ships (some so obscure they're not mentioned in the page on the class - it may be worth checking those names were actually assigned to them) Shimgray | talk | 15:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I redirected the canceled ships to their ship index pages and made sure that it included cancellation dates and info from DANFS. Also, [1] [2] Image:USS Cincinnati (C-7).jpg. [3] [4] Image:USS Detroit (C-10) circa 1890s.jpg or Image:USS Detroit (C-10) at anchor.jpg. That should help with the last two. Last two done. --Dual Freq 17:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay, dance over. On to destroyer escorts. No rest for the wicked... Jinian 04:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In a similar vein, as of now (23:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)), there are now no redlinks for active Royal Navy ships :) Emoscopes Talk 23:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

DANFS errata

By the way, I happened to notice that the index page for DANFS now has an email address for reporting errors. Dunno how long it's been there. —wwoods 08:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Find an Error?

To report errors in individual entries or to make suggestions for improvement contact the Ships History Branch at:

Naval Historical Center (SH)
Washington Navy Yard
805 Kidder Breese Street SE
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060

or e-mail your suggested correction to shiphistory@navy.mil.

Please be advised, however, that requests for research assistance or information sent to this e-mail address will not be answered. All queries of that nature must be sent to the address listed above. All suggested corrections will be reviewed for accuracy. If you have documentation supporting a change please provide it to assist us in making pertinent changes.
Good to know, but not sure how proactive I'll be about this. Some of the errors are minor (like Warden instead of Worden), but others are more egregious (wrong name of Soviet vessel). Hmmm. It would be good to give back to DANFS after what they have given to us. Jinian 21:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

List of Ships or Cutters?

I'm working on a list of USCG cutters, User:Dual Freq/List of United States Coast Guard ships, and I was wondering what to name it when copying to mainspace. I'm considering, List of United States Coast Guard ships or List of United States Coast Guard cutters. United States Coast Guard Cutter says a Cutter is a United States Coast Guard vessel 65 feet in length or greater, having adequate accommodations for crew to live on board. Ships would seem to match naming convention like List of United States Navy ships, but cutters would limit it to larger ships that may be noteworthy enough to have an article about. Opinions? Is it even worthy of mainspace, after some work? --Dual Freq 01:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Since I've heard no comments, I'm leaning towards List of United States Coast Guard cutters. --Dual Freq 01:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, draft is done, for the most part, maybe I should have named the article List of United States Coast Guard redlinks. --Dual Freq 21:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Good work! you've obviously put in a lot of hard work and research to the list :) Emoscopes Talk 21:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Dual entry: Bangladeshi Navy

Is there a reason for the dual entry of Bangladeshi Navy on the ensign-page? Both the naval ensign and the civil ensign are shown. --Sir48 18:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

just a mistake by the looks of it, i have ammended Emoscopes Talk 01:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

HMS Bounty

I believe the article Mutiny on the Bounty could really do with looking at. Being quite a well known historical event in the history of the Royal Navy, it seems a bit disappointing that the article is the subject of a long and ongoing discussion as to whether it is HMS or HMAV Bounty. Additionally it doesnt follow the standards for articles about specific ships. (HMS Bounty redirects to Mutiny on the Bounty, should it not be the other way around and should the article not? Does anyone have any comments on this? JonEastham 23:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

HMS Bounty should definitely be a ship or dab page imho. Even just so as it can be put into the correct categories. Emoscopes Talk 23:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed (although from everything I have ever read on the subject, there is no question that she should be correctly listed as HMAV Bounty). The mutiny was a significant event, and so warrants its own article, but the ship itself was significant because of that event, and so also warrants its own article. Martocticvs 00:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Rightyho, HMS Bounty should redirect to HMAV Bounty, which should be put in the appropriate categories (even just as a {{UK-mil-ship-stub}} and with appropriate links to Mutiny on the Bounty. Emoscopes Talk 00:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Shelter deck / full scantling

C1-A USS Cyrene (AGP-13) with Shelter deck
C1-A USS Cyrene (AGP-13) with Shelter deck
C1-B USS Cape Johnson (AP-172) with full scantling
C1-B USS Cape Johnson (AP-172) with full scantling

Many articles and sources on WWII cargo ships use these terms to differentiate between two versions of the same basic hull design. Their meanings are elusive, or at least have been to me. Can anyone clarify them? Lou Sander 14:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Scantlings are the frames of a ship. A shelter deck is a deck raised above the main deck level, in effect, "sheltering" whatever is on the main deck below. I found this descrpition by googling with reference to merchantmen;
The shelter deck is the second or 'tween deck in the cargo spaces
Make of that what you will :) Emoscopes Talk 14:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I found that stuff, too. I still don't know the difference between a shelter deck ship and a full scantling ship of the same general type. It seems to be an important difference, and one would think it could be explained pretty simply, maybe with a diagram. Lou Sander 01:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
i agree, I only know these terms with regard to general ship construction, shelter decks particularly on older warships. I've no idea how they categorise merchant vessels. Emoscopes Talk 01:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Can you point us to some examples so we can research the context? Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 01:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok, from CHAPTER I--COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (CONTINUED) PART 69_MEASUREMENT OF VESSELS--Table of Contents;
Shelter deck means the uppermost deck that would have qualified as the uppermost complete deck had it not been fitted with a middle line opening.
Thus, a shelter deck cannot contribute to gross tonnage, as there is some sort of opening in the side plating that would allow the water in. I am therefore presuming that "full scantling" is the opposite of this, with the frames continued up to the level of the highest full-length deck? Emoscopes Talk 01:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Type C1 ship uses both terms. --Dual Freq 01:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Further research shows the C1-A type has 1,000 tons less gross weight, so definitely barking up the right tree here! Emoscopes Talk 01:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, you already found better photos than I could! :) Basically, what this must mean is that the framing in a shelter deck ship does not extend all the way up to the highest continuous deck level, therefore this "enclosed space" cannot contribute to gross tonnage as if it was below the waterline, there would be no framing to support it. This is not a problem in the full scantling type where the frames continue up to the level of the main deck. Therefore, a full scantling type would have a higher gross weight, but would ultimately displace more and be slower and more consuming of materials to construct. If a vessel does not need this space to contribute to gross displacement, then the shelter deck type is a more efficient vessel. Emoscopes Talk 01:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
To summarise, a shelter deck type vessel would be better suited to carrying bulky, lighter cargoes, and a full scantling type to more compact but weighty ones. (presuming my definition is correct!!) Emoscopes Talk 01:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
This is my understanding so far (and I may be wrong): The frames are the large structural members that start at the keel and go up the side of the ship. A full scantling ship would have the frames go all the way up to the main deck. A shelter deck ship would have the frames go only up to the second deck (the deck below the main deck). I don't know exactly what would support the main deck, but I'm guessing it would be plating on the sides of the ship, unreinforced by the extended frames. If you looked at both ships from outside, or from any deck below the second deck, you might not be able to see a difference. If you were on the second deck, you could see frames on the full scantling ship, but not on the shelter deck ship.
The difference has something to do with cargo carrying capacity, but I'm not sure what it is. There's also something about openings and tonnage, but once again I'm not sure what it is; I'm aware that openings somehow affect tonnage, which is some sort of measure of cargo carrying capacity rather than weight or displacement, but I don't know more than that.
Am I on the right track on this? (I suspect there may be some holes in my understanding.) Lou Sander 03:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
We are most definitely on the same track. With cargo ships, you can measure what it can carry in terms of volume (tonnage i.e. Net Tonnage), or in terms of weights (displacement i.e. Deadweight). The Net Tonnage is an expression of the volume of all the cargo carrying spaces and the Deadweight is an expression of the total weight of cargo that the displacement of the ship can support. Obviously, if you increase the weight of cargo over the Deadweight, the ship sinks deeper in the water, and at some point an opening in the side will be below the waterline; the ship can no longer support its displacement and will sink. A full scantling and a shelter deck ship may be of equal tonnage, but the full scantling one would have a higher deadweight. Emoscopes Talk 03:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm quite happy to turn my wikihand to illustration (see Image:LMFBR schematics.png, Image:Sea Dart missile.png ), if we can agree on a definition I could quite easily knock up a nice diagram to explain this. Anyone turned up anymore info? Emoscopes Talk 16:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Ships User Template

I am new to this WikiProject. I was wondering if there was a template for the user page similar to what WPMILHIST has. If it is out there, I haven't been able to find it. --JAYMEDINC 02:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

{{user ships}} <-- This is what your after 8o) JonEastham 12:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 14:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Shipindex template

I have only just discovered this, and think it is well worth pointing out, as Category:Lists of ships is an un-navigable dog's breakfast of a category. When using the {{shipindex}} template on a dab page for ships of the same name, it enters the ships at Category:Lists of ships by namespace, unless you pipe it in this format; {{shipindex|name="shipname"}}. So, for the correct example of USS Ashlands, we put {{shipindex|name="Ashland"}} as a footer on the namespace USS Ashland. In the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions about how to clean up that horrific category? Emoscopes Talk 01:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe somebody can use a bot to look for articles in the category without "name=", and with names beginning "USS " or "HMS "; delete the prefix and use the rest to create the name parameter?
—wwoods 05:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Your help is needed

User:Cerejota has made a speedy move of Royal Navy to Royal Navy (UK) with no consultation whatsoever! How do we go about reversing this situation, which, despite being in order to adhere to WP policy, breaks any number of other policies in doing so. I have asked the user concerned to join the debate here. Please voice your opinions and support! Emoscopes

It appears that someone's moved it back pending further discussion. TomTheHand 21:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
IMO, as bad ideas go, moving Royal Navy to Royal Navy (UK) is one heck of a dozy. Can you imagine how much chaos would be caused if we started renaming articles not because they had similar English names, but because the articles might have a similar translated name in any one of the 39,491 languages and dialects used on the planet?!? --Kralizec! (talk) 23:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I know there are other Royal Navies around, the Swedish one springs to mind - but when you say the Royal Navy, everyone the world over (provided they have at least some knowledge of European countries) knows that it is Britain's navy you refer to. Royal Navy (UK) should exist for sure, but it should only be a redirect to Royal Navy. Martocticvs 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Colledge

People might be interested to know that a new (fourth) edition of Colledge's Ships of the Royal Navy has been published this month - Chatham Publishing, ISBN 186176281X. Seems to be a one-volume edition, with a significant amount of the content of the old two-volume version - they've dropped some of the minor vessels which used to be in vol. 2, but kept "all the genuine fighting ships - like the numbered Coastal Forces craft" (sayeth Amazon). Shimgray | talk | 00:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Courageux

Can anyone think of a good reason why the Courageux article is so named, and not French ship Courageux? She was notable for being taken by the Bellona, and nothing else really. Martocticvs 18:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at some of the cats with French ships (Category:Aircraft carriers of the French Navy, Category:World War II submarines of France, etc.), it would appear that mis-named articles are not an uncommon problem. You can (probably) safely move the articles to their proper names as you run into them (provided, of course, that you follow the ship naming conventions). --Kralizec! (talk) 18:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It probably helps that a) "Courageux" isn't likely to be used for anything else in English other than as a proper noun, and b) she also served in the RN under that name (she's down here, 1799, for example), so excess disambiguation may just confuse matters. Shimgray | talk | 18:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Royal Navy (disambiguation) created

Per discussions with User:Emoscopes, User:Carom, and User:TomTheHand, a Royal Navy (disambiguation) page has been created. Please take a look at the page and fill in anything I missed. Also, at the suggestion of JonEastham, I added a {{Otheruses4}} dab link to the top of each Royal Navy page (however I have no doubt that fiefdom issues will see the link reverted off of half the articles within a week). --Kralizec! (talk) 14:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I was wrong. Of the 18 articles I added the dab link to, it was only reverted off of two: Royal Thai Navy and Swedish Navy. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

Is there any WP:Ships guidance on trivia / fiction sections in articles? I recently looked at USS Illinois (BB-65) and USS Kentucky (BB-66) and removed some non-notable cartoon trivia, but it has been re-added. Is there any reason to include fictional or trivial cartoon information about ships that were not even completed? --Dual Freq 03:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that because the articles are so short, and because the ships were featured prominently in one of the most popular anime series ever, a brief note like the one inserted by John Broughton (talk • contribs) [here] is appropriate. I agree that the original text included inappopriate original research but I think the shortened one is fine. TomTheHand 14:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I must have missed the boat on the 26 episode series mentioned, either that or I was on a boat that didn't have normal TV at that time. Either way I'd never heard of the cartoon in question. I also failed to see the prominence of a single episode appearance regardless of the series. I guess what is there now doesn't offend me terribly. Maybe I'm just not a fan of trivia sections in general. I know the WP:Aircraft folks have a pseudo-policy for inclusion of trivia limiting video games that include the aircraft and other details. I just wondered if there was a similar negotiated / discussed guideline for those sections here. --Dual Freq 23:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sort of on the fence about it, but I think the Evangelion reference is way more notable than this gem from USS Iowa (BB-61): "Tom Clancy is seen wearing the baseball cap of the Iowa in his photograph gracing the back of certain of his paperback novels." As far as I know Evangelion has never aired on American TV, as it's rather bloody and contains adult themes. You'd have to be into anime to have seen it, but if you're into anime you've almost certainly seen it—it's the first thing someone shows you after you caught Cowboy Bebop late night on the Cartoon Network and kinda liked it. TomTheHand 00:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
That is pretty obscure. (Checking the Clancy books I have, he isn't wearing a hat in any of them) Assuming it is true, it certainly isn't worth wasting a sentence on. That's the kind of stuff that gets added to pop culture / trivia sections, next thing you know there will be a dozen bullet points detailing each scene the ship was in for a couple frames of a movie. I think the WP:A/C guideline is that it has to be a central character in the movie/show like the F-14 is to Top Gun, F-16 to Iron Eagle or USS Missouri to Under Siege. The aircraft problem is a bit different since folks want to add every console game that includes the F-14 to the F-14 article. I think they decided just to list flight sims specifically focusing on the aircraft to keep the pop culture sections smaller. --Dual Freq 00:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
For the record, Evagelion did in fact air in America earlier this year, as part of the anime block for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup. It was shortly after the episode aired that the first apperance of the evegelion reference with regards to the last two Iowa class battleships popped up on the page. The notability of the event is that the battleships became the 1st non-evongelion machines to have directly destroyed an angel; if you see the anime series you know that this instance and the instance in which Iruel overtakes nerv HQ are the only two times in the series when angels are not destroyed by evas. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

List of shipbuilders and shipyards

In response to a suggestion of Emoscopes, I've created a sub page of WP:SHIP. It's probably in the wrong place, but it's up now anyway. The important thing is to attempt to differentiate between the various yards and companies, as when some people think of the company, they believe that the name and the history automatically applies to their shipyard, not realising that there are often multiple yards. Anyone who can add to it, please do so. If the format is a bit difficult, then say so and I'll change it. I only did it as a personal experiment during the summer which has languished for some time. --Harlsbottom 11:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

We do not create sub pages with titles like that. But in any case it looked like a perfectly good start for an article in (Main) so I have moved it to List of shipbuilders and shipyards. -- RHaworth 11:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for sorting that out. --Harlsbottom 11:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability criteria

What are the notability criteria for any given ship's inclusion? Are ships subject to general WP:N, or are they all considered inherently notable (as it is the case with geographic locations), or do you folks have some other specific criteria?

I am particularly interested whether a cargo ship described at Talk:Sinegorye#Discussion about the recent "copyed/expa" edit would qualify for a separate article. Assistance would be much appreciated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that every military ship is notable enough to warrant it's own article. I am particularly interested to hear what others have to say. Very good question. --JAYMEDINC 16:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I just want to emphasize that the ship in question is not a military one; it's just a cargo ship.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Flag of Drebbel's submarine on Template:Groundbreaking submarines

I'd like to ask some folks from here to head over to Template:Groundbreaking submarines and comment on the issue of what flag should be placed by Drebbel's submarine: a Dutch flag, because Drebbel was Dutch, an English flag, because he was living in England as a patron of the throne and built his submarine for the Royal Navy, or both flags together. TomTheHand 14:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there a template expert in the house?

A few months ago we discussed how we could give Template:Infobox Ship some customizability. For example, it would help to be able to have multiple commission and decommission dates for ships with several periods of service. For ships that had a big refit, it'd be nice to be able to have "before" and "after" sections of the template. For ships that saw service in multiple navies, we could have separate service sections for each one, with appropriate flags.

Anyway, J Clear said that he'd had exactly the same idea, and he'd done some work on it. His work can be found here. As you can see, it allows multiple complete infoboxes in one box. He said that he could finish it up quickly if there was demand, but he has been on Wikibreak for some time now.

I'm interested in this user box. I have a couple ships that I would use it on. Although, I really need to take a Wikibreak myself. Not easy to pull away though. --JAYMEDINC 00:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm writing to ask if there are any template experts who might be able to finish it up. What I'd like to see is the ability to hide anything. For example, I'd like to be able to do this:

first infobox
  • Image
  • Career
  • General characteristics
second infobox
  • (hidden image)
  • (hidden career)
  • Second General characteristics, to show characteristics after a huge refit/reconstruction

Or:

first infobox
  • Image
  • Career
  • (hidden General characteristics)
second infobox
  • (hidden image)
  • Second Career, to indicate service in another navy
  • General characteristics

Does anyone have the template knowledge to make this happen? I had a lot of trouble with it. TomTheHand 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Pretty easy to implement (if somewhat time-consuming); I could probably do it sometime in the next few days. Might I suggest a more modern appearance for the infobox as a whole, though? Plain lined tables fell out of favor some time ago. (Shameless plug: how about adopting WPMILHIST's infobox design?) Kirill Lokshin 14:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Haha. I don't really have an eye for that sort of thing, but I think WPMILHIST's infobox design does look quite nice, and I think uniformity with WPMILHIST's style might be nice, as most of our articles are about warships. TomTheHand 14:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I might be figuring something out at User:TomTheHand/Infobox Ship using switch statements but it's really ugly. TomTheHand 15:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it would finally click for me after I get desperate and start asking people for help. I'm making some progress which I'll post here soon, but it would be really nice if we could collaborate on making the template prettier and adding more functionality if we can think of anything. TomTheHand 15:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've added the capabilities I wanted to the template, but if anyone can make it look better or anything, the help would be greatly appreciated. Here's a rundown of the new features:

  1. No rows are automatically displayed any more. This is less a feature than a side effect, but I was not a big fan of the automatic "Unknowns" anyway. To me, "Unknown" is appropriate for, say, the draft of Noah's Ark. It is not appropriate in situations where the article author just didn't have the information on hand.
  2. Attribute "Hide image", which hides the whole image/caption section if set to yes.
  3. Attribute "Hide career", which hides the Career/flag bar if set to yes.
  4. Attribute "Hide characteristics", which hides the General Characteristics bar if set to yes.
  5. Attribute "Ship multiuse", which controls the whole stacking of multiple infoboxes. By default things will work as before. If you'd like to stack two infoboxes, then in the first one have a "Ship multiuse=begin" and in the second have a "Ship multiuse=end". The begin will open the infobox, but not close it, and the end will close it. If you'd like to stack three or more, start with a "Ship multiuse=begin", have any number of "Ship multiuse=middle" and then close with a "Ship multiuse=end".

I'll work up some examples and post a link to them in a little while. I think a hefty tutorial would be in order. TomTheHand 15:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Bleh. The coding isn't intuitive at all (and, somewhat more practically, will be horribly broken if/when Brion finally switches on the extension that prevents tables from spilling over between template invocations). The real way to code hideable sections is through the parameters themselves (as in, e.g. {{Infobox Military Award}}); in your case, you'd also want a sub-template for an internal table that could then be called from the outer template to create arbitrarily stacked collections of the fields without the template user needing to know what was actually being done. Kirill Lokshin 16:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Damn. Well, I will look at Infobox Military Award shortly and see what I can do. In the meantime, I applied the infobox to USS Tilefish (SS-307) to see how it works. I won't do any others until I get the situation improved. TomTheHand 16:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've looked things over, and thought about it for a few hours, and I believe I understand what you're saying. However, I don't see how to make it work without breaking old uses of the Infobox. Should we start from scratch? Do you think it can be made to work without breaking anything? TomTheHand 17:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
In theory, I think so; but, as the new infobox would have a bunch of additional parameter anyways (to generate the secondary tables), it may just be easier to start from scratch and convert the existing infoboxes with AWB once the new one is developed and tested. Kirill Lokshin 18:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It'll never end! I've been converting ship infoboxes from tables to the Infobox Ship template for the past few months, and now we're going to have a whole new template to convert to! ;-)
Just to get an idea of what you're suggesting, do you think you could provide an example of how your idea would be called from a ship article? No code or anything, just an idea of how such a template would be used. Something very simplified with just a couple of attributes, like this:
{{Infobox Ship|
|Ship commissioned
|Ship length
|}}
How do you think an editor should be able to specify multiple commission dates? An example would help me understand what you're saying. TomTheHand 18:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
What I had in mind was something like this:
{{Infobox Ship
|commissioned= 1932
|commissioned2= 1971
|length= 500m
|tonnage= 10,000
|tonnage2= 16,000
..
}}
The basic idea being that the various "incarnations" of the ship would be identified by a number that would be appended to the names of the related parameters. Kirill Lokshin 18:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Would that support an arbitrary number of commission dates, or would we need to add code for each commissioning? Also, how would you handle a ship that commissions, decommissions, commissions again, and then is sold to another navy and commissioned there? I would sort of like to be able to have another Career heading before the second career. Just trying to play devil's advocate and iron out the details. TomTheHand 18:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Each set of parameters would need to be coded explicitly in the template; but we can start off with a large number (10?) that should be sufficient for just about anything.
As far as the headings and so forth: it was my understanding that each "commissionedX" field would be for a single "block" of career data. In other words, the example above would have two "Career" sections. If a ship goes through a series of comissionings in a single navy, on the other hand, the dates would just be listed in a single field (e.g. "|commissioned= 1932, 1957", "|decomissioned= 1945").
(The only real drawback of this would be that the order of career changes and refits wouldn't be variable; so the infobox would list all the career data, followed by all the ship technical data. This might be somewhat counterintuitive for ships that experience both major refits and changes between navies; but hopefully those are quite rare.) Kirill Lokshin 18:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. So if a ship commissioned several times in a single navy, each commission date would be in a single row? I'd sort of like to be able to have a commission date, then a decommission date, then a recommission date, so that the template would list things in chronological order. That's why I liked the stackable infobox solution; if it weren't doomed to break in the future I'd prefer to stick with it. Though the code may be ugly, it can be cleaned up some, and the actual usage of it isn't all that bad. Perhaps each Career heading could be hideable, so you could have your Career 1, then a Career 2 with its heading hidden, which would look like an extension of Career 1, then you could have a Career 3 with its heading intact indicating service in another navy. TomTheHand 19:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Another feature I'd like to add is the ability to have some sort of an optional caption or qualifier for General Characteristics. For example, I'd like to be able to have General Characteristics (1943) and General Characteristics (1981), to specify characteristics at two different time periods. TomTheHand 19:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you think about having the template user paste in the opening and closing of the table, and in the middle the user could make as many calls as needed to Ship Image, Ship Career, or Ship Characteristics templates? It would require starting over instead of continuing to use Infobox Ship, but I don't think it would be harder to use. TomTheHand 21:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're going to do that, you may as well do it inside the template; just have a parameter (e.g. tabletype1, tabletype2, etc.) that indicates which sub-table to transclude for each set of parameters. Kirill Lokshin 01:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Not sure that I understand. When you say "do that," what do you mean? Do you mean the opening and closing of the table? If so, I thought that opening a table in one template and closing it in another will eventually break. If I misunderstood that, let me know. If you mean calling sub-templates, how would you pass multiple commission dates into the main template? By numbering them? How is that better? TomTheHand 01:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it will eventually break; but this doesn't do that. The main advantage here is that the editors using the infobox in the template don't need to concern themselves with how it's implemented. For example, the article could contain:
{{Infobox Ship
|tabletype1= career
|navy1= US
|commissioned1= 1932
|decommissioned1= 1945
|tabletype2= career
|commissioned2= 1953
|tabletype3= technical
|length3= 500m
|tonnage3= 10,000
|tabletype4= career
|navy4= Royal Navy
|commissioned4= 1971
...
}}
while the template itself would be something like:
...
|-
{{#switch:{{{tabletype1|}}}
|career= {{/Career|navy={{{navy1|}}}|commissioned={{{commissioned1|}}}|decommissioned={{{decommissioned1|}}}|...}}
|technical= {{/Technical|length={{{length1|}}}|tonnage={{{tonnage1|}}}|...}}
}}
|-
{{#switch:{{{tabletype2|}}}
|career= {{/Career|navy={{{navy2|}}}|commissioned={{{commissioned2|}}}|decommissioned={{{decommissioned2|}}}|...}}
|technical= {{/Technical|length={{{length2|}}}|tonnage={{{tonnage2|}}}|...}}
}}
|-
{{#switch:{{{tabletype3|}}}
|career= {{/Career|navy={{{navy3|}}}|commissioned={{{commissioned3|}}}|decommissioned={{{decommissioned3|}}}|...}}
|technical= {{/Technical|length={{{length3|}}}|tonnage={{{tonnage3|}}}|...}}
}}
|-
...
Does that make any sense? Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're saying. Do any other WP:SHIPS members (or MILHIST folks) have opinions on how the template should work? I am not a huge fan of the numbering solution but I can certainly work with it if others feel we should go that way. I mean, it seems cleaner to me to have something like this:

{| // open table
{{Infobox Ship Header}} // this configures table color, width, etc
{{Infobox Ship Image
|image=
|caption=
}}
{{Infobox Ship Career
|hideheader= // hides the "Career" bar so that multiple commission/decommission dates can be listed in the same career area
|commissioned=
|decommissioned=
}}
{{Infobox Ship Characteristics
|hideheader= // hides the "General Characteristics" bar
|displacement=
|length=
}}
} // close table

Would it work? I don't think that having the template user open and close the table is messy, and I think a numberless solution is less confusing. TomTheHand 16:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I get the feeling this WikiProject died while I wasn't looking ;-) C'mon, guys! The ship infobox affects tons of people. How do you want it to work? TomTheHand 15:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

My version of a complicated table

Following up on my earlier suggestion, here's a rough implementation:

IIH
Career
Launched 1999
Launched 1888
Career (Turkey) flag of Turkey
Launched 1777
General Characteristics
Armament 3
EW 3
General Characteristics
Length 3 
 {{Wwoods/complicated ship table begin
 | Ship image = Image:IIH.png
 | width = 222px
 | Alt text = IIH
 }}
 {{Wwoods/complicated ship table career
 | Ship flag = Image:IIH.png 
 | Ship launched = 1999
 }}
 {{Wwoods/complicated ship table career
 | Ship launched = 1888
 }} 
 {{Wwoods/complicated ship table career
 | Ship country = Turkey
 | Ship flag = Image:Flag of Turkey.svg
 | Ship flag width = 60px
 | Ship flag name = flag of Turkey
 | Ship launched = 1777
 }}
 {{wwoods/complicated ship table characteristics
 | Ship armament= 3
 }}
 {{wwoods/complicated ship table characteristics
 | no header = yes
 | Ship EW= 3
 }}
 {{wwoods/complicated ship table characteristics
 | Ship length = 3
 }}
 {{Wwoods/complicated ship table end}}

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wwoods (talk • contribs) 22:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a lot like what I implemented. Check out User:TomTheHand/test. Sorry, I didn't credit you properly; you originally came up with the idea of using multiple separate templates and it sat in my head so that when I implemented something I thought it was my idea ;-) Anyway, there is a problem with the above template. Kirill says that opening a table in one template and closing it in another will eventually be broken. In my implementation, technically the editor pasting the infobox in opens and closes it, so I believe it will still work. TomTheHand 14:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Huh. If the sections are separate tables, how does the formatting and alignment carry over from one to the next?
—wwoods 05:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
They're all one table, but the editor has to open and close the table. The opening and closing can't occur in separate templates. TomTheHand 04:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Backward Compatibility of the infobox

I'm having a bit of trouble following the infobox discussion, but I think that changes to the current template should not require modification of the 1200+ articles that already include Template:Infobox Ship. Meaning "Ship commissioned" shouldn't be required to be changed to "Ship commissioned1" to remain compatible. I don't know how to solve the multi-navy commissioning issue, but I think any modification shouldn't require a 1200 article bot run to bring the existing articles into compliance with the template. Maybe a couple sample articles could be made in user-space or project ships-space to illustrate the various options. USS Wisconsin (BB-64) uses the infobox and was commissioned 3 times by the USN, it could be used as an example in user space. ROCS Kee Lung (DDG-1801) and USS Scott (DDG-995) are the same hull, maybe an example that merges them using one infobox. The holidays will prevent me from participating very much for the next several days so I may not respond promptly. --Dual Freq 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we could have a separate infobox for ships that have to support multiple commission periods, etc. Ships that don't require it can just use the old infobox. It's unfortunate that J Clear's solution will break in the future, because it was fully backwards compatible. TomTheHand 01:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
To expand a little on my above point, I think Kirill's idea (involving Ship commissioned2, Ship commissioned3, etc) could be made to be backwards compatible. Rather than having a Ship commissioned1, the very first commissioned date could just be "Ship commissioned" and later dates could be numbered. However, I think that if we started from scratch, we could put together something that's cleaner and easier to use than tacking on additional functionality to the old infobox. We could start using the new one from now on, or only use it in special cases like multiple commission periods.
I put together a demo of my idea of building an infobox out of separate image, career, and characteristics sections. Please check it out at User:TomTheHand/test. TomTheHand 17:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
There are two odd issues with that demo. First, there's a "|-" floating around near one of the example infoboxes, and I don't know where the heck it came from ;-) Second, the table borders don't show up in the example in my userspace, but when I preview it in the article mainspace the borders show up fine. I'm not trying to put this into articles, don't worry, but I tried previewing an article in the mainspace to troubleshoot the missing border issue. TomTheHand 17:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to hear my solution is going to break sometime in the future. Somebody better tell the folks of in the astronomy project, where I ... er, um, "borrowed" the idea from. At least I think it was over there. Assuming we go with a sub template invocation style, I recommend that the first set of data/formatting/sub-templates always be included in the parent template, and it's parameters do not have 1 appended. This will go a long way toward backward compatability. --J Clear 16:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC) (P.S. Not quite back from wikibreak yet, just a few edits here and there. Can't bear to look at my watch list yet.)
Unfortunately my above demo is completely backwards-incompatible ;-) I think it's easier to use than numbering, but if it were to be used it would have to be a completely separate template from Infobox Ship, either as a replacement or supplement. TomTheHand 17:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Decision time!

Ok, let's decide what we're going to do with this infobox situation!

wwoods and I have proposed starting over with a new infobox, which the editor would construct out of several different templates. I have a working prototype that I'm pretty happy with which you can view at User:TomTheHand/test. It's got an example of the code you'd paste in and a little bit of stuff describing how to use it. It's pretty straightforward; please have a look!

Kirill Lokshin has proposed a series of modifications to the old infobox which would retain backwards compatibility but allow multiple commission dates, etc. Its invocation would look like this:

{{Infobox Ship
|tabletype1= career
|navy1= US
|commissioned1= 1932
|decommissioned1= 1945
|tabletype2= career
|commissioned2= 1953
|tabletype3= technical
|length3= 500m
|tonnage3= 10,000
|tabletype4= career
|navy4= Royal Navy
|commissioned4= 1971
...
}}

For backwards compatibility, rather than commissioned1, decommissioned1, etc it would accept "commissioned" and "decommissioned." There's no prototype yet, and coding it while maintaining backwards compatibility is a little beyond me, but it's definitely possible.

If possible, please toss in your two cents. As I said, I favor starting over with a new template, and the above prototype is ready to move to the Template space if there are no objections. However, if there is strong opposition and someone's up for coding the alternative, please post and let us all know so I can hold off! TomTheHand 17:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

It all looks very good to me. One thing that I think is still needed though, from the point of view of captured ships, is a name field. Navies often gave captured ships new names so this should be accounted for in this somewhere... Martocticvs 18:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. That'd be a piece of cake to add. So you're thinking a Name field as the first row in the Career box? Or what/where? TomTheHand 18:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah that sounds good to me. It would only be needed for captured ships or ships that have changed hands and had their names changed... on any other ship article the name field should go away as it would be superfluous. Martocticvs 19:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. I put it just after the row for Class. It'll actually be useful on a large number of ships. After World War II, especially, many surplus ships were sold to other navies and renamed. I had never thought of putting the additional names in the infobox before. TomTheHand 20:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing some articles with prototype templates in place, before I vote. One experiment I've tried is to create a class template (I class destroyer) for "general description" which can then be reused for each ship of the class. There's some obvious drawbacks (eg, when one ship is "non-standard"), but it is handy and not complex. A computing motto is "keep it simple, stupid!". Folks at 137 22:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you had a chance to check out User:TomTheHand/test? There are three example uses on that page: a ship that had careers with two separate navies, a ship that had two periods in commission, and USS Enterprise's infobox rendered in the new template to show that it looks the same. The first two examples are not exactly correct, as I simplified some of their content to make them take up less space (note armament of "big guns" or "little guns" ;-)) but they should give you an idea. If there's anything else you'd like to see demonstrated, tell me what and I'll do it. TomTheHand 22:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer - I'd skipped thru the techie discussion and must have missed it. I'll have to have a play to get used to them, but I like the appearance and the alternative US/ British usages. Ease of use will count for me - it looks ok on that score. I don't know how you have the time to bash this stuff thru - no job? no kids? Thanks, anyway. Folks at 137 23:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the concept and the enhancements for multi-flagged and multi-commissioned ships, but my number 1 concern is backward compatibility so that the 1200+ articles that use the infobox don't have to be re-done. Could this template / concept be Template:Infobox Ship 2 and only used when the editor choses it / or only used in the case of multi-flagged ships or other items not supported by the current infobox? If the additions can be done without wrecking the other articles then I think I'd support it. --Dual Freq 03:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem at all with using this template separately, under a different name, and having Infobox Ship remain as it is. Currently it uses the names "Infobox Ship Header", "Infobox Ship Image", "Infobox Ship Career", and "Infobox Ship Characteristics", so the names are already different. However, if the similarity of the names is going to be a problem too I can use a different name. I want the names to be very simple, though, and would appreciate suggestions if they need to be changed. TomTheHand 13:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

My concern with Tom's template is that the table open and close is outside any template. This was probably driven by the coming change where a table can't span multiple templates. However it should be possible for the table open/close to be inside the single parent template, then include one or many sub-template[s] for every ship change. The parent template would substitute the numbered parameters into the generic unnumbered parameters used in the generic sub-template(s). In fact a single sub-template would look a lot like the current Infobox, except with the ability to default hide everything. I think Toms "Hide" parameter should be eliminated with suitable use of logic in the sub template. Tom'sWwood's use of different sub templates for the different blocks has the advantage of breaking the code up into smaller modules, a plus for maintenance. But the decision to include a block could be make with logic in the parent template. I'm pretty sure we could keep backward compatability that way. I'll try to put together a mock up of this is in the next day or two, but I'm not sure what the rush is. --J Clear 16:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Above, Kirill suggested what you've said: there should be a parent template that does the opening and closing, with calls to subtemplates, and extra dates and characteristics would be supported by numbering. However, I don't like the numbering solution. I don't see opening and closing the table outside any template as being a huge problem. It's a little easier to break, but someone who doesn't copy and paste properly is going to have a messed up infobox anyway. Backwards compatibility could be maintained with numbering, but I think it would be at the expense of having an easy-to-use, clean design. Could you provide an example of how your template would be invoked, similar to what Kirill and I were posting above, including how you would eliminate the Hide parameters but still provide the same functionality? Would you be willing to code the template, if we go that way? TomTheHand 16:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm almost hesitant to post this since it contains many unimplemented items, especially complete hiding of unused parameters. So concentrate on how the template call would look to the editor, not the resulting infobox yet. The example/proof of concept is here. --J Clear 18:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
As to the Hide parameter, you basically don't want the header or image/caption to show up so you do it the same way as any other row of data. If the Ship Image paramter isn't defined, don't display it's row or the caption row. I added it to the example above. The Career and General headers might be more subtle. I guess the question is how consistent do we want to be. Take USS Missouri (BB-63) as an example. Do we want one Career header followed by two sets of dates, then one General header with two armament rows, or do we want to force Career/General/Career/General headers? Hmm, actually that's a slightly different question than hiding/not hiding, it has to do with being able to order sections. If we give the editors the flexibility to include Career and General sub-templates on their own, we will end up with different ordering. --J Clear 18:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
In my above solution, there's no hide image. The image and caption areas don't show up if no image or caption are specified. Career and General Characteristics have hide capability for the reason you've stated: to allow an editor to decide whether or not it is appropriate to display the header. For Missouri, we'd have all of the dates under one Career header by using hidden Career headers. For a ship that was sold to a different navy, we'd have one Career header for one navy's commission period, and then another Career header for the other navy's. I think it's important to be able to both hide and display the headers.
Again for Missouri, you could have one Career header, a career with several commission and decommission dates, one Characteristics header, and characteristics with two different armaments rows. For a ship that was bought by another navy and extensively refitted, you could have a Career for one navy, Characteristics for that navy, a second Career for the other navy, and then Characteristics for the other navy, if desired.
Doing it with separate templates is very flexible, but I also think it's easy to understand and use and there's no heavy coding. TomTheHand 21:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to move my template into the Template space in the next day or two and start using it. J Clear said above, "I'm not sure what the rush is," but this discussion has been going on for two months with nothing really happening. I think the separate template solution solves everything I wanted it to solve, so I'm going to start using it. TomTheHand 15:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the template to the Template space and posted it at our page of tables. The first ship I used it on was USS Bang (SS-385), which I think has benefitted nicely from it. TomTheHand 20:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Great job with that! I'll start using it staight away. I've just been struck with another thought though - is it possible to add another line to the template? Ships of the age of sail were not measured by displacement, but rather tons burthen. Having been happily putting weights in the displacement field for a while I've only just realised the significance of the difference... Martocticvs 18:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Done! The variable is called "Ship tons burthen" and it's been added to the copy-and-paste code on our page of tables and whatnot. I'm thinking of adding a row for tonnage as well, as cargo ships are generally rated that way. Should it just say "Tonnage" or what? TomTheHand 18:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Cheers! As for cargo ship tonnage, I would be inclined to make that a separate entry, as Tons Burthen is the term you always see with the old ships, and I'm not sure how that equates with more modern measuring methods. I know that there were several different methods of measuring a ship's tonnage back in the day, so there is already some confusion! Martocticvs 20:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I was thinking of adding an additional entirely separate row for "tonnage". I'm thinking that it will just say "Tonnage:" and the editor can specify exactly what kind of tonnage is meant in the data field: "Tonnage: 5,000 gross tons" or "Tonnage: 4,000 register tons". TomTheHand 20:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Navsource Amphib shuffle

If you've put links to Navsource for a Gator ship, they will porbably break in 2007. See message about a site reorg here http://www.navsource.org/archives/phibidx.htm. --J Clear 16:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Heads-up on dablink formatting change

This caught me by surprise, so I wanted to give everyone else in the project a heads-up as we often use these templates in our articles. The visual formatting in the various dablink templates was recently moved to CSS. If you have not bypassed your cache, dablinks like {{redirect}} at the top of Royal Australian Navy or {{Otheruses1}} at the top of Royal Navy will appear to have lost their indent and italic text. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Disambig link formatting for more details. --Kralizec! (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian maritime history (was: Greetings/New Years and otherwise)

Just to inform that a new maritime history project has started for Australia - Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian maritime history -SatuSuro 14:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there wikipedia guidelines on what to do when articles "belong" to multiple projects and the projects have conflicting formatting and content guidelines? Also which project tag takes precedence on a Talk page? I see many Wikiproject Ships articles overlapping with MILHIST, this new group, and I'm sure there are others. --J Clear 18:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Therein lies a very tricky issue - with such a specific task but particularly open sounding title - perhaps this project and the military projects need to review exactly what they are doing? in the Australian context - Australian Military History, Australian History and the Australian Military History do speak to each other and attempt to remain under the umbrellea of the Australian project - and its guidelines and assessment criteria - so as to avoid problems whereever possible SatuSuro 22:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh and as to precedence - it depends on the projects to actually nut this out on the project talk pages - have a vote - and initiate policy that will clarify this - I do not know pf any other way - thats why we're sort of ok in the Australian sense- we have a parent project with some very well heeled admins watching! SatuSuro 22:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

New Images Uploaded

Folks, I've uploaded some external and internal snaps of replica HMB Endeavour at commons:Category:Endeavour — superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 13:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:WAFerry

Has anyone noticed: Template:WAFerry? It looks huge, takes up about 3/4 of my 1024x768 screen resolution. Would the standard ships infobox be more appropriate for the ~30 ferries transcluded? --Dual Freq 17:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anything much about templates so I don't know if the normal ships one can be made to work for this (easily), but it shouldn't be too hard to make this one look the same as the normal ship one... Martocticvs 22:14, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Guess I should have checked Template:Infobox Ferry first. The variable names are different though, anybody know how to convert from Template:WAFerry to Template:Infobox Ferry using a bot or AWB? There are only 30 so maybe it wouldn't be that hard to convert. I guess I could just copy the Ferry infobox to the WAFerry one and change the variables, but then wikipedia would have two identical ferry infoboxs with different names. --22:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I've slimmed it down to 300px from 500px but that still leaves the matter of having two templates for Ferries and a main ship template. Should all these be merged? I think the Ferry ones should be merged, but I'm not sure how to implement. The WAFerry one has more information and a few more articles that use it than the regular ferry one. Any ideas? --Dual Freq 00:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Commercial vessel template

The use of naval templates for commercial vessels has caused problems, amd has led to confusion between displacement and tonnage, launch date and service entry date, etc. There is an effort beginning now to standardize a template for commercial vessels. See Template:Infobox Commercial Ship and the related talk page. Perhaps that page belongs here. It is time however to create a specialized template for commercial vessels, and in all likliehood a number of templates for different kinds of vessels. Your thoughts are requested. Template_talk:Infobox_Commercial_Ship Thank you. Kablammo 22:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Would it also apply to USNS ships or civilian ships that used to be run by the Navy and aren't any more? I work on a lot of articles for those types of ships and would be interested in the box having an option for dates they were run by the navy as well as commercial dates. --JAYMEDINC 23:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The template could work for any commercial vessel, including those in naval service. It could also work for ferries-- we were unaware of the discussion on a ferries template when our project started. We probably should combine discussion on Template talk:Infobox Commercial Ship and this one in one place-- where does not matter. Kablammo 17:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Redirects & Categories

After searching the archives, I didn't see what I was looking for. I may have missed it. Here is the example. USS Serene (AM-300) and RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10) are the same ship.

Now it make no sense to look at the Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships and see the USS Serene listed, it does make sense to see the RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10) Having two seperate articles don't make a lot of sense. My solution is on the redirect for which ever would be the smaller article put the category for that respective Navy's entry. Opinions? --71Demon 18:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

If you do that, there's no link from the article from the category, which is half of the purpose of categorization. We just put USS Serene in Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships instead. TomTheHand 19:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The Category makes more sense if you see the Vietnamese names of the ships, than the US names. I understand about what your saying, and there is no good solution to that. It would be nice if we could do something like [Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships|USS Serene (AM-300)|RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10)] that way in that catergory it would display the later. I believe that the names appearing are the category reflect the ships name in that category is more important than and easy hop. --71Demon 19:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it would be better for the Vietnamese name to appear in the Vietnamese category, and it would be nice if categorization supported it. However, it's not a matter of just not having an easy hop: if we make a redirect, and categorize the redirect, there will be no link from the article to the category, which is literally 50% of the purpose of categorization. You don't just need to be able to get from a category to an article. You also need to be able to get from an article up to a category to find similar articles. Categorizing redirects makes that impossible. This has been discussed many times in the past, and we've concluded that it's necessary to categorize the articles themselves and not the redirects in spite of the disadvantages. TomTheHand 20:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that is the problem, the way I got around it is to put a link under the ships new name in the article. This allows the person to jump to the redirect, and get the category link. I would say that ships are one of the few things on Wiki, that present this problem. The should be a way to link to a category, without.... brb --71Demon 21:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Not pretty, but problem solved. Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships --71Demon 21:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I would much prefer to just categorize the ship articles under Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships. The solution you've described doesn't work: the person cannot jump to the redirect by clicking on the link in the article. Instead you've put a link to the category at the bottom of the page, which I think is ugly and isn't the way people expect to find category links. I think that it is better to accept having USS ships in the Republic of Vietnam Navy category than to try to do what you've done. Do any other project members have an opinion? TomTheHand 22:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


The solution I described works perfectly. I don't like the way Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships looks, but it works. It allows the ships to appear in their respective category under the correct name, and gives a direct link back to that category after the redirect. It also appears that several others have been done in a similar way (looking at the category of the Tiawanese Navy) although they do not have the hard link. --71Demon 22:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I know you don't like the way Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships looks, and I know you think your solution is fine. I think it's ugly and unintuitive, and I don't think there's a huge problem with having USS ships under Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships if it allows proper category navigation. We need to hear from other project members. TomTheHand 22:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If your looking in Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy Ships and find USS Serene, there is no way to know it is the RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10). I don't believe it does allow proper navigation. --71Demon 22:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Tom thanks Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships works great, much better. --71Demon 23:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I posted about our situation at the help desk and got an interesting suggestion. Not sure how I feel about it, but I wanted to post about it here to get opinions. TomTheHand 22:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

As I think WikiProject Military History is a little bit more active than this one, I posted about this on the talk page of their maritime warfare task force to get some input. Please check it out here. TomTheHand 22:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

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