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Manual of Style calls for the article topic to be in bold within the first paragraph of the article so in your example USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is correct. I can see where those not familiar with ships may wonder what USS stands for but if you were to attempt that within the topic name it comes out to USSEnterprise (CVN-65) which I believe is a violation of the MoS as to wikilinks in bold. Also,
USS leads to a disambiguation page defining to
United States Ship which redirects to
United States Navy. There is also
Ship prefix which defines many other prefixes used for ships. This isn't an answer to your question obviously but shows that finding a solution to this is a bit more difficult. --
Brad (
talk)
01:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
It's lengthy and awkward (nobody says "The United States Ship Enterprise"), the information is readily available elsewhere on Wikipedia (you can say to yourself "What the heck is this USS thing?", type "USS" into the search bar, and get your answer), and it would require changes to thousands upon thousands of articles for very little benefit.
TomTheHand (
talk)
14:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we should not spell out the meaning, and just use "USS". However, for locations within the article other than where bolded in the first paragraph, we could modify {{USS}} so that if an additional parameter of "lk=yes" "lk=on" is used, then the template will add a link to the definition of USS. All comparable templates could be similarly modified. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
14:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I shouldn't have to google just to find out what USS or LÉ is , so what if would require changes too alot of articles an AWB run could sort this out , i think i would be a huge benefit for non ship me people just as
Dublin GAA explains what GAA means
Gnevin (
talk)
16:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
It would be easy enough to implement an optional parameter, but I agree with TomTheHand that it's easy enough to find out what USS means. Barek, are you suggesting using {{USS}} within an article (but after the lead)? If I understood you correctly, wouldn't that generate a self-link in the article? —
Bellhalla (
talk)
16:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
True, good point. It could be useful on the first occurance on some lists, but not for within articles about specific ships. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
23:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
For my two cents - while putting a wikilink to the prefix in bold might violate the MoS, I think it's also the simplest, clearest and most visually pleasant way of dealing with this - I'd say this would be a case where we should
WP:IGNORE the MoS and wikilink the prefixes. But that's obviously just me. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
10:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) The least intrusive way to do this is with a link, but that approach has problems. Chief among the many problems is that it doesn't do anything for someone reading a printout. The next least intrusive approach seems to be with a footnote. This approach seems to a) address the issue, b) be visually small, c) port across media, d) be codable into one or more templates, and e) not violate any MOS guidelines that I'm aware of. On the downside, there are many articles that don't have footnote sections and there are many articles that use their notes section exclusively for references. All in all, I'm not in love with the idea. Cheers. HausTalk23:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see an overwhelming need to define the terms within the articles. However, if we did add it, then I think using an entry in a "See also" section that points to the definition is the method that would fit best with wiki practices. Linking from the bolded first instance is an issue with the
WP:MOS; and I suspect that if we were to use a ref tag, we would have well-intentioned users removing the refs from articles, as a statement of fact within a ref tag is not a
WP:RS for the statement (for this reason, I think we would need to find an avenue to discuss this with the broader wikipedia community if we were to use that method). The only method remaining that I can think of would be a "See also" section, which is already used for similar purposes elsewhere on the wiki. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
23:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Another problem with doing something like this on a wide scale is that there are cases when even spelling out the acronym is useless at best and misleading at worse. For example United States Naval Ship and Barko ng Republika ng Pilipinas. Cheers. HausTalk23:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Currently there is a discussion
underweigh over the fate of this ship as described in the infobox, whether it was sunk or lost. So far I've noticed that ships tend to end up under one
or more of these categories;
sunk,
sold,
scrapped, or
lost. Some are saying that describing it as "sunk" implies the British actually sunk it or seem to think a ship being "sunk" precludes the possibility of it being scuttled. This must
surely be a mistake since being scuttled is simply describing how a ship was sunk: Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg,
Monitor sank in a storm,
Invincible was sunk by German shells, leading to the point that unless the box says Bismarck was sunk by British shellfire or something like it, saying a ship "sunk" only implies the ship lost buoyancy and sank leaving what caused its loss of buoyancy unspecified.
Whether I'm right or wrong an outside opinion from some experienced editors would be helpful as there is at least one other editor who agrees with me for slightly different reasons. Meaning that merely addressing my concern won't necessarily end the dispute.
Anynobody05:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned, it is a mistake: sunk means it lost buoyancy! However, I don't really have a problem with lost, if it makes Nazi fanboys feel better; if it ends the dispute, I would go with that. And don't call me Shirley.
TomTheHand (
talk)
13:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been trying to look up a joke that I liked a lot, but I can't find it. It goes something like this:
If a Nazi captain shouts "Scuttle the ship!" before it sinks, it's a strategic victory. If he shouts "Scuttle the ship!" while he's still clinging to
flotsam, it's an operational victory. If his son yells "Scuttle the ship!" from a plane flying over the battle site sixty years later, it's a tactical victory.
Ambiguity probably comes in through the use of the word sunk. This implies usage along the lines of 'was sunk'. Instead, we could use 'sank,' which would remove all of that ambiguity.
Martocticvs (
talk)
17:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I would strongly object to the passive "sank". But in any case, it looks as though a compromise may finally have been reached.
Gatoclass (
talk)
20:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
"HSK" Kormoran on main page
Just happened to notice this and I don't believe HSK is a genine prefix, I've suggested at
Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors that the prefix be removed given its controversial nature, but perhaps someone else would like to add their voice to the discussion.
Gatoclass (
talk)
09:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Is this still Start Class, or can it be upgraded to B class. I've the feeling this article could go a lot higher, once they've actually finished the recovery and decided what to do with her. Then I won't have to keep adding to the article!
Mjroots (
talk)
12:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
It looks like {{RMS}} is already in use for another purpose, so that will need moved first. Has anyone considered merging all of these under something like {{ship}}? It could use a format like {{ship|RMS|Titanic}}, or {{ship|USS|Enterprise|CVN-65}} to be able to incorporate any ship prefix. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
19:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Except that many SS, MS and MV (not to mention all RMS) don't fall under warships, so something less warlike might be very useful for a bunch of ships. And speaking of needing more templates, I've also been thinking it would be nice to have templates for
High Speed Craft ({{HSC}}) and
Gas Turbine Ship ({{GTS}}). --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
23:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been busy this morning:
I've moved the former {{RMS}} to {{RMSband}} and converted all of its mainspace transclusions.
I've created a new WP:SHIPS template at {{RMS}} with a dab link to the recently moved template.
I've created {{GTS}}, {{HSC}}, and threw in {{USAT}} for good measure.
Well done. I don't think there are anymore prefixes left except for HMHS, but the only ship I've seen using that is
HMHS Britannic, so it would be a bit overkill to develop the template for only one ship. -MBK00418:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I've added another shortcut template, {{sclass2}}. This is intended for ship classes that are named for a common theme, like
Flower-class corvette, where the name of the class should be in roman text rather than italics. The corresponding template for ships named after a lead ship, {{sclass}}, is unchanged. (The optional parameters for {{sclass2}} are the same as for {{sclass}}.) —
Bellhalla (
talk)
20:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Proposed merge of Survey ship into Research vessel
At the
FAC for
USS Bridgeport (AD-10), a reviewer brought up that one heading in the standard infobox—"Career (US Navy)"—crossed the white dividing line when viewed in Firefox. I checked in Firefox (not my usual browser), and both "Career (US Navy)" and "Career (Germany)" cross the line. Does this happen for anyone else that regularly uses Firefox, either in that article or others? (FWIW, I'm using a Mac, running OS X 10.5.2.) —
Bellhalla (
talk)
13:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
It does happen to me when I look at it in Firefox. I will try to fix it, but also, ordinarily the country goes there. I would use "US" or "USA" in that box, though I do realize that the first career section indicates civilian German service while the second indicates military US service.
TomTheHand (
talk)
13:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm the one who made the comment, and I am using Firefox on Windows Vista. It looks like it's because the text is longer than the column. Since a "nowrap" tag is used for U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, it just crosses the line. The Germany one is not a problem for me - it reads "Career" and then "(Germany)" is on the next line. --
Laser brain (
talk)
13:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, that'd do it. Yeah, don't use nowrap. Instead, put a non-breaking space between U.S. and Navy or Army. I'll edit the article.
TomTheHand (
talk)
13:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
No problem. I just made some formatting changes to the article, which I normally do on most articles I touch... and I am extremely sorry if any of them are horrible and were previously removed from the article with extreme prejudice!
TomTheHand (
talk)
14:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like that on any of the edits at all. I will say that I didn't know about the {{
convert|7|ft|8|in}} syntax, which is why I had used {{
Ft in to m}}. Always good to learn new tricks. Thanks. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
14:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and one thing I noticed but was unwilling to touch was dual unit conversions, like conversions from knots to both km/h and mph. I usually avoid these because I think they look messy, but I do understand that they can be useful.
TomTheHand (
talk)
14:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
NRHP boxes in infobox
I know that there are several ships that are on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places, and as such, have the {{Infobox nrhp}} infobox in addition to the WP:SHIPS standard style box. What results is two boxes of differing widths, and can interfere—in one case I've seen, at least— with image location in the article. What I'd like to propose in these cases is that the NRHP box be placed inside the WP:SHIPS infobox (before the final "|}"). I've implemented this in
USS Pampanito (SS-383), and I personally favor the result over the current usual implementation of 2 boxes. A bonus is that it requires no change in the use (or coding) of any of the existing templates. Any thought? —
Bellhalla (
talk)
14:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
My only issue is the way "USS PAMPANITO (submarine)" left-aligns instead of being centered, but perhaps if the NHRP template is incorporated into the ship infobox the title isn't even necessary. I've made this change; thoughts?
TomTheHand (
talk)
14:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The NRHP infobox is used to display the NRHP program name for a given historic place (building, structure, site, object, or historic district). This often is different than the current common name for the place. When an NRHP is further designated to be a National Historic Landmark, usual practice is to display the NHL program name, which may also differ. For compatibility to the rest of NRHP infoboxes, the NHL program name for the Pampanito should be shown, in my view. Is there some workaround to your programming problem so that it can be shown, centered as in NRHP infoboxes? The left-aligned name version does not look good, I agree.
doncram (
talk)
16:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Could the NRHP infobox be modified with an optional parameter that would center the title? maybe use "alignment=center"? Then if not used, the infobox defaults to its current style of left aligned. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
16:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I see your point, Doncram. Later this afternoon when I have some free time I will see if I can figure out how to center the text, unless someone else gets to it first.
TomTheHand (
talk)
16:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Reference Desk question
Someone has asked on the Miscellaneous Reference Desk about ship terminology, and I thought I'd come here and see if one of you salty dogs wants to pitch in. The questioner's English is not perfect, but he seems to be asking whether there are two words you can use to make the distinction between ships that are moved by sail power and ships that have engines, maybe something like "sailboat" and "powerboat" would be for boats. You can read the question for yourself
here and decide how to answer. --
Milkbreath (
talk)
17:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Congratulations to two members on their recent FAs:
Bellhalla on
USS Bridgeport (AD-10), and
Saberwyn on
HMAS Melbourne (R21)! Between WP:SHIPS and WP:MILHIST, for the last 6 months we have been turning out about 1 new FA every month. I hope we can continue this trend in producing articles recognized for their fine content.
I've done something to
Museum ship that has messed up the formatting of the table on that page. I'd like to preserve my changes and thus don't want to just revert them. Anybody willing to find out what I've done wrong? -MBK00420:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
It's nothing obvious -- probably some weird bar character in the template. You can work around it by putting each column on a row by itself, as per
this diff. Cheers. HausTalk20:37, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I just fixed the table temporarily (hadn't seen anything but the first post here when I started). It's definitely the HMS template, and also apparently HMCS. I'll take a look at those later.
Maralia (
talk)
20:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
{{
HMS}}, {{
HMCS}}, and {{
HMAS}} all fixed now. There was a linebreak character that needed commenting out in the template code. Let me know if any are broken in some other way. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
21:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Category:United States Navy ships disposed of as targets
"Category:United States Navy ships disposed of as targets" was up for discussion (
here) and apparently deleted. I'm kind of neutral on the category, personally, but was the discussion ever brought up here? I didn't immediately recognize any of the editors that participated in the decision to delete. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
03:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I thought it was a kind of interesting category myself, and probably would have voted keep if I'd known about the CFD.
Gatoclass (
talk)
17:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I feel pretty much the same as Bellhalla; I'm neutral on the category but a little annoyed that we didn't know about the CFD.
TomTheHand (
talk)
17:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Removing some newinfobox templates
A quick heads-up: since it's safe to assume that any article that has {{Infobox Ship}} needs an infobox upgrade, I'm removing the {{newinfobox}} templates from the talk pages of those articles. This serves two purposes: it gives us a better idea how many conversions need to be done on pages that don't have {{Infobox Ship}} and it reduces the chances of duplicated effort.
I don't follow you. How does removing the newinfobox tag from talk pages help you find the articles that need new infoboxes?
Gatoclass (
talk)
16:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the point is that we can just use the "what links here" for the Infobox ship ones, we don't need a redundant tag on the talkpage saying this; it just clutters up the talkpage. What we need to do is concentrate on the ones that have been subst'ed or written in plain html or use an even older infobox which is what the "newinfobox" tag should be used for.
Woody (
talk)
17:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Just out of interest, why not just copy the code from the infobox ship begin template to infobox ship and add back the deprecated fields from infobox ship? Wouldn't that be the simplest way to autoconvert all the deprecated infoboxes? Or is there some reason that can't be done?
Gatoclass (
talk)
17:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Because the new infobox is three separate templates, it's not possible to just copy it over Infobox Ship, which is a single template, and have it work.
TomTheHand (
talk)
17:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict - now redundant to TomTheHand's post) The Infobox Ship template is a single self contained template, while Infobox Ship Begin is modular, using sub-templates to permit for multiple career sections or multiple General Characteristics sections (makes it easier to document changes if/when the ship is re-designed, re-built, or sold and re-flagged/re-named). Because of the modular style, a direct overlay from one template to the other won't work - the deprecated code must be modified to fit into the modular structure. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
17:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I would have thought aircraft myself. They do fly, just a few feet above the ground. And they can fly over both water and land, which a ship can't do.
Gatoclass (
talk)
16:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd say the most sensible approach would be to put them under us rather than aircraft (or alternatively both). At least in commercial traffic hovercraft were essentially used as ships, and were usually operated by companies that also operated ships (I also think the Finnish navy operated a hovercraft, but I might be wrong about that). Plus ship websites such as
Fakta om Fartyg and
Simplon Postcards list hovercraft as part of their ship lists. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
16:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
As Kjet says, commercially, they're used as ships; militarily, they're used as
landing craft. Their use over land is pretty limited because they require a pretty smooth surface.
TomTheHand (
talk)
16:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Hovercraft are included in the definition of water vessels. I'm not sure whether they are technically defined as aircraft, but I seem to recall the Navy speaking of
LCACs as aircraft. There are certainly water vessels that are aircraft, for example, consider the
USCG Rules of the Road definition: "The word "vessel" includes every description of water craft, including nondisplacement craft and seaplanes, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water;"
In practical terms, if an aircraft-centric editor wants to add it to their project, I'd say why not? Cheers. HausTalk17:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I certainly wouldn't ask someone from WP:AIR to buzz off :-) Their method of propulsion might be something aircraft-oriented users would be best able to contribute to, but I do think that we have some right and responsibility for making sure hovercraft articles are up to par because of how they're used.
TomTheHand (
talk)
18:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
As a long-time
WP:AIR member, I've added the {{WPSHIPS}} tag to the
Talk:Hovercraft page. I don't really see it as falling under WPAVIATION's or WPAIR's perview, but again it still might be somthing those projects might want to keep an eye on. -
BillCJ (
talk)
18:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
If most hovercraft operators have to get permission from an Air Traffic Controller then they're an aircraft. As Wikipedia prefers common usage guidance, I prefer the "ships" interpretation based upon how most hovercraft are used. --
SEWilco (
talk)
20:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, during the 50s and 60s, UK hovercraft operated with Class B aircraft registrations. Looks like both projects is the correct thing to do,
Mjroots (
talk)
12:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Since we are talking about infoboxes, and bearing in mind the discussion on the Bismark earlier, is it appropriate for U-boat infoboxes to proclaim victories? I have in mind
Unterseeboot 38 (1938) "First sunk was the neutral Irish steam trawler SS Luekos on March 9, with a single shell, off Tory Island, all 11 crew were lost". How can sinking an unarmed neutral be a 'victory'? -
ClemMcGann (
talk)
14:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Where should I look to find information on the laws governing what privately owned vessels can be armed with?
Jtrainor (
talk)
19:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
THAT DEPENDS if you are looking for american laws i would try eiether the libray of congress or...a google search if that dosen't work you could talk to a navy recuriter --
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
No problem, and good job on all those templates. About a day and a half ago, you said it would take a week, and now it's done :) Keep up the good work!
Parsecboy (
talk)
12:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh this stage of the project's not done yet: there's still about 800 {{Infobox Ship}} templates left, but they're coming along pretty quickly. They might be gone by tonight... HausTalk13:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Not that I think that the consensus would actually be to keep any of them, but shouldn't these templates be taken to
TFD? I was the one who posted about being a little peeved that the
CFD for
Category:United States Navy ships disposed of as targets wasn't brought up here. It might be better to go through the formal process so that anyone with that on a watchlist can at least have their say. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
14:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I would also agree that deletion should go through procedure. And as long as the nomination is mentioned here there won't be a lack of people disagreeing. --
Brad (
talk)
20:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Well, HMS Dragon was the 3,282nd and last of the {{Infobox Ship}} templates to be removed. Since it's protected, I can't put it up for TFD... so if a kindly adminwould be so kind, that'd be super. Cheers. HausTalk01:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This is a disambiguation problem. There were two Hornet's in service in 1805. The first one
[1] has no date of launch or build to go on; just acquired or commission date. The second one
[2] was launched in 1805. At
USS Hornet, there was an attempt to solve the problem by creating
USS Hornet (1805, sloop) and
USS Hornet (1805, brig) however,
Kralizec! moved USS Hornet (1805, brig) to
USS Hornet (1805) citing
WP:NC-SHIP but there is no convention that covers the problem of two ships with the same name and origins in the same year without hull numbers. The real question here is if we should disambiguate in these circumstances by ship type and using article naming such as (1805, brig) and (1805, sloop)? Note there is a similar plan at
USS Washington. --
Brad (
talk)
15:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know, but isn't that USS Washington dab page a bit overdone? Wasn't there a convention established that ship dab pages would only contain a minimum of info?
Gatoclass (
talk)
16:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
That conversation was
here but I'm currently on US Navy ships, H. I predict that by August or September I should reach W. I cleaned
USS Hornet earlier today which brings us here. --
Brad (
talk)
02:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I think, if anything, the dabs for the two 1805 Hornets should be "1805 brig" and "1805 sloop" (with no commas) —
Bellhalla (
talk)
03:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping we could come up with a plan so it can be added to WP:NC-SHIP in case there is ever more of these situations. It is possible to determine the order in which the ships served so now I'm thinking (1805a) and (1805b) would work and avoid having to use (1776 lateen-rigged-galley) for the USS Washington's. --
Brad (
talk)
19:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
merged uss greyhoud and the other ship don't remember what it is called..undo if you don't like it. its kinda crude but what do yall think?
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
16:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC) (yes im Texan)
As they appear to be the same ship - I would say convert the USS Grehound article to be a redirect to SS Yale. The SS Yale article still needs some cleanup to better merge the text (they currently read as two independant articles on one page, just need to work it into a single coherent article), I might have time this afternoon to work on that. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
16:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Young
Kyle (
talk) has written two articles on fishing boats and put a ship infobox on
one of them. I have been putting navigation panels, in the same place where ship infoboxes go, on most of the fishing articles. Usually this is not a problem. Then I came across Kyle's article, and put a panel there, so Kyle deleted it, and... well we have been having this
discussion. And if you look at
Kyle's article, you will currently find the navigation panel is below the infobox.
Okay, we have a battle for dominance - which is to prevail? I would like some discussion on this. Before kneejerking, as ship junkies (like me :)), in favour of the more familiar infobox, please first use the navigate panel to cruise some fishing topics.
My own sense is that it really needs to be either/or. It's untidy to have the navigation panel below the infobox, or vica versa. (There are also a lot of fishing boats in various classes not linked yet). As Kyle says himself, infoboxes are good, and so are navigation panels. Do we have to shoot for one and shoot the other, or is there another way out? --
Geronimo20 (
talk)
01:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
If the navigation panel were instead a navigational footer template, like the ones we use for ship classes, there wouldn't be any collisions in layout, and it could be consistently displayed in the same position on articles regardless of whether they have an infobox.
Maralia (
talk)
01:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Just for a little clarification, I did not personally add the infobox to that article, it was actually
User:Brianhe (see
[3]), though I certainly support its use. --
Kyle(
talk)02:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's the same thing at all. I reckon casual users, and many not so casual users, would not be aware that such a thing was there at all. And there is a big difference between scrolling down to the bottom and then maybe opening a hidden topic index. It doesn't have the convenience and open utility of a well constructed panel at the top right. --
Geronimo20 (
talk)
03:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I can't see a case for prescribing a panel over an infobox; infoboxes contain information about the actual subject of the article - eminently more relevant than links to similar articles.
Maralia (
talk)
03:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree, though I don't go along with the eminently more relevant bit. Good navigation is just as important as good information presentation, in my view. In fact it's just another part of good information presentation. However, infoboxes are well established with ships - they got there first. I agree that should prevail. I wanted to have this discussion in case I'm missing something. --
Geronimo20 (
talk)
04:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
What about trying to include some navigation into the infobox such as on the Boeing airplane articles (see
Boeing 747)? I don't know how exactly it might work, but it seems like it might be somehow possible and would certainly solve the dilema. It's just an idea.--
Kyle(
talk)04:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
There's a pretty wide consensus on the common layout on ship articles of an infobox on the right and nav footers (if any) at the bottom. Nav panels are usually reserved for linking together related topics of a general nature. (There's a great example at
Psychology.) Also, the nav panel in question, {{fishing boat topics}}, seems to be superfluous to the nav footer template {{fishing industry}} (which Geronimo20 also created). —
Bellhalla (
talk)
12:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
That "fishing industry" navbox at the bottom of the article is total overkill for a ship article in my opinion. It just shouldn't be there.
Take the "other boats" box and put it at the bottom in place of the "fishing industry" navbox and it will be just about right IMO.
Gatoclass (
talk)
12:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
This is partially the point I'm addressing Gatoclass. You are presenting a point of view that is very reasonable from the standpoint of WikiProject Ships. But it doesn't look so good from the standpoint of WikiProject Fishing. WikiProject Ships does not "own" the articles on fishing boats (at least not any more than WikiProject Fishing does). The design and operational control of fishing boats is increasing becoming standardised under
FAO international regulations, pretty much as naval design and operational control came under the admiralty. These boats are an integral part of the fishing industry. There are, by the way, about four million fishing vessels world wide, 40,000 over 25 metres. --
Geronimo20 (
talk)
20:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Not sure I even see the relevance of the Other boats template, personally... surely there are more than just a handful of other fishing boats that either do, or can at some stage have articles? For such a generalised grouping, the category would be the place to look for other fishing boats - unless they are related by some common attribute such as class or operator...
Martocticvs (
talk)
14:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
This was actually my initial reasoning behind removing the panel. While I like the added exposure the box provides, it felt like there must be more boats that should be included on the panel. I immediately recognized some of the boats from Deadliest Catch (awesome show), but then there was the South Korean boat which did not seem to be connected to the others and the sail boat-- I especially don't see a connection there. No offense to Geronimo20, but there is something about his template that makes things seem over simplified. However, I would still like some sort of navigation on the pages. Moving the box to the bottom of the page seems to be the best option now, but I think somehow incorporating navigation into the infobox would be the best long term solution.--
Kyle(
talk)20:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I just wrote the article and I need help putting in the infobox - I know nothing about the ships so I am afraid I will misuse so terms. Thank you,
Renata (
talk)
02:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
anybody miss me or no ? i should be on and of untill june then i'll be out of school and i can spend my boring summer days haveing fun here.question...
the navy i hear is building a new fleet. but when it comes to particular class it will keep all ships in the same class that are for example say the new warship they are build is it the ign or the igx or somethin like that but eaither way the ship class should cut down to two or three diffrent ship types but there could be many in each class. so what will we do now? plus this could create big disgamburation pages...
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
hey this is redundent but uh.. some people might not know what 27knots is in relation to speed or what a fathom (i do know what these are) is etc...
or words such as beam, bulkhead,etc.. so i was proposing we put a glossery subpage on the project page or something... i just realized that they could go look it up on wikipedia but still..
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
16:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
It's also possible to work the {{convert}} template into the infoboxes to help translate some measures into terms that the user will know. For example:
{{convert|25000|fathom|km|lk=on|abbr=on}} displays as: 25,000
fathoms (46
km)
I've used the knots conversion in several infoboxes, as it seems to help provide additional information for users unfamiliar with the term. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
16:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at the
HMCS Haida (G63)? The initial bot-conversion of the infobox had problems with the "sensors" and "armament" sections because the original infobox had tables inserted that don't appear to work under the new template. I've restored the new template, but for now I've dropped those sections, and they need to be added back into the infobox. I'm leaving for work soon, so hopefully someone else can straighten this one out. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
14:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Do we have a page with the list of ships and what the "great white fleet" was?
They were coal driven right? and it got to expenseve to finish the curise and they also repainted them is that correct?..
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
There seem to be 129 ships and shipwrecks that are designated National Historic Landmarks of the U.S. I'm not sure what this list-article wants to be, exactly, but you're invited to help it become that.
doncram (
talk)
19:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Armed Merchant Ships
I request input on what appears to be a poorly organized subject -- arming of civilian vessels for military purposes. I consider the
Q-ship and
Naval trawler articles to be well defined subcategories of the subject. I suggest two (or three) additional subcategories.
The first would be the concept of defensively arming merchant ships. Conceptually this might include self-protection against pirates; but the British concept of
Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (DEMS) to counter early 20th century submarines is potentially a separate subject. Present articles on the subject include
United States Navy Armed Guard and
Armed Merchantmen. The first deals with a specific manpower organization rather than the concept; and the latter has what I consider inappropriate redirects of what I would propose as a second category.
The second would be the conversion of large civilian ships to
Auxilliary cruisers with a naval crew. 20th century examples of this concept followed two approaches depending on the country's relative strength of conventional warships. The Royal Navy placed cruiser-caliber guns on fast liners to create
Armed Merchant Cruisers for patrol duties and convoy escort. Germany placed similar guns on fast freighters to create Hilfskreuzers for disguised raiding of enemy commerce. Wikipedia presently includes a comprehensive group of articles on individual Hilfskreuzers using the English translation Auxilliary Cruiser.
I'm not sure I fully understand. When you talk about 'categories' I assume you are talking about articles? The two terms have different meanings on wikipedia. What specifically are the 'inappropriate redirects' in
Armed Merchantmen? What specific information would you want to move in and out of these articles?
Benea (
talk)
23:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Please forgive my unfamiliarity with the nomenclature of Wikipedia. Terminology (naval or Wikipedian) is the focus of my confusion. I perceive significant subsets of Armed Merchantmen as Auxilliary Cruiser (large ship, military crew, several big guns), Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (DEMS) (large ship, civilian crew, one or few medium guns), Naval Trawler (small ship, military crew, one or few medium guns), Q-ship (small ship, military crew, specialized ASW weaponry and tactics), and possibly another category for ships carrying military aircraft. The
Armed Merchantmen article appears intended to cover the Auxilliary Cruiser subset, but the introductory paragraph inappropriately dismisses the more numerous DEMS subset while a later paragraph recognizes it's CAM and MAC aircraft equivalent.
The potentially redundant
Merchant raider article may have arisen because the title and lead paragraph of the
Armed merchantmen article was interpreted as a different subject. I would prefer a title like Auxilliary Cruiser or Armed Merchant Cruiser with prompt description and links to Naval Trawler, Q-ship, DEMS, and aircraft analogs in the introductory paragraph. Alternatively, the existing title and redirects might be better understood with earlier introductory emphasis on the Auxilliary Cruiser and Armed Merchant Cruiser terminology.
Thewellman (
talk)
00:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Agree that a cleanup is required as there is currently considerable overlap and confusion between several different articles. My understanding is that merchant ships were armed for either defensive or offensive purposes, however some of these articles mix the concepts, making them confusing to the reader. My suggestion therefore is to consolidate these into two broad article types: Merchant raider (offensive) and Armed merchantman (defensive), with specific ship types and examples (e.g. East Indiaman, Auxilliary Cruiser) included as sections in one article or the other. Socrates2008 (
Talk)
21:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Please keep in mind as you're reorganizing that many/most current merchant ships have armaments ranging from pistols to small-arms magazines to mounted machine guns.
OPNAVINST 3591.1E applies to lots of U.S. merchant seamen inside and outside of MSC. It's now routine for a merchant ship to have a small-arms mag similar in size and contents to a cruiser/destroyer. HausTalk21:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Major reorganisation of these articles is needed, I think. IMO "armed merchantman" is too ambiguous, as it can mean both freighters and "raiders". The "-man" also sounds archaic to most people now, I think and sits very oddly with the tradition (that we observe) of ships being feminine.
I think
auxiliary cruiser is an effective title which accurately describes the intent and purpose of the raiding vessels.
"Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships" was a purely UK concept, it seems to me. FWIW, "defensively equipped" seems redundant — virtually all merchant ships are armed in wartime, unless they are hospital ships etc
Grant |
Talk08:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I prefer "Merchant Raider" for the class name to "Auxiliary cruizer", which is a sub-type. (Not all raiders were cruisers - e.g.
SMS Seeadler). Also, the word "raider" is widely used and also conveys the offensive role. Socrates2008 (
Talk)
10:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what distinction you are drawing between Seeadler and other auxiliary cruisers. If a naval vessel is a cruiser, that description refers to its role, not the size or propulsion of that vessel. See
Cruiser, which states that: "The term "cruiser" or "cruizer" was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship." IMO "merchant raider" is vague and less formal, whereas "auxiliary cruiser" accurately conveys the role and capabilities of this broad class of ships.
Grant |
Talk14:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The originally mentioned "civilian vessels" term carries several important implications. Due to various legal distinctions between civilian vessels, military vessels, and state acts of war, there should be a clear line drawn between civilian vessels and military vessels. Camouflage of a vessel which is being operated by the military does not affect the vessel being a military vessel. A fishing vessel which is owned by the military is still a military vessel even if unarmed. A civilian vessel which is armed by its owner or crew is taking action as a civilian, unless acting under government orders. Exceptions should be clearly noted. --
SEWilco (
talk)
18:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi Wilco, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. The issue here is the lumping together of (1) vessels used for troop/materiel transport (and armed for defensive purposes) and (2) warships which have been converted from civilian ships so that they can be disguised as merchant vessels (i.e the ships known colloquially as "raiders").
Grant |
Talk14:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone have this book? The full title is "Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue". There's some info I'd like to check. Thanks,
Gatoclass (
talk)
13:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Basically, I'd just like to confirm, if possible, that (a) the inquiry following the typhoon was held on the
USS Cascade (AD-16); and (b) that Herman Wouk did indeed use the Cascade inquiry as the inspiration for his fiction novel
The Caine Mutiny.
Gatoclass (
talk)
07:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
p.3 "...surveyed the wardroom of the destroyer tender USS Cascade... This, however was no court martial, merely a court of inquiry." p. 269: "The court... convened in the pilothouse of the destroyer tender USS Cascade to hear his testimony." p.286 "by far the most famous ship to survive Hurricane Cobra never existed. Following World War II, former Pacific Theater naval officer Herman Wouk immortalized the destroyer-minesweeper USS Caine in his..." Hope that helps. HausTalk14:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Ker-blam! You're a legend Haus, thanks heaps for that.
my task bar at the top with the "my talk, my prefrences..etc" is jumping to the left to the other side of the page every time my mouse goes over it.. any advice its freakin me out.
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
18:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
actually there are like ten or twenty pages that need to be made.--20:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Category:Ships by navy
In
Category:Ships by navy there are two naming styles for sub-categories: "Ships of XYZ Navy" and "XYZ Navy ships". Is there currently a consensus on how these should be styled? It's about 2 to 1 in favor of XYZ Navy ships right now (25 to 12, out of 37). It would be nice to have some consistency. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
15:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I've run into the following ship-related pages that seem to break naming conventions is the same manner that our "m/v" pages did:
o/a,
p/p,
w/l. Any feelings? HausTalk23:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
That's even better; p/p should just be redirected to the section to which you linked. O/a will still need to be moved, because it has other meanings than the nautical term. W/L can still be redirected to
Waterline.
Parsecboy (
talk)
01:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem generally with the idea of a template in addition to a category. (Look at typical ship class articles within the project, which often have both.) I do think that template in particular could benefit from better design. For example, are the various colors supposed to represent anything in particular? Also, the arrangement of colors seems to mimic the look of a tabbed interface (but not that functionality). —
Bellhalla (
talk)
22:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree - no objections to the template existing; but I do think it would be better if it were converted to a standard {{navbox}} format so it fit-in better with the other navboxes it's above/below within articles. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
23:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Ugh. One look at that template and I've a headache. All it needs is some blinking text and frost and snow in the corners and we could put our presents under it next Christmas. Err, well.. It should be more inline with {{navbox}} --
Brad (
talk)
00:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It looks good, with one issue that I see: I don't have time to look, but I seem to recall there being objections to images in navbox title bars. I honestly can't recall where it was discussed, or if it's policy or a guideline, so don't take this as absolute determination to remove it. It's just a comment relying on my sketchy memory of the issue. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
15:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Good catch, Barek. I fiddled with the image for a bit, but it still looked like crap, so I removed it. :) HausTalk15:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I sense this might be a good time to a ring in again with the suggestion that we have a default "No Image Available" image if the image field is left blank in {{Infobox Ship Begin}}. HausTalk17:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that is exactly how we should use this. Making it default would be a lot easier than manually adding it to all instances where we are lacking an image. -MBK00417:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
FYI: There's a recent discussion started at
Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders which may directly impact the use of this or any other placeholder images in infoboxes. That discussion is actually about images for persons in biography articles, but there may be relevance, we should verify the scope of that discussion. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
17:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, there are good reasons not to delete the image, since it's used on other WP projects. Besides, it's at Commons, anyway. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
21:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Our current No photo available seems to imply that a photo was searched for and one couldn't be found; therefore it might discourage someone from searching for one. I really think the mystery ship above would be a more productive and appealing to use in articles without photos and as a default infobox photo. --
Brad (
talk)
23:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
For me this all started with the topic posted
here which then moved on to
here. Keeping that in mind I've been trying to work on various list names when the opportunity arises. As I mentioned in the naming convention thread, the format of the list name is the least of the problems I see with ship lists. When I proposed
List of United States Army ships, I had actually confused the naming convention once again which is why I returned to post about the name change. Part of this is my fault because I assumed that everyone had followed the conversation on the naming conventions page. --
Brad (
talk)
21:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess for me it comes down to the application of common sense. A overly strict reading of
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) would have us call any of these lists as "List of ships of the Foowegian Navy", but even higher up the page is says to treat with "common sense and the occasional exception". To me "List of Foowegian Navy ships" make more sense and is more natural than "List of ships of the Foowegian Navy". To look at a specific example:
List of United States Navy ships has been at that name—moved, incidentally, from
List of ships of the United States Navy—since December 2005 with no discussion since that time (that I could find) objecting to it; an implicit consensus, if you will.
FWIW, I'm all in favor of categories being "Ships of Foobia" or "Ships of the Foowegian Navy" rather than "Fowegian ships" or "Foowegian Navy ships". —
Bellhalla (
talk)
21:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with List of United States Army ships being more sensible than what I actually named the article and I'm not advocating the renaming of all the A-Z lists either. I would rather have seen more comments about this issue the first time it was brought up and I believe the issue should be solved once and for all. After seeing the naming convention applied to articles, I'd agree that its not the best thing to do. --
Brad (
talk)
00:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Template {{
cite DANFS}} is now available for use in ship articles that need to cite information from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS). It primarily serves as a way to standardize references to DANFS in articles. Parameters in this template are similar to other
citation templates. This template, however, does not replace the need for the template {{
DANFS}} when
public domain text is incorporated into an article. ({{DANFS}} provides the necessary public domain attribution.)
There's also a short form available for use with a Notes-and-Reference style of documentation. (
USS Huron (ID-1408) article uses the template in this manner.) All comments and suggestions welcome. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
19:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Image placement with long infoboxes
According to
WP:MOS#Images we're supposed to avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other. Some editors, by extension, include infoboxes in the image category, which can make for some boring blocks of text if ship has a complicated history, and a complicated infobox to accompany. I was trying to come up with a solution to have right-aligned images in text that is (or probably will be) next to an infobox. So I came up with the idea (hare-brained, perhaps?) of making the whole article a "table" with the infobox in its own column and the rest of the article—text and images—in a left column. I've mocked up a sample of what this could look like at
User:Bellhalla/USS Siboney (table style); you can compare to the original at
USS Siboney (ID-2999).
Some pros and cons:
Pros
allows right aligned images next to infoboxes
relatively simple to implement (only 5 lines of formatting code)
html notes, <!-- -->, can be placed to explain the different layout
Cons
space under the infobox unusable
infobox templates are not in the place expected by experienced editors
more complicated than usual formatting may discourage contributions from newer editors
I know this isn't an everyday situation, and I'm not trying to propose this as a universal, one-size-fits-all solution, but wanted to get feedback on the possibility of using this under the right circumstances. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
11:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
My primary objection is already listed in the con side above ... the unused space under the infobox makes the article look sloppy, resembles a formatting error ... it also makes the article longer to scroll down. On a side note (but this one is easily fixable), the background color used in the table is pure white, while the natural background color in an article is some off-white shade - so it stands out on better monitors that are able to differentiate the tones of those sections. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
16:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Strictly on article appearance alone, the table idea is not good though it isn't quite as bad as that French ship footer discussed above. If some editors are intent on claiming the infobox is an image then your table solution may convince them otherwise. --
Brad (
talk)
21:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
That's quite a coincidence. Just today someone moved the little badge that displays on the left hand side of
HMS Tabard (P342) (and similar submarines) into the infobox, claiming that it might unduly squash the text and that since there was a place for a badge in the table, it would be better suited there. I disagree that it's an aesthetic improvement (it is very small) and my smaller than average monitor doesn't pinch the text in anyway. The field in the infobox has always seemed to me to be better for a textual description of the badge, eg. at
HMS Arrow (H42), to go with the textual descriptions of everything else. The appearance of a badge halfway down it was rather odd in my eyes. I also felt that it added a little to a the body of short article and decreased an already comparatively large infobox (one of Belhalla's opening points). I wouldn't do it with a bigger image, or an image thumb, but in this case I find the little badge displaying there makes for quite a visually pleasing start to the article. I wonder if I could get any opinions on this though?
Benea (
talk)
21:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I recently tripped over an article with a badge on the left and thought to myself "My, that looks snazzy." On the other hand, as people get more familiar with {{Infobox Ship Begin}}, it seems manifest destiny that the thought of moving badges into the infobox is going to occur to them.
WRT the table issue, you could possibly tweak the table (or, alternatively a div scheme) to minimize the amount of blank space under the infobox. However, people use a wide variety of browsers, a wide variety of skins, a wide variety of fonts, and a wide variety of font sizes. My experience is that when you try to outsmart your layout language, you're headed for tears. Cheers. HausTalk21:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
All other things aside, it's very poor form to use a table element for this purpose. Tables are for tabulated information rather than page structure, so if this is something that we might want to pursue further, it should be accomplished using div tags.
Martocticvs (
talk)
17:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Ships by navy category rename proposal
Twenty-five navy ship categories have been proposed for renaming as follows:
It's still about the (object) (location) naming convention. While the category renames above will now follow the convention, the same convention for lists of ships makes the article title awkward. List of United States Navy ships means (location) (object) and not (object) (location). Since the convention when applied to lists becomes awkward this is where we have the controversy. --
Brad (
talk)
23:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Where I'm going with all this conversation is to change the naming convention for lists @
WP:NC-SHIP and I appreciate your staying with my questioning :) When I have some spare minutes I shall post there. --
Brad (
talk)
06:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Using feminine pronouns when referring to ships
The issue of using feminine pronouns when referring to ships, is being discussed at Titanic. Is there a manual of style guideline discussing this at WP? Thanks! --
Kevin Murray (
talk)
04:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
As the guideline at
WP:MILMOS#Pronouns is specifically for military ships, I suggest that we add a mention at
WP:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines that mentions that in order to maintain guideline consistency for all ships, this project adopts the pronoun usage identified at WP:MILMOS#Pronouns for all ship articles. This would help provide a more direct guideline to reference for ships such as the Titanic, or even modern cruise ships. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
19:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The
ship article is in pretty bad shape, but gets about
50,000 hits a month. I'm wondering if we could brainstorm a little and come to some consensus on what the structure of the article should be.
Right now, the whole article is about 20,000 characters. About 6,500 of that is in 2 lists. About 10,000 characters is on propulsion, which seems kind of lopsided to me. The current structure is:
1 Nomenclature
2 Measuring ships
3 Propulsion
3.1 Pre-mechanisation
3.2 Reciprocating steam engines
3.3 Steam turbines
3.3.1 LNG carriers
3.3.2 Nuclear-powered steam turbines
3.4 Reciprocating diesel engines
3.5 Gas turbines
4 Group terminology
5 Some types of ships and boats
6 Some historical types of ships and boats
7 See also
8 External links
The French wikipedia has a
FA-quality article Bateau. There's a little twist in that French language doesn't distinguish as clearly between a boat and a ship as English does. Anyway, the article is about 80,000 characters and their structure is, more or less:
* 1 Terminology
* 2 History
o 2.1 Prehistory and Antiquity
o 2.2 Through the Renaissance
o 2.3 Specialization and modernization
o 2.4 Today
* 3 Architecture
o 3.1 The hull
o 3.2 Propulsion systems
o 3.3 Steering systems
o 3.4 Holds, compartments, and the superstructure
o 3.5 Equipment
* 4 Functioning
o 4.1 Hydrostatics
o 4.2 Hydrodynamics
o 4.3 Structure
* 5 Life of a ship
o 5.1 Design
o 5.2 Construction
o 5.3 Repair and conversion
o 5.4 Scrapping
* 6 Uses and classiication
o 6.1 Merchant ships
o 6.2 Military vessels
o 6.3 Fishing vessles
o 6.4 Pleasure boats
o 6.5 Sporting boats
o 6.6 River boats
o 6.7 Other
* 7 Some notable boats
o 7.1 Wrecks and rescues
o 7.2 Technical characteristics
o 7.3 Human exploits and exploration
o 7.4 Imaginary or historical boats
* 8 Around boats
o 8.1 Life at sea
o 8.2 Symbolism
o 8.3 Marine archaeology
o 8.4 Arts & culture
o 8.5 Poetry of boats
* 9 Sources
o 9.1 Références
o 9.2 Notes
* 10 See also
So, (a) is anybody else particularly interested in this article, and (b) any thoughts on what the structure should be before we dust off the wreckin' ball? Cheers. HausTalk20:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
To perhaps help move things forward, there's a cybertranslation of the whole article at
User:Haus/5.
After the issues we had over the naming of the article in the first place, it has been again moved, this time to
Battle between HMAS Sydney and Kormoran. At first with no explanation, and after I reverted it, with the excuse that it was a shorter title. There are a number of reasons why I don't think this is an improvement, but I'd like to know if I'm interpreting guidelines, etc. correctly. Any thoughts welcome at the
talkpage.
Benea (
talk)
21:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
And now I've cocked it up completely. Sigh, can an admin sort the title out asap? And maybe I'll go to bed before I can do anymore damage.
Benea (
talk)
21:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, indeed I did mention the title there, as an example of a long title that is justifiably long. The current title is the consensus-agreed-upon title, so that consensus should have been overturned before any move were to be made.
Parsecboy (
talk)
23:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
F/V prefixes redux
Well,
Xterra1 (
talk·contribs) just moved
FV Northwestern back to F/V Northwestern. I thought we had decided to move all these pages for technical reasons and eliminate the /? Could someone explain this to the editor and take care of this move. -MBK00418:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I've left a note, but anyone else that can add things is welcome. Now I've got to revert the move. -MBK00418:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Notability concerns with fishing vessels
I just noticed that someone has tagged
FV Northwestern for possibly not meeting the notability requirements. I think we need to come up with something to establish the notability of such vessels. I say this because not all of the vessels that are featured in
Deadliest Catch have articles. -MBK00422:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not aware of one, and think it may be best to develop a guideline for articles on future ships. Also, have you tried to talk to the user in question? -MBK00401:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
No, I haven't, and I'm not planning on it. I looked at his talk page, and someone else has tried to discuss the issue, but doesn't appear to be making any headway. For personal reasons, I'm cutting back on involving myself with single-user crusades like this, hence my posting here. -
BillCJ (
talk)
02:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
That is a great idea! I had a look at that talk page as well, and I'm guessing that even consensus here may not be enough. -MBK00402:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Done Unfortunately, I screwed up on the Sierra 's ship ID when I uploaded the image, so I will have to get that moved, but I can't be bothered right now.
Gatoclass (
talk)
11:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I've seen this term on enough articles that I was thinking about writing an article on it. A
quick google search makes me think "Brutto" is just Swedish/Danish for "Gross", much as "Netto" seems to mean "Net." I can't quite read the
sv:Bruttotonnage but that certainly seems to be the GT formula on that page. Does anybody know for sure? Cheers. HausTalk19:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Brutto Register Tonnage is the term used for Gross Register Tonnage in the Scandinavian languages and Finnish (also German?). Gross Tonnage in turn in simply Brutto Tonnage, but it uses the same abbreviation as English (GT), whereas Brutto Register Tonnage is abbreviated BRT. In some recent documentations I've also seen BRT used as an equilent (sp?) for Gross Tonnage (possibly due to no "native" abbreviation existing for GT), but this in incorrect. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
10:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Ships by cruise line
Is this change only being considered for the Military related vessels, or should it also be carried into renaming categories for cruise lines, such as renaming:
To be honest, there's a lot of inconsistency just within the naming of the commercial cruise line categories - so I was wondering if this renaming should be used to help bring those within a larger ship categorization standard - or if re-organizing the cruise ship categories should be a later project of its own. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
15:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That seems a good solution. Helps standardize the naming to be consistant with the proposed military category changes, and improves the organization of the related cruise line categories at the same time.
Note: I've also modified the proposed category changes above to match how each cruise line names itself (originally, I had proposed they all end in "Cruise Line" ... but some have official names that end in "Cruises" while others use "Cruise Lines" ... so probably best to stick with their corporate name. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
23:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent)I've completed the changes discussed above for all the cruise line categories that contained ships. All are of the format of "Ships of Cruise Line" form except for
Category:Ships of the Holland America Line (use of "the" in referring to the line seems to be most common). —
Bellhalla (
talk)
15:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the "Ships of…" categories being only in
Category:Ships by cruise line. I pondered that while I was working on these, but didn't want the task to snowball into adding this, that, and the other thing. I do, however, think that each individual ship should remain in
Category:Cruise ships regardless of whether it's in a "Ships of XYZ Cruise Line" category. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
20:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and made the change. It seemed a cleaner structure to me to only have the parent cat in the "Cruise ships" category, not all the subcats.
I agree that the individual cruise ship articles should remain in the "Cruise ships" category - unless a more formal category hierarchy structure is agreed upon at some point later. ---
Barek (
talk •
contribs) -
20:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I somehow managed to miss this conversation until yesterday (when I had no no time to reply) so sorry for coming in late—especially because I'm going to get slightly difficult on you. ^_~ While
Category:Ships by cruise line looks good on paper, the format is going to cause problems when extrapolated into other types.
Category:Ships by ferry line sounds ok (though I don't think I've ever seen the term "ferry line" used anywhere), but
Category:Ships by ocean liner line certainly doesn't, nor does ships
Category:Ships by container ship line, etc. etc. Additionally "line" is a somewhat ambiguous term—it can also mean "route", which might result in confusion (as an example, I've removed a few ports from
Category:Cruise lines in the past—the original author having thought they are a part of a ship's line). So, I would propose changing the format to "Ship type by operator", giving us the more sensible-sounding
Category:Cruise ships by operator,
Category:Ferries by operator,
Category:Ocean liners by operator, etc (of course presuming this would be in keeping with the MOS).
Apart from that, I think creating separate categories for "company" and "ships by company" is somewhat superfluous—as noted by
Bellhalla above, this will leave us with a lot of cats that include only one article and the subcat. And there will be many more cases like that if we start using the same formatting for ferries and other commercial ships types outside the cruise business. But I did manage to miss the beginning of this thing and it does put us better in keeping with the cat naming convention, so... --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
15:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I have no objection to changing the category to "Cruise ships by operator" - I was just thinking such categories would be more in-line with the structure of the military ship groupings, but I have no strong attachment to any particular naming.
I'm not terribly keen on spreading articles related to one company to several unrelated categories, it's simply more practical to have all of them—be they templates, ship articles or company articles—in the same cat or it's subcats. So I'd definately prefer the current system, even with a lot of small cats, over spreading the articles to the ships by operator cats, crusie lines cat and templates cat. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
18:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the latter had been a duplicate article with a history behind it before it got turned into a redirect. Both merged now under the former. --
Rlandmann (
talk)
19:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
We presently have
Current United States Navy ships and
List of United States Navy ships in commission. Both lists are suffering a bit from needing updating and while I can see the difference of a commissioned ship versus one that is in service, I think it would be a better idea to merge the lists. It would also be a good opportunity to figure out a proper name for the list.
List of current ships of the United States Navy seems like it would be more inline with naming convention. I marked these for merger over a month ago and there have been no comments so far thus bringing it for conversation here. --
Brad (
talk)
04:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Brad's title is more in line with
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics), which specifies titling articles (object) of (country). Though this is a navy rather than a country it seems to me that the same logic applies. When other, similar articles are created, all "List of current ships of (navy)" articles will be next to each other alphabetically, which I think is the most useful sort order. I do prefer "vessels", though, since many commissioned vessels are more accurately referred to as "boats" or "craft".
TomTheHand (
talk)
15:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Another issue I found was that
List of United States Navy ships in commission is alphabetical and
Current United States Navy ships is listed by ship type with ship classes as subheadings. Both are good ways to cross-reference for those who might be looking for a ship but only have one piece of the information at hand. Having two lists is a bulky way to go as you have two lists that need updating and watching etc. I thought a table solution would be in order that allows us to cross-reference in 4 ways on one page. I made an experimental table at
Current United States Navy ships#Table where you can see how this would work. The table headings template is at {{United States Navy ship table headings}} where we can edit the columns. Currently there is an issue with table headings on the far right. I wasn't sure exactly how to turn it off so some help would be appreciated. Obviously we can add more columns if needed but right now there are 4 different ways to cross-reference. --
Brad (
talk)
04:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the table, I'm not so sure the link to the ship in the second column is necessary. I like the hull number in a separate column, but some readers might expect its link to go to an explanation or something else. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
05:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I would agree as well. The hull number will always follow the ship name so there isn't much reason to have dual links. The other question is how this table might look and function after there are 250+ ships entered. The idea is to replace the entire page with the table by migrating the ships listed above it into the table. Having 250+ ships in one table would be difficult to edit. We could have several tables with 50 ships each or another combination like that. --
Brad (
talk)
00:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
In general, one list is strongly preferable to multiple shorter lists, if u actually want to look up anything other than on the first column. There are 500 or more ships listed in
List of Liberty ships: A-F. Not sure of my estimate, it is not a numbered list. It has 7 sortable columns though. Liberty ships were simply too numerous to fit in one sortable list, so there are four of them now (fewer than there were before an AfD about them).
doncram (
talk)
02:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The inspiration in this case actually came from the Liberty ship lists but it's likely that the Liberty ship lists will rarely need ships added or removed. The list of current ships will need regular editing as ships are activated and deactivated. My thoughts were with the novice editor trying to negotiate a large table. --
Brad (
talk)
04:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you may be trying to be considerate, but I can't see anything difficult for a novice or anyone else to add a new ship into the right position in an alphabetical list, even one where the alphabetical order is upon first "significant" word. See the numerous state-specific lists of National Historic Landmarks, e.g.
List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina, organized by first significant word with a leading number column. The information in the two lists
List of United States Navy ships in commission and
Current United States Navy ships could easily fit in one sortable list. The navigation tools to jump to ships starting with A, ships starting with B etc. are superfluous, and are just clutter in my view. I helped out in simplifying/combining the Liberty ship lists. This list of current ships seems easy to just put in one, and that's the obvious solution, in my view. Just do it! :)
doncram (
talk)
05:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know (and, frankly, haven't taken the time to find out) how many ships are being discussed for this table, but I hope for ease-of-use that it is significantly fewer than the number than the Liberty ship articles. I feel that I have about an average speed, memory, etc., computer, and the sortable lists on the LS pages take a long time to sort.
By the way, I would hardly call alphabetic nav aids clutter, but I guess it depends on the size of the list you're talking about. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
11:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting how you mention the length of time it takes to sort the Liberty ship tables and it was the reason I was wondering if multiple smaller tables would solve that problem. There are about 275 current ships so I was thinking 100 + or - a few per table. We'll see how things go once I start. --
Brad (
talk)
06:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I was concerned about the Liberty ship tables again after the above comments. After revisiting them and trying a change or two, I think that the problem with their slow loading is their repeated use of the "dts2" template. The dts2 template is a 30-or-so line template that takes a while to operate and inserts a hidden field of a certain size, as one approach to permit date sorting. I created
List of Liberty ships: A-F/Temp which does not call the dts2 template, but rather uses another date format that is directly sortable. I think loads a lot faster than
List of Liberty ships: A-F. The table includes 722 ships, and is sortable (in either version) by two date columns. The version using dts2 has 1,440 calls to that template. If this is okay, I'll switch the new version out to replace the old, and I could do the same for the other 3 liberty ship tables.
doncram (
talk)
16:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate the proposed solution, but the date sorting in
List of Liberty ships: A-F/Temp doesn't work for my date preference style of "Day Month Year". The reason {{dts2}} was created (and the reason it was used in this instance) is because date preferences really screw up date sorting in tables. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
20:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
AAAaaaarggh. My date preference was set at "16:12, 15 January 2001" which works for sorting the Temp version. But I see that date preference "16:12, January 15, 2001" does not. Aargh.
doncram (
talk)
22:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
hmm.....my book on aircraft carriers says it is due this month...it was probaly pushed back ..how odd almost a year behind schedule tsk..tsk..tsk...well thats the us navy for ya.
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
18:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The
Shitty Kitty will be decommissioned this year with the GHWB taking its place after 47 years of service. The Kitty is older than I am believe it or not. --
Brad (
talk)
00:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Is there any interest in keeping a running list somewhere in the project space of WP:SHIPS DYK articles? It seems like it might be a nice brag-piece for the project, much as the FA list. There's a list of the 237 that I could find for the time being at
User:Haus/sand. Cheers. HausTalk22:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I popped a section on
WP:SHIPS as one possible layout. If anybody has a better design idea, please feel free to change as you see fit. HausTalk23:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
One nitpick, all names of the ships need to be italicized. I'm quite busy at the moment and not able to do it, I normally would, use the shortcut templates to expedite. -MBK00423:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I think I set a record for consecutive typos, but I managed to italicize my way through the list. It wasn't clear whether disambiguation stuff should stay or go, so I left it in since it's easier to remove than put back in. Cheers. HausTalk01:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
But it has been deleted as unreferenced. The incident must have made the local papers at the time, is there anyone who can provide a reference for this? If enough info can be found, maybe even an article can be written about the ship. Does anyone know the IMO Number of the ship? (disussion copied at Devon Wikiproject)
Mjroots (
talk)
09:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
You are correct - there was such a shipwreck. there is a mention at the end of this newspaper article
[4] and bits of it can be seen in this tourist video
[5]. Good Luck
ClemMcGann (
talk)
11:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that's a start as it confirms the year and location. I'll wait for a response from the editor who deleted it before re-adding it to the list.
Mjroots (
talk)
13:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The entry is back (in part) in the article, please see the talk page for discussion about references for removed info.
Mjroots (
talk)
09:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
delete if you wish but i might rinstate it when im done editing it in my sandboxc to make it more lengththy and to where it dosn't become a candite for deletion agian...i shall be posting a link to the box shortly or you can look on my page but i have to make the link there first too..
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
D/S Ships
I tripped over a few of these this morning and am getting around to fixing them. Here's a widget I put together to look for names with F/V, M/V, and D/S. Cheeers. HausTalk15:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Possible slashed vessel names
Pages with the prefix 'C' in the 'Wikipedia' and 'Wikipedia talk' namespaces:
Are you sure? It appears that their use has been agreed as controversial (note that the discussion centred on the placeholder versions used in biographical articles) but I haven't seen an injunction either forbidding their use, either by disallowing their addition to articles or by encouraging their removal from existing ones. It appears that work is now underway to see if a better alternative can be developed. But perhaps we should hang fire before declaring them forbidden?
Benea (
talk)
14:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I was about to say the same thing; it doesn't appear that a consensus has been formed to remove place holders. We should probably just sit tight until something firmer emerges.
Parsecboy (
talk)
14:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That specific resolution appears to have been numerically passed, but the decision seems to not be endorsed by consensus as expressed in the main discussion. The decision will either be endorsed there as being a policy, or a guideline, or it will be rejected, or else close as no consensus. That stage does not seem to have been reached, anyone removing placeholders and quoting the discussion is jumping the gun.
Benea (
talk)
15:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
USS Murphy
I'm watching "Sunken Warships" on the History Channel at the moment. Subject of the programme is
USS Murphy, sunk in 1943 by a German U-boat. The info in the article on USS Murphy is completely at odds with the programme. Were there two USS Murphys, or is most of the history in the article incorrect?
Mjroots (
talk)
07:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I've cleared the only article linking to: {{Links to Current US Navy Ships}} and believe this template could be deleted under the housekeeping rule though I'm willing to nominate and do the process as well. --
Brad (
talk)
01:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I ran across this article, and if makes me suggest tht Lighthouse Tenders, and perhaps the Fir, would be the subject of a good article. It's way off the beaten path for me, and I certainly have no expertise. So I'm passing on this link.
http://www.nps.gov/history/maritime/nhl/fir.htm Maybe someone will pick it up and carry the ball.
7&6=thirteen (
talk)
02:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC) Stan
Both of the references mentioned were already included in
USCGC Fir (WLM-212), an article which could be further developed though. Also an expanded article about the lighthouse tenders as a group could be helpful.
doncram (
talk)
03:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Lists of shipwrecks etc.
An IP editor persists in adding unreferenced entries to various disaster lists, including the shipwreck and maritime incidents lists. I know that a bit of searching would probably produce references, but I've got better things to do than clean up after IP's who can't be bothered to provide the references in the first place.
I cannot reconcile this info with that on an external website. I have raised it on the talk page. Is there an expert on ships of 1740-1745 who can help please?
Kittybrewster ☎15:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I've responded (though by no means an expert). It seems to be a rather glaring error in the external website you quote.
Benea (
talk)
15:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
i'll help with what i can and i have lots of books but wwll is more of my area but even with wwll ships im still not very good but still i will do what i can
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Infobox Ship Class - Infobox Class - Infobox Ship Class/doc
{{Infobox Ship Class}} has been cleared of articles using such; and {{Infobox Class}} is a redirect now no longer needed. I also found {{Infobox Ship Class/doc}} which seems no longer needed as well. Can someone look these over before I nominate for deletion in case I missed something? Once again
Haus (
talk·contribs) was the main force behind converting the boxes. I just did some sweeping up. --
Brad (
talk)
16:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
We might want to leave a note on some of the talkpages of the users who have sandboxes still using the old infobox. Other than that, good to go.
Woody (
talk)
19:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I have done so and also removed another new use of the template. I think Infobox Class has to go to redirects for deletion? If you're more familiar with the process would you be so kind as to nominate? --
Brad (
talk)
07:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I started to wonder what the project page would look like in a box layout and put a rough sketch up at
User:Haus/4. Any feelings on whether a redesign like this is worth pursuing and polishing? HausTalk14:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it looks good, but perhaps some rearrangement of the sections. I might bump the admins list to the bottom of its stack, for example. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
16:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
the location of the scrollbars make it hard to scroll down the page itself you might want to rearandge those boxes.
ANOMALY-117 (
talk)
17:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My only gripe is that it's wider than my monitor (my laptop has a 14" screen), so I have to scroll over to see all of it. Can you make it a bit narrower? I would agree with Bellhalla re: the admin list position; I'd prefer to flip it with the tasks box. Anyways, that's my 2¢.
Parsecboy (
talk)
19:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
On a 17" monitor @ 1024 x 768 there are several boxes that are giving the <--> scroll bar which at this resolution makes them just large enough to require the scroll. It's somewhat annoying but I can see there isn't much room to expand without making the other boxes do the same. --
Brad (
talk)
03:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I plan to list
bulk carrier for A-class review here at
WP:SHIPS within a couple of days, and would really appreciate feedback prior to doing so. The article was
listed as a GA a year ago and later
failed at FAC. Since then, I've whittled down on the FAC feedback to a
handful of remaining issues which I expect to resolve in the next couple of days. Also,
Maralia has been kind enough to work her magic on the article, which has been a pleasure to watch. Cheers. HausTalk02:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
This cropped up as a part of an ongoing conversation between myself,
Tenmei and
GraemeLeggett, and I feel this should be brought to the attention to a larger group of people, so...
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)#Disambiguating ships with the same name states that ships without pennant numbers should be primarily dabbed by their launch year. However, a large number of articles (possibly even a majority, I haven't actually checked) on commercial ships use the service entry date instead—this is such a wide-spread practice that I actually thought it was the convention until today. This being the case I thought the matter should be brought up for discussion—while I'm not for upsetting the convention, I do feel that dabbing by service entry date is more intuitive and practical (plus it would be in keeping with system used in widely used sources such as William H. Miller's The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Ocean Liners and the
Fakta om Fartyg website).
The convention we've been following on the naval ships where this situation has cropped up is to add the year at which the ship entered service with that particular navy. For example
HMS Berwick (1775) and
French ship Berwick (1795) are the same ship. She was launched for Royal Navy service in 1775, but then you have the problem that if you were going to write an article on her French career, she wasn't French ship Berwick in 1775, so the sensible thing is to do that by year of entry into French service. To apply this to civilian ships,
RMS Empress of Australia (1919) is something I have a problem with. She was not RMS Empress of Australia until 1922. She was launched in 1913, named SS Tirpitz in 1919 and RMS Empress of China in 1921. I would suggest the practice should be:
Title by most well known/notable name and prefix - so 'RMS Empress of Australia'
If this was the name she was launched under, dab by that - so if she had been launched in 1919 as RMS Empress of Australia, title as 'RMS Empress of Australia (1919)'
If not, title by the name she enters service under this name - so 'RMS Empress of Australia (1922)' with redirects from 'SS Tirpitz (1919)' and 'RMS Empress of China (1921)'
Benea (
talk)
09:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
So, am I understanding correctly that the convention that has been followed on naval ships has in fact also been following the entry into service date? If that is the case, an update to
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) would definately be in order.
Dabbing subsequent incarnations of the same ships by entry into service under that name could be good, but it could also potentially be extremely confusing. Using my favourite example, by this practice the different names of
MS Wasa Queen would become MS Bore Star (1975), MS Silja Star (1980), MS Orient Express (1986), MS Club Sea (1986), MS Eurosun (1987), MS Orient Sun (1991) and MS Wasa Queen (1992)—personally I would find it clearer and more practical using the original year of construction in all cases, which would make it clear the ship in question in all cases is the same ship. I admit this could be potentially misleading though... but I do think that is a problem in the other proposal as well. And, again, dabbing all incarnations by the year the ship was originally completed would again follow the system used by Miller and the FoF site. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
11:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
So now I'm confused... I thought it was always the entry of service and/or launch date for the ship. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
12:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
But they are completely different dates. And the naming convention page states the launch date, if known, takes precedence (sp?) over entry in service date—which seems to be the opposite of what people have been using. Unless I misunderstood something (which is highly likely, I'm trying to do far too many thing at the same time right now). --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
12:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, the launch date takes precedence. So HMS Berwick is at 1775, the year of her launch, rather than at her year of commissioning. But when the article is titled French ship Berwick, I think it would be misleading to dab it by 1775, as it would imply she had been a French ship since 1775, rather than 1795 as is the case. There is confusion in this system I admit, in that it forces people to choose a year of entry rather than using a launch date in every case. Another con is that you imply the ship is not as old as it actually is. Perhaps with a change between navies where two articles can be the norm, it is appropriate to distinguish this major shift in career by titling by entry into service, but when a commercial ship changes its name, its usually just because a different company has bought it, or a name goes out of fashion and a new one is chosen for some reason, ie no major career change. In this case launch year may be best, I don't really mind.
Benea (
talk)
12:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, ships should be under the name they are best known under. Typically this will either be their name on launch or current/most recent name. There will be exception where a ship was launched under one name, had an accident under another name and the carried further names. A possible solution to disabiguate between ships in the event of a name clash would be "SS Smiff (1899)" for the vessel launched in that year, and "SS Smiff (renamed 1920)" for the vessel renamed in honour of the first SS Smiff. Another way to disambiguate is the careful use of MV and MS -
MS Celtic Star and
MV Celtic Star for example.
Mjroots (
talk)
15:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
An article on a ship should certainly be named after the most notable name of the ship—but you usually also have redirect from the possible other names, so in almost every article there is the need for at least one dab with some name. I'm not too keen on usage of MS and MV to disambiguate between two otherwise identically named ships. The usage of those differs between countries and languages, and depending on practices the same ship can be referred to by either title depending on the source (case point: DFDS have at least in the past referred to their ships with an MV prefix in English-language material and MS prefix in the Scandinavian languages). As a result confusion resulting from this practice can be too large compared to the benifit. --
Kjet (
talk ·contribs)
21:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the first entry-- for merchant ships disambiguating by service entry date is not only more intuitive, it is easier.
. . . use the ship's year of launching if known — like human birthdays, every ship has one — . . .
This is wrong. Many merchant ships are not launched at all; they are built in graving docks and
floated out. (Also see
comments of marine architect
Jmvolc re old commercial ship template.) We will not have launch dates for ships that are not in fact launched, and float-out dates are not generally available. All we will have is service entry dates. Whereas navy ships typically are named at launch, cruise ships have naming ceremonies on delivery or acceptance.
It seems to me that any method of putting a ship in the water counts as 'launching', whether the ship slides down into the water or the water wells up under the ship. And the shipyards must keep track, although their records may not be available.
We should not call for "launch" dates for ships which are not launched (according to at least one marine architect-Wikipedian), nor apply our interpretations of the term. Nor should we allow familiarity with naval customs to carry over to merchant ships. The purpose of the old commercial vessel template was to eliminate that bias in the old naval-oriented ship template which was incorrectly used for merchant ships-- calling for displacement, launch date, etc. That is why that old commercial vessel template called for service entry date, because that is known. (And to confuse the issue further-- dozens of Wikipedia articles on cruise ships have taken "launch dates" from cruisecritic.com, which incorrectly uses service entry date as the launch date, perhaps under the supposition that is when the service was launched.)
To the narrower issue of disambiguation: To continue to use launch dates for older vessels where that date is known, and service entry dates where launch dates are unknown, is inconsistent. As we will always know service entry dates (or something close, like acceptance or maiden voyage), and will rarely know launch dates (and I'ved tried to search for them), let's use the consistent measurement. This does not affect naval ships, but merchant ships only.
Kablammo (
talk)
20:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Well it does affect naval ships in some cases, as there are occasions where no launch date for a ship is known, only a date of acquisition, or a period of time in which she was in service. Or when a naval ship was acquired after a period of civilian service, or changed between navies. This is Wikiproject Ships after all and we should try to strive for consistency across all ship articles so far as possible. Therefore I would be opposed to applying one standard for commercial vessels and one for naval vessels. We have so far disambiguated by launch dates where known and entry of service dates if this is unknown. It would be consistent to keep to this on which ever ship we are dealing with.
Benea (
talk)
21:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to beat this to death, but an appeal to exceptions should not justify an ill-fitting rule which will lead to problems, for the reasons mentioned above. We do not demand, for the sake of consistency with naval ships, a displacement measure for merchant ships (which perhaps is as hard to find as float-out dates). As Kjet mentioned above, the standard in real life for merchant ships appears to be date of entry into service. The fact that a handful of merchant ships may later be taken into military service as auxillaries does not alter that fact. Nor would there be any requirement to rummage around for "launch" dates once an RMS or USS is added. If Wikipedia is to reflect real life, we should use the common measures used in real life.
Kablammo (
talk)
21:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Well yes in a way I agree. But the problems that seem to be being raised are that:
The launch date for merchant ships is often unknown - the launch date for military ships are sometimes unknown, in which case we go by an entry into service date.
The entry of service date often changes because of service with different companies - the same happens with military ships, where the same ship can be captured and renamed, then recaptured and renamed.
The standard for military ships isn't set either. Launch dates and commission dates are often used interchangeably.
I really wasn't appealing that exceptions prove the rule, but rather that there hasn't been a problem raised so far that is unique to commercial ships. Navy ships can have them too. So I still don't see the need to treat them differently. How is this rule ill-fitting, other than that sources are hard to find? If you can't find a launch date, use an entry into service date. I hope you don't see this as naval vs commercial. I have written dozens of articles on commercial ships as well as navy ones so I really am sympathetic, and I know that they many are in a dismal state. But I don't see this as an excuse for splitting an existing convention.
Benea (
talk)
22:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
And the more I look into it, the more I wonder (and desperately hope) we are arguing at cross purposes. If the article is titled RMS Empress of Australia, then I am in favour of disambiguating it by the year that she entered service as RMS Empress of Australia (1923) NOT the year of launch (1913 - under no name!). I am also in favour of titling a navy ship by these very conventions - so HMS Berwick when she was launched as HMS Berwick, ie 1775, BUT French ship Berwick by the year that she entered service as French ship Berwick, ie 1795. Hence my support for articles titled
HMS Berwick (1775) and
French ship Berwick (1795), and my opposition to articles titled
RMS Empress of Australia (1919) - which I think should be titled as RMS Empress of Australia (1923) - the year that she entered service.
Benea (
talk)
22:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Estonian Navy ships - EML or ENS?
A quick question, hoping that someone might know more about this than me... We currently have a number of Estonian Navy ships, titled at
ENS Admiral Cowan (M313) for example. The Estonian Navy itself (according to their
official website) instead uses the prefix EML. I wonder (and indeed strongly suspect) if the 'ENS' is someone's attempt at a translation of this prefix - i.e. Estonian Navy Ship Foo. This in turn would seem to go against our 'don't use invented prefixes' guideline, which is why we have
ARA Patagonia (B-1) (i.e. 'Armada de la República Argentina') - and not a translation to something like ANS Patagonia (i.e. Argentinian Navy Ship). If this is the case and the 'ENS' is a translation and not the actual prefix used, I think we should use EML Admiral Cowan (M313) instead of ENS Admiral Cowan (M313). So:
Is EML the actual prefix?
If so, should the Estonian ship articles be renamed?
Yes I'd noticed that, which is why this is not quite a clear cut case. It makes me suspicious that the Estonian Navy are, along with helpfully interpreting their site for English readers, have also interpreted their ship prefix. The Estonian Navy is called the 'Merevagi', but in the English version of the website, it is simply 'Estonian Navy'. Similarly it seems they would prefix their ships EML, but when called upon to describe them for English readers they use ENS. My question is whether we use the Estonian prefix or the English translation of it. We have precedents both ways, such as using 'ARA' - 'Armada de la República Argentina' instead of 'ANS' - 'Argentinian Navy Ship'; but also using 'HNoMS' - 'His Norwegian Majesty's Ship' instead of 'KNM' - 'Kongelig Norske Marine'. I'm just wondering which way we should go on this particular example.
Benea (
talk)
20:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
They have a prefix in
their official language site (and an English translation counts as little known) so use that, or take the "Estonian frigate XXXX" route. I favour a move and let the redirect pick up any confusion.
GraemeLeggett (
talk)
21:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
ENS stands for EML which is in
Estonian. ENS means Estonian Navy Ship (Eesti Mereväe Laev in Estonian). As this is an English Wikipedia therefore I created the navy ships pages with the
ENS. EML is propper to use on Estonian Wikipedia.
On the other hand the Estonian wikipedia uses HMS for Illustrious and not an Estonian translation. I don't think we should be creating our own abbreviations.
GraemeLeggett (
talk)
13:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Well both ways ENS or EML is fine with me cos it aint the most important thing-detail about the Estonian Navy ships ;).
Karabinier (
talk)
18:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
That seems settled then. Another example I thought of was ships like
SMS Emden (1906), where SMS stands for the German 'Seiner Majestät Schiff' - which would translate as 'His Majesty's Ship'. But rather than using HMS Emden, we retain the untranslated version of the prefix. I'll move them to "EML Foo" when I've a bit more time, unless anyone else wants to get started before me.
Benea (
talk)
16:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I started to notice that information given in the NVR can often conflict with reports from the media. For example, a newspaper article says USS Shipname was commissioned on this date when in reality the commissioning ceremony was held that day. The NVR relies only on US Navy notification of ship events and doesn't rely on media reports. A good example of this would be the
JFK which had a decommissioning ceremony on March 23rd 2007 but the official US Navy date for decommissioning was actually August 1 2007. And I see variances like this in a whole lot of ship articles. The basic premise is to determine ceremonial over official dates and I think our goal should be to use official dates rather than ceremonial dates. --
Brad (
talk)
03:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Good work, Brad. It's nice to know to look for such a difference. I would think that official dates would be the most appropriate date for infoboxes, but both dates, if known, would be appropriate to include in article text. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
12:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes; in other words we shouldn't be running to update an infobox based on a media report of a ceremony since it won't be the official date of the event. I've also seen the opposite happen as well, where a ship was commissioned and the ceremony was held weeks later. --
Brad (
talk)
03:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Apparently the whole Pathfinder class was in this condition. No hurry on this. Always amazing what you find while working on other things. Sometimes I think the whole of WP has been assembled with a manure flinger. --
Brad (
talk)
05:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Should be all taken care of. You just wanted the dash added in the disambiguator, right? I think you could actually move them yourself, it didn't prompt me to delete the redirect first. No worries though.
Parsecboy (
talk)
05:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok thanks. I hadn't tried to move them as I thought there was some admin only thing regarding edit histories. Will know next time. --
Brad (
talk)
06:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
If the only history is the creation of the redirect then the software will allow you to move over the redirect. If there is more than one edit, then you need an admin to delete it.
Woody (
talk)
11:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Three new articles were created:
CSS Silliman,
CSS Gedney, and
CSS Bache. Seeing as CSS has been used for Confederate States Ship and not Coast Survey Ship, I redirected all three articles to the prefix USC&GS as was already done for the ships listed in
U.S. National Geodetic Survey. Then I submitted all three redirects for speedy deletion as keeping the redirects with CSS may lead others to list them as or understand them to mean Confederate States Ship. The speedy deletion has been contested on all three and the question posed is if U.S. National Geodetic Survey ships have ever been referred to with the prefix CSS? --
Brad (
talk)
13:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I've admittedly not done a lot of looking, but I've always seen older ships with the "USC&GS" prefix. (Newer ones use "NOAAS"). I've never seen "CSS" used except for Confederate ships. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
Me neither, CSS is listed in McKenna's 'Dictionary of Nautical Literacy' as a prefix for just Confederate ships.
CSS in the acronyms section of thefreedictionary.com produces a lot of results, one of which is Confederate States Ship, but Coast Survey Ship is not listed.
This huge list of prefixes used by 'U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Ship and Aircraft' has no reference to CSS as being 'Coast Survey Ship'.
DANFS similarly just uses it for Confederate States Ship. It's another invented prefix in other words (and shouldn't it be Coastal Survey Ship if it was going to be anything?). I can see the rationale for keeping the redirect, but in this case the fact that these ships were never termed as CSS, and the fact that CSS was used, and continues to be used in scholarly literature to refer to a very different type of craft in a different period of history, means that the risk of confusion outweighs the slight benefits of retaining the use of the prefix in a redirect. The first time I saw them I thought 'CSS, these are articles on Confederate States Ships'. Only when I looked more closely did I see they were something completely different.
Benea (
talk)
13:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for moving these articles, but I hope that you can provide an explanation of what I'm missing. The sources that I have for officers commanding the several ships that I created articles for all give the prefix as "CSS". I included a link to the Google Books pages from a book published in 1898 which included the CSS prefix. Is it that the CSS prefix was unofficial? Was it only used for a short period of time? (Such as at the time the book was published, prior to name standardization?) Or is there something else going on that I don't see? Thanks for your help. I want to make sure I name these articles correctly in the future.
JRP (
talk)
02:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Note: This was left on my talk page. I'm pasting it here and will direct the author to this topic. --
Brad (
talk)
02:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm basing this on a few sources, all from the 1890s. I don't find a huge number of references to CSS ships that aren't confederate, either. These came up while I was researching
Uriel Sebree. Not knowing enough to question the CSS designation, I copied the names from the source materials and then created stubs with what limited information I had. (Which I was still gathering and hadn't quite finished yet.)
My gut says that CSS was either an unofficial but well-known designation or an official but briefly used designation. In either case, if your names are more correct, we should keep the articles there (since you know much more about this topic than I), but the redirects should stay... It could also be that these are "nick-names" for the ships in some way, perhaps "CSS" is a descriptive rather than literal designation... That just seems bizarre given the context of the first source. I hope a historian of the Coast Survey of this period may have the correct answer.
JRP (
talk)
02:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
This can be a complicated explanation but let's try this:
Prior to 1918-1920 there were no "official" United States Navy ship prefixes in use. Essentially anyone used whatever abbreviation they felt like using until the Secretary of the Navy passed rules on such prefixes and they were to apply retroactively. (I don't have the reference handy)
All of your Google book references are prior to 1920 and at least one is from an obituary in a medical journal.
For purposes of Wikipedia we try and adhere to "official" prefixes whenever possible but sometimes we have to improvise. USC&GS has been used in several ship articles from the
DANFS which is an official USN publication. CSS Shipname has already been established on Wikipedia to mean Confederate States Ship and attempting to use CSS Shipname for Coast Survey Ship would only create confusion.
I get your explanation. The only problem I have with it is that this forces us to use a name for the ship which, as far as I can tell, it never actually had. I respect that CSS for both coast survey ships and confederate navy ships would cause confusion. That said, I can find no reference anywhere to USC&GS Gedney, for example. I assume the ship was out of service before standardization began. (Of course, I don't have infinite sources.)
So, I propose the following:
Articles remain at the names you gave them for standardization with DANFS and military history resources.
Note is added to articles that say that they are only knows as USC&GS in retrospect and that they were not known by that name in the period they were serving. (You won't find it painted on the hull, for example. What would have been there?)
Let's keep the CSS name in the lead as an alternate name the ship was known by. If any of these advance beyond a stub, it makes sense to explain the name confusion. Is there an article on the 1918 name standardization which we can link to?
Redirects be recreated from the CSS names, which were deleted. In articles which link to the names (of which there are exceptionally few, so it doesn't matter), it doesn't really matter which is used. (For
Uriel Sebree, I'll drop the confusing prefix and just say "Coast survey Bache".)
Does this sound satisfactory? The dilemma is between simplicity and accuracy. I don't think this is any great debate, I just have an itch to find the right way to do this.
JRP (
talk)
13:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
This isn't a negotiable issue. Our concern was with the redirect and the confusion with Confederate States Ship. If you want to recreate the redirects then go ahead but I'll just take them to redirects for deletion this time instead of speedy. --
Brad (
talk)
01:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Wait? Redirects are cheap. I don't understand the need to delete them. You can't make the universe consistent, just because you like it to be. We have documented evidence that the names were in use and official, therefore the least that we can do is create the redirects.
JRP (
talk)
01:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Have you found that these ship are using a CSS prefix though? Your google books results have been achieved by typing in things like ["c.s.s." and coast survey] and this has produced a result which is titled 'Congressional Serial Set', which seems to be the more likely explanation for the abbreviation C.S.S. I can't read these books, can anyone do so to confirm that these are actually calling these ships CSS such-and-such?
Benea (
talk)
02:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've tweaked about with it, and I'm satisfied that contemporary sources are referring to them as CSS 'such and such'. The matter is then an editorial one, since we standardise our prefixes differently. We backdate prefixes, so that ships of the early English navy for example are referred to as HMS - even though this prefix did not appear until c. 1780, so what the ships themselves were called at the time is not in itself justification for using CSS. I don't have desperately strong opinions, I'm vaguely against the prefixes but not enough to kick up a fuss over a redirect. But I'd suggest that where ever the articles are linked to, the CSS prefix is NOT used, ie on the Seebee page, because the general reader will immediately think Confederate States Ship.
Benea (
talk)
02:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I've been searching also and no source uses the "CSS" prefix after 1900. (But I found one "USS Gedney" in there, which I believe is also a mistake.) Arguing over a one-line substub is silly, so I'm doing more research to get an actual article in there. The Gedney, for example, is actually the UCS&GC Thomas R. Gedney which sailed from 1875-1915. NOAA has a page
here all about it. (Note that this is not the same ship as the USS Lake Gedney, which was commissioned in 1915 or so.)
JRP (
talk)
03:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I've been updating the article pages for the United States Navy cruiser classes with infoboxes and I need know if I'm getting them in the correct order (preceded by and succeeded by). I've stopped at
New Orleans class cruiser (1931) due to the
Portland class cruiser articles statement that the New Orleans class superseded the Portland class while the information I've found states the reverse.
Shinerunner (
talk)
00:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
From what I understand, the Portlands were essentially modified Northamptons, while the New Orleans were a different design. However, they were built at the same time, and had intermixed hull numbers (i.e., New Orleans was 32, Portland was 33, Astoria was 34, and Indianapolis was 35). I would tend to agree that the New Orleans class were the subsequent class.
Parsecboy (
talk)
02:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Aircraft carrier has been identified as a GA-class article in need of major improvements during a recent GA sweep. Anyone interested in help the article stay at GA class can check out the list of needed improvements at the bottom of the talk page.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
05:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I claim dibs on Iowas FA rewrite!!! :-) No offense to the others (both SHIPS and MILHIST), but I would like handle this one because it has been on my todo list since before Featured Topics were brought to my attention.
TomStar81 (
Talk)
05:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
USNS Stockham should be moved to USNS GYSGT Fred W. Stockham (T-AK-3017) but that title is prevented from being created. Can someone look into this? --
Brad (
talk)
07:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I just moved the page; I'm not sure why it was telling you it was prevented from moving, because there wasn't a redirect or a salted redlink. Probably just a bug in the system.
Parsecboy (
talk)
11:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I looked for reasons why it wouldn't move either but found none. I was getting a message in big red letters that it was being prevented from creation. Thanks. --
Brad (
talk)
13:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Lightship naming
While working on Rear Admiral
Uriel Sebree's article, I stumbled across a story regarding a sunken
lightvessel off Nantucket that I have included, but I am uncertain how to name the ship in the article. Contemporary sources just called it "Lightship No. 58". A Google search seems to indicate that its real name was "Nantucket Lightship LV58". Fine, I can use either and I suspect that the latter is more correct. BUT, two questions: Should the name be in italics: Lightship No. 58, or not? Or maybe Nantucket Lightship LV58? Is there a standard for naming these vessels already on Wikipedia which I should follow?
JRP (
talk)
12:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Current practice, as seen at
Category:Lightships seems to favour the format 'Lightship foo'. There is a general article about Nantucket Lightships at
Lightship Nantucket, and an article about a specific one at
Nantucket (lightship) (which someone has proposed be merged into
Lightship Nantucket). I'd suggest either writing your sunken lightship as a section at
Lightship Nantucket, particularly if you don't have much information on her; or if you prefer to have it as a standalone article, perhaps
Lightship Nantucket LV58, to distinguish it from the ship described at
Nantucket (lightship), but to keep with existing precedent on titling lightship articles. If you were referring to her in an article, the LV58 is the bit you'd probably italicise, hence "the Nantucket lightship LV58..." or similar. (i.e. the same way we would say "the German battleship Bismarck...". I'm open to second opinions though.
Benea (
talk)
14:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
It's a fine line, but yes I would. The 'name' of the ship seems to be 'LV58', the 'Lightship Nantucket' appears to be the descriptor.
Unterseeboot 1 is the name of a submarine, we render the abbreviated version as U-1. Similarly 'Japanese submarine I-1' tends to be Japanese submarine I-1 or just I-1.
Benea (
talk)
14:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
The plot thickens. I'm not sure how things work on that side of the Atlantic, but in the UK
Trinity House takes on the role of maintaining lightvessels (as they are usually called here). Trinity House tenders bear the prefix THV, but the lightvessels themselves do not appear to.
Category:Lighthouse tenders of the United States has half a dozen ships prefixed with USLHT, but that prefix would not be appropriate in this instance as these are lightships not tenders.
Benea (
talk)
15:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
On this same topic, what should I call the Azalea in Wikipedia?
[7]. USLHT Azalea as a lighthouse tender OR USS Azalea because she was in the Navy in WWI? Or is USLHT incorrect because she's pre-1910 and pre-Lighthouse Service. (She was under the Board, not the Service.)
JRP (
talk)
23:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Lightbot (
talk·contribs) (run by
Lightmouse (
talk·contribs)) is changing the parameter "knot" to "kn" in template {{convert}}. As this affects a large number of ship articles, I thought I'd bring it to attention here. There is a discussion started
here requesting that it stop. My personal opinion is that it changes an easily identifiable unit to a more obscure abbreviation. Also, the edits are probably clogging up everyone's watchlists with insignificant changes as they are mine. Any comments or opinions welcome. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
12:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
While I've been making various fixes to the 'USS xxx' articles, I've noticed that the method of referring to other ship names is inconsistent. Sometimes the name will include the prefix and identifier:
USS New Jersey (BB-62), sometimes just the prefix and name without the identifier:
USS New Jersey, sometimes the identifier is shown but outside the link:
USS New Jersey (BB-62), and there are other more eccentric variations.
Is there any consensus on a preferred style?. My own feeling is that the identifier should only be shown if there's any ambiguity about which ship of that name the article is referring to, so the standard style should be
USS New Jersey on first reference and New Jersey on subsequent references, but I don't want to plunge in and make changes against an established consensus, if there is one.
Colonies Chris (
talk)
12:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm with Bellhalla on this one, the unlinked hull numbers aren't that great looking. An example of when context would require nationality prefixes is
Battle of North Cape, where ships from three different Allied navies operated together. However, it's generally sufficient to use them once, and then just the undisambiguated name for all further instances.
Parsecboy (
talk)
14:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer to leave the designation outside the link unless I feel some specific need to include it — which is why I never use {{USS}}, etc. To my eye, the designation looks too heavy, relative to the italicized name, when it's highlighted by being linked, as well as being ALL-CAPS and upright.
Reading "
USS New Jersey (BB-62)" vs. "
USS New Jersey (BB-62)", I'm drawn to the "(BB-62)", when I really want to focus on the name "New Jersey".
AVR 661 is a "structure" at Calumet Harbor in the South Deering neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, that is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. A "structure", in NRHP-speak, could be a ship. But i don't find AVR as a current naval ship prefix. What could this be?
Thanks. We have now found some photos and mention of AVR boats as 63 foot ships similar to PT-boats, used for rescuing aircraft crew from downed planes. (Google searching on "avr pt boat" gets useful hits.) AVR boats were used in WWII and also in Korean War, according to some links and notes now showing in stub article
AVR 661. Many were later used by Sea Scouts for training. This has killed my intended DYK phrase, essentially that the German
Unterseeboot 505 was (i thought) the only ship listed on the National Register in Chicago, out of 296 entries, because i can't document that this AVR 661 is no longer there. Odd that Chicago, a major port and major city, has hardly any ships on NRHP and no museum ships besides the U-boat, as about 5% of all National Historic Landmarks are ships. Odd also that there seems to be no mention of AVRs as a class of ship / boat in wikipedia, too.
doncram (
talk)
21:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The Times, probably the most famous British newspaper, currently has 200 years of archives available gratis on
their website. I believe this is only for a short period, until they start charging. I've been trying a few subjects so far and the search function and
OCR is quite effective. Well worth a look for anyone who needs contemporary sources, or an obituary for a biography.
In my brief peeks, it does work well, though you have to register to access anything. It does include advertisements published in the newspaper in searches. You can filter by type of content, news, ads, etc. —
Bellhalla (
talk)
14:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Assistance please
Could someone take a look at
these edits to
USS Alabama (BB-60)? I have to run out for a bit, but the edits need some followup: they should be compared to the ship's current page at DANFS (which is failing to load for me at the moment), properly cited to the same, and cleaned up a bit to remove conversation. Thanks.
Maralia (
talk)
19:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
USNI Naval History Magazine June 2004 Volume 18, Number 3 TOC lists an article titled To Alabama, Very Well Done By Master Chief Alvin J. Spinner, U.S. Navy (Retired). My problem with the material is that the USNI presents the material as "A crewman on the battleship Alabama during the June 1944 "Marianas Turkey Shoot" presents evidence that the ship has not received her due." They say evidence, not facts... The edited version is not available to non-members, but it seems like they are presenting it as anecdotal rather than as proven facts. It may very well be true, but I'm not sure angelfire should be used as a reliable source. It would be nice to see how the USNI article presents or prefaces the material. Everyone has a sea story about how their ship saved the day, I imagine a 60 year old sea story could overplay the role of a ship in past events. --
Dual Freq (
talk)
21:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I totally agree about that source - but the anon said much of this was included in an updated DANFS entry for Alabama. I couldn't get the page to load earlier, but now I do see that information at DANFS
here. I see someone cleaned up the article a bit; I'll make it clearer that angelfire is not the source.
Maralia (
talk)
00:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
As an USNI member, I looked at the article. Here's what they said, " Master Chief Spinner has been working tirelessly for years to gain the crew and officers of the Alabama the credit he says they deserve. For the sake of brevity, we have not reproduced all of his documentation here. He can back up each of his claims."
Jinian (
talk)
14:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)