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Question - re: Hull Numbers

I've noted that on a small handful US Navy ship articles, the hull number has been dropped from the page title. It has been done in instances where it is the first instance of that particular name being used for a ship. When the change was made (ie: via page move), WP:NCSHIPS was cited, but there I could only find a note citing WP:PRECISE, which doesn't mention hull numbers, or ships at all for that matter. Apparently the idea is that the hull numbers are just way too much extra detail and should only be used to disambiguate among other similarly named ships.

My question is this; was there a discussion, somewhere, where this was debated among the community and a consensus determined? If so, could someone point me to it? I have hunted around the various policy talk pages, including archives, but can't seem to find anything. I'm wondering, is the hull number really such an abnormally superfluous detail that it must be removed at every opportunity? Considering that the vast number of USN ship articles do contain a hull number in the title, wouldn't it be more expedient to retain the this small item for all articles, even if just for the sake of uniformity? Any illumination on this matter would be appreciated. Thanks. - theWOLFchild 22:47, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Instead of hull number, perhaps a search for disambiguator might be more productive? Hull numbers of US Navy ships, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, are nothing more than disambiguators. I do recall that we have discussed this here so that discussion should be in the WT:SHIPS archives.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
The RFC was here, and the language was hammered out here. Parsecboy (talk) 23:49, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing those out. I did have a look at them (there is a lot of content there) and from what I can gather, the first is an "abandoned" RfC that failed to achieve consensus for implementation, and the second is an extended talk page debate that didn't achieve any consensus, it just ended with one editor expressing appreciation for another editor's suggestion. Also, it appears that the debate was primarily about the addition of ship's launch years to article titles, (ie: USS Enterprise (1874)) to help differentiate among similarly named ships, but I don't where it was determined that hull numbers must be removed from singularly named ships. And with that, I still don't see how the removal of hull numbers from a handful of USN ship pages improves the project. - theWOLFchild 00:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The discussion that spawned the RFC was here - and IIRC that discussion began because of this one. Note that the relevant note in the naming convention predates all of these discussions, and was added here, based on this discussion. That references another discussion in 2010, but this is as far down the rabbit hole I feel like digging tonight. Parsecboy (talk) 00:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Again, thank you for pointing out these discussions. The addition of the note is interesting, (and was to be my next line of inquiry, should I not find a discussion with actual consensus). It seems the editor really had no business adding that note as it was not supported by consensus. The discussion he referred to was initiated by him, with a firm opinion that additional "disambiguators" were not needed. I see a couple of guys agreed, a couple don't, and that's about it. That note was improperly added, and all edits and reverts based on that note are now brought into question. I have seen among all these discussions some strong arguments for the removal of these additional identifiers (hull numbers, pennant numbers, etc.), but there is also equally persuasive arguments in favor of retaining them. What is missing is a consensus from the community either way. Another issue is should we be lumping these issues together? Ship launch years and hull codes are different, just as there are differences with the Royal Navy and US Navy (all navies for that matter). The note should be removed until there is a consensus to support it and the community should have a discussion/RfC on these issues, with clear objectives, and only act if there is a clear consensus. Cheers - theWOLFchild 01:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The note is perfectly fine as is. As I said in the one discussion I linked above, the broad community consensus that PRECISE represents trumps any local consensus, or lack thereof, here. Which is to say, even if we all agree, we can't ignore PRECISE a very good reason. Simple consistency has been shot down in numerous other policy discussions over the years, and there's no reason to believe it would fly here. Parsecboy (talk) 02:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Your position on this is hardly surprising considering you have participated in some of the discussions linked above, voicing your disapproval of added hull numbers, etc. But like I said, thanks anyway. - theWOLFchild 03:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
It's not particularly relevant what my personal position is. We follow policy unless there is a very good reason not to, and there isn't one in this case. Parsecboy (talk) 10:30, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Of course it's relevant. Everyone's position is relevant. Once enough positions coincide, we have a policy, (or policy change), that's how Wikipedia runs (and since you've already weighed in on this, repeatedly, I'm sure we'll hear from you again). - theWOLFchild 11:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure, abstractly, my position is relevant. But pragmatically, you're not going to change what PRECISE says, or get an exception in this case. If you can take anything from last year's fizzled RFC, it's that the SHIPS community, and the community in general, does not favor using hull numbers for disambiguation, let alone using them for ships that do not need disambiguation. So yes, my position is irrelevant. Parsecboy (talk) 13:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

A few points being missed here, completely. But I see this is going the usual way, so... whatever. - theWOLFchild 18:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Nothing at all being missed - though you might experience different outcomes in discussions if you were to have a stronger grasp on policy and how Wikipedia operates. We don't need to establish consensus here to keep the note in question, since adding it brought our naming conventions in line with long-established policy. Which as I said, trumps whatever local consensus we might establish here. Hence, no discussion is needed. Hence my position (and yours) is irrelevant. Parsecboy (talk) 19:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Like I said... - theWOLFchild 23:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Reina Regente (1888)

Could someone with admin tools undo this unexplained and incorrect move which happened yesterday? Per the naming conventions, the original title was correct. Manxruler (talk) 22:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Just did a copyedit of the article. Actually original title was wrong as ship was launched in 1887. Gonna change it now. Llammakey (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I just noticed that myself. Thanks for fixing that title. I went ahead and worked on the categories myself. Cheers. Manxruler (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
A further point, regarding the article's title, is that there has ever only been one ship called Reina Regente, so we don't need to dab at all. Shouldn't we just remove the "(1887)" and leave the title as Spanish cruiser Reina Regente? Manxruler (talk) 09:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
No, there was a second Reina Regente launched in 1906 that does not appear to have an article, so it should probably stay where it is. Parsecboy (talk) 10:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Have created an index here. Parsecboy (talk) 10:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Well done with locating a second cruiser of that name, and creating a ship index. All's well, then. Manxruler (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Just finished with Spanish cruiser Reina Regente (1906), and I think it's about as far as I can take it. If there are any interested parties who have access to better sources, feel free have a go. Parsecboy (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Do we need an {{otherships}} at the top of each article? Mjroots (talk) 08:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
As there were only two, a mutual pair of hatnotes gives readers direct links. Davidships (talk) 12:21, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hooghly

I am looking to create an article about the ship Hooghly which made four voyages transporting convicts to Australia and others transporting emigrants to Australia. In the Lylods Register for 1863 [1] (not found by search but in book - about half way down using scroll bar), it indicates she was wrecked. I cannot find anything about the wrecking, so was wondering if anyone could provide any details or info from online subscription or other sources? Regards Newm30 (talk) 01:18, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Newm30: - Australian newspapers of the period are online & free access (WP:SHIPS/R). Might be a bit of a needle in a haystack job with that name. Try advanced search for "hooghly" and "ship". Mjroots (talk) 06:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
I found an image :) [2] Gatoclass (talk) 16:38, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Foundered 10 December 1863 off Algiers (voyage Constantinople for Cork). By that time Hooghly (Official Number 13680) was rigged as a barque. PM me when you do the article and I can add a bit more. Davidships (talk) 01:00, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Unfortunately I could not find anything in TROVE. Regards Newm30 (talk) 23:42, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Is this her? Mjroots (talk) 20:57, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
It is supposed to be! Obviously some common sources with eds here - but, no, she wasn't built in India and there is the usual tonnage mistake.Davidships (talk) 23:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Flags in lists of shipwrecks

Copied from Talk:List of shipwrecks in 1799, with slight adaptation
The use of ship flags in these shipwrecks lists is entirely appropriate, and in accordance with WP:MOSFLAG. Mlpearc, I have undone your changes (to the List of shipwrecks in 1799) for this reason. There are several hundred shipwreck lists covering from the 1st century to 2016. At the period this particular list (1799) covers, there were many independent cities, mostly the Hanseatic cities in what is now Germany and Poland, but also others like Trieste. It is necessary to use the flag images for these because there is no {{country data}} template set up to use them (these are merely an editing convenience).

Since writing the above, I've discovered that Bremen & Hamburg are covered by the template.

Mlpearc apparently came across this list from a report I made at WP:VPT due to images appearing centred. Turns out this is due to a CSS change at Mediawiki (another discussion, another place). Anyway, as members of this WP are well aware, the use of ship registry flags is established practice in shipwreck lists. Their removal is detrimental, as it removes context in many cases. Mjroots (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

An edit I made to WP:MOSFLAG to reflect a long-established practice was reverted by John, with the comment to "get consensus". Therefore I am asking that we hereby establish that there is such consensus for a long-established practice of showing ship registry flags in the various lists of shipwrecks. Mjroots (talk) 19:26, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Mjroots: Calm down. I have no plan to argue your point. Cheers, Mlpearc (open channel) 19:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Mlpearc: Thanks for that. I take it you've had a look at other shipwreck lists then. Now, we just need consensus for that edit to MOSFLAG. Mjroots (talk) 19:49, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
No, haven't looked anywhere, MOSFLAG was clear to me even without your reverted change. Good luck with the consensus. Mlpearc (open channel) 19:51, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, MOSFLAG states "In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself." Mjroots (talk) 20:07, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I think we can accept that the current guidelines may be read so as to permit such use. The use would only be recommended if there was in addition some utility to the reader. Aesthetically, I find the flags add nothing (though I admit I was charmed by finding out the flag of  Bremen, which I did not previously know). I would struggle to see how the flags had utility value either; as often happens in these lists, we see the same flags repeated frequently. If I was looking for the one Bremen-registered ship for some reason, I could scan the article or use ctrl-F if I was in a hurry. So my overall opinion would be that while the flags are allowed by the MoS, they may fail the test of adding value to the article. I would be open to convincing on this key point, but I currently lean against their use in articles like this one. --John (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
John - the fact that you didn't know that Bremen has its own flag shows another value in their use. Part of Wikipedia's mission is to inform, the use of flag appropriate to the period in question is one way of achieving this. I believe it is also important that we don't rewrite history. Therefore all vessels from Bremen get that flag until 1871, when the German Empire was formed and many of the Hanseatic cities became part of that country on 18 January of that year. Mjroots (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I suppose the best way is to show by example. From the 1799 list, unknown date in March (some entries culled for avoidance of excessive repetition. references removed)

with flags
Without flags

As you can see, the flags are a far better way of conveying the info. Mjroots (talk) 21:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

If getting a change at MOSFLAGS proves tricky, we could always add it as a recommendation (or even a statement of preference) in the WProjectShips guidelines; it doesn't conflict with MOSFLAGs at any rate.
As for utility, I for one find it easier to locate a particular entry if the national flag is there than if it merely had the words, even for the most numerous nationalities. And the rarer the nationality the easier it gets.
Also, it has been custom and practice to add flags to the shipwreck pages (involving thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of entries), so we would need a very good reason to be taking them out. If any editor puts an entry in without them, it shouldn't be a fault (per MOSFLAG) but neither should it be a cause of complaint if someone subsequently adds it, for consistency. My two-penny worth... Xyl 54 (talk) 17:56, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I have no definite opinion either way, but I do think the addition of flags looks rather untidy in lists. If you want to keep the flags, it might be better to turn these lists into tables. Gatoclass (talk) 12:27, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. For the sake of illustration, a plain table version of the above plus the known shipwreck dates for March:

March
7 March
Peace and Plenty  Ireland The sloop foundered off the Saltee Islands, County Donegal. Her crew were rescued. She was on a voyage from Dublin to São Miguel Island, Azores.
15 March
Harriot  Great Britain War of the Second Coalition: The ship was captured by the privateer Le Eole ( France) and was burnt. She was on a voyage from London to São Miguel Island, Azores.
15 March
Vigilancia  Portugal The ship foundered. She was on a voyage from Lisbon to London, Great Britain.
27 March
Hope  Great Britain The ship foundered whilst on a voyage from Plymouth, Devon to London.
29 March
Fame  Great Britain The ship departed from Plymouth, Devon to Liverpool, Lancashire. No further trace, presumed foundered with the loss of all hands.
31 March
Betsey  Great Britain The sloop was run down and sunk by HMS Mars (Kingdom of Great Britain Royal Navy) in Cawsand Bay. Her six crew were rescued.
Unknown date
Adeona  Great Britain The ship was driven ashore near Ystadt, Sweden. She was on a voyage from Memel, Prussia to London.
Amelia Hamburg The ship was driven ashore by ice at Cuxhaven and was abandoned by her crew. She was on a voyage from London to Hamburg.
Amelia Bremen The ship was sunk by ice off the mouth of the Weser. She was on a voyage from Lisbon, Portugal to Bremen.
Betsey & Peggy  Great Britain War of the Second Coalition: The ship was captured and burnt.
Lydia  United States Quasi-War: The ship was captured by the French. She was subsequently wrecked on The Olives rocks.
Maadsgoodhope Hamburg The ship was driven ashore and wrecked on Heligoland. She was on a voyage from Buenos Aires, Colonial Brazil to Hamburg.
Margaretta Hamburg The ship was lost in the Elbe. She was on a voyage from Hamburg to Tenerife, Canary Islands.
Mary  Great Britain The ship was driven ashore at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
Princess Amelia  Great Britain War of the Second Coalition: The ship was captured and burnt by the privateer Le Spartiate ( France).
Rebecca Bremen The ship was holed by ice in the Weser and was abandoned by her crew. She was on a voyage from Lisbon to Bremen.
Robert & Jean  Great Britain The ship was lost near Wexford, Ireland with the loss of all hands. She was on a voyage from Dundee, Perthshire to Dublin.
Vrow Christiana  Hanover The ship was lost on the Haaks Bank, in the North Sea off Texel, Batavian Republic. She was on a voyage from Surinam to Plymouth, Devon, Great Britain and Embden.
Vrow Jacoba  Hanover The ship was wrecked on the Brouwers Plaat. She was on a voyage from London to Embden.
Vrow Maria Zeunisse  Batavian Republic The ship was wrecked off Brielle.
Vulture  Great Britain War of the Second Coalition: The ship was captured and burnt by the privateer Le Spartiate ( France).

For simplicity I centered the dates as pseudo-headers but there are other ways of accomplishing that. —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:29, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem with tables is that is makes it harder to edit lists. In the dim and distant past I converted a number of shipwreck lists from table to prose for that very reason. Mjroots (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps, but so what? The purpose of wiki markup is to render the page in a manner that makes the information easily accessible to the reader. If that markup makes it easier for the editor, great, but ease of editing should not trump ease of reading.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
"...but ease of editing should not trump ease of reading." - Excellent point! - theWOLFchild 03:42, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
It occurs to me that for the several shipwreck lists, it might be worthwhile to create a handful of templates that would hide the table markup:
{{swl begin}} – standardizes table headers; takes parameters that set table name, and perhaps individual column widths so that all tables on the page look the same
{{swl line}} – standardizes a row in the table
{{swl end}} – closes the table; its only content is |}
In the edit window a table might look something like this perhaps:
{{swl begin|name=March |colw1=12%}}
{{swl line |date=— |ship=Vrow Jacoba |flag={{flagcountry|Electorate of Hanover|civil}} |comment=The ship was wrecked on the Brouwers Plaat. She was on a voyage from London to Embden.}}
{{swl line |date=— |ship=Vrow Maria Zeunisse |flag={{flag|Batavian Republic}} |comment=The ship was wrecked off [[Brielle]].}}
...
{{swl end}}
Actual implementation of the templates would of course depend on the chosen layout.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:22, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
If (it's a very big if, and I won't be doing it) we go for tables, then I favour the approach taken in the List of aircraft by tail number. That has tables and is set up for easy editing, by which I mean that every date has a separate table, even for only one entry. My preference is to maintain the status quo for the lists, of which there are in excess of 400. Mjroots (talk) 12:41, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
At List of aircraft by tail number the Description and Related article columns are not aligned which doesn't look very professional. There are accessibility issues because none of those tables have captions. In my example above, |name=March supplies a minimal table caption (the template might also extract information from the page title to produce a more usable and standardized caption; perhaps change |name= to |date=?) Similarly, |colw1=12%, overrides a yet-to-be-determined default column width when required; the default ensuring that all columns of the individual tables are aligned with each other.
Though vertical and horizontal table markup is slightly different from each other, templates can be written horizontally or vertically using the same markup. Rewriting my example from above:
{{swl begin |name=March |colw1=12%}}
{{swl line
|date=—
|ship=Vrow Jacoba
|flag={{flagcountry|Electorate of Hanover|civil}}
|comment=The ship was wrecked on the Brouwers Plaat. She was on a voyage from London to Embden.
}}
{{swl line
|date=—
|ship=Vrow Maria Zeunisse
|flag={{flag|Batavian Republic}}
|comment=The ship was wrecked off [[Brielle]].
}}
...
{{swl end}}
If each date gets its own table, the |date= parameter in {{swl line}} is not needed.
Once a table format is settled on and the templates coded, converting the existing lists can, because the list items follow a generally consistent format, be done with an AWB task so manual conversion of the existing lists should be minimal or unnecessary.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:59, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: - the tables in the list of aircraft by tail number each have a header for each column. I don't understand your comment about no captions.
Why not copy a list into your user subspace and have a play around. As I said above, the best way to show is by example. That way we can compare one with the other. Mjroots (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Here is a simple wiki table, the result after MediaWiki translates it to html, and how it renders:
wiki markup html rendered 
{|class="wikitable""
|+Caption
!Header1
!Header2
|-
|data1
|data2
|-
|}
 
<table class="wikitable">
<caption>Caption</caption>
<tr>
 <th>Header1</th>
 <th>Header2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>data1</td>
 <td>data2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Caption
Header1 Header2
data1 data2
The content of <caption>...</caption> tags allows browsers and screen readers to identify and navigate to a particular table. This is more important for those who use screen readers than for sighted readers. Headers do not fulfill that same function.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:58, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Permalink to March 1799 list and table comparison}}.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, I've taken a look. Some things I like, some I don't.

  1. I like the fact that editing is similar to the existing lists.
  2. I don't like the repetitive headers above the tables. Is this an accessibility thing? Can it be coded so that it doesn't show but is still picked up by screen readers?
  3. Both the ship name column and the flag column need to be wider. The ship name column for the unknown date is about right. Flag column needs to be wide enough to accommodate  Austria-Hungary without forcing the wording underneath the flag. I realise that we won't be able to stop this happening completely, but it should be kept down as far as possible.
  4. It would be preferable if both ship name column and flag column could be kept the same size throughout the list. Some ship names that are a single word can get quite lengthy. Sod's law says that whatever length you set, there will be a name one letter longer!
  5. What happens if there is an image to add?

Looks promising, but still needs tweaking. Mjroots (talk) 16:50, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

New version
  1. Good
  2. I don't know. Yes, it can be hidden like this |+style="display:none;"|Caption; is it still available to screen readers? I think so but I've asked at WP:VPT
  3. I picked 12% because at my browser's default zoom setting, that size allowed  Batavian Republic (longer than  Austria-Hungary) with space left over. I've changed it to 12em so that it automatically scales with zoom.
  4. At present both ship and country columns are the same width. Perhaps I don't understand what you mean.
  5. Add an image to the table? or outside the table? The tables in the example page are set to 100% width so to add an image outside the tables, it is best to unset table width so that an image can be placed to the right of the table. I have done this (with an image from the 1800 list) for the 7 & 15 March tables, and also hidden the captions for those two. To add an image inside the table, will require a different table configuration.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:56, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
2 - the entry for 15 March is good.
3 - Should be OK then
4 - in the original example, ship name and flag columns varied in width from date to date. These should ideally be all the same width throughout the article, but not necessarily the same width as each other. Possibly the name column could be a bit narrower.
5 The image needs to be in the box of text.
Thoughts? Mjroots (talk) 19:20, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Good that the list is down to two items.
  2. I have three browsers on this machine, current versions of Chrome and Opera and an archaic version of Exploder. None of them showed table-to-table same-column width variations for either Ship or Country columns for either the initial 12% or the second 12em versions; this was true regardless of zoom value.
  3. Do you mean in the comment part of the table row? I'm inclined to say no that we don't need to support that because it appears that images are more accents than anything else. And there are images like USS Philadelphia at List of shipwrecks in 1804#16 February that are rather large so the list would have large amounts of blank space around individual list items. This issue would also apply to cases where the list has the {{Wikinews}} template; a bunch of them are in the List of shipwrecks in 2010 list.
Here is a new version that will automagically allow images and things like {{Wikinews}} without requiring tweaks to individual wikitable markup. The magic will only work when the image or template precedes the table declaration. So, it is not possible to add an image to an unknown date table and have it appear at a specific location unless that image is added directly to the comment field for that row. There are a also restrictions on the order in which the items are placed: image followed by {{Wikinews}} followed by the table doesn't work so well (large whaite space before the table) but {{Wikinews}} followed by image followed by table works fine.
The addition of the <div>...</div> wrapper argues for a template solution to this problem.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:02, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Been thinking about the Wikinews problem. This affects a very few lists. In accordance with WP:IAR, what is wrong with having a Wikinews section immediately above the references section in the few lists that have Wikinews items? Mjroots (talk) 08:38, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Nothing. {{wikinews-inline}} might also be an option.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:30, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe your joint thinking has moved on too far now, but I'll try again; it would be pleasing to receive at least some feedback before it is (presumably inadvertantly) deleted. If it's to be a table like this, OK - but the left hand dates + centred dates + daily column headers seem too much. Perhaps better to have a single monthly table with a LH column for actual date - the 12+3 characters needed can be taken from "Comment" without pushing too many of those into two lines (though it wouldn't matter if it did where there is a picture). I think "Description" is a better heading than "Comment". Davidships (talk) 17:28, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I can't find where you have previously stated an opinion on this topic. What did I miss and where can I find it?
Yeah, Description may be better than Comment.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:30, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Same point as above - was here - deleted by subsequent edit. Davidships (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Certainly inadvertent on my part. I know that I took my time writing the post that 'deleted' yours so I'm pretty sure I started it long before you made your post. It would appear that MediaWiki still hasn't got the edit conflict detection stuff quite right.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I think we've cracked it! I moved the image inside the description and on preview it looked good. Trappist the monk would you take a list and convert it, make a permalink before reverting. Would suggest the 2010 list as that has Wikinews items and an image. The two could then be compared side by side and a formal proposal put forward to see what the consensus is before all 400+ lists are changed. Mjroots (talk) 12:26, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
2010 is in my sandbox; compare to List of shipwrecks in 2010.
I left the table captions visible because when they were hidden using the css style="display:none;", the caption is not visible to screen readers. Discussion continues a WP:VPT.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I had a play with it and moved the wikinews and image into the description boxes. I like what I see. Looks like we'll need to play around with the TOCs once converted, but I'll not oppose on that score. We can handle that in a similar way to the lists covering WWI and WWII by named month. Mjroots (talk) 18:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Links to lists covering WWI and WWII by named month so the rest of us know what it is you're talking about?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
For example, List of shipwrecks in May 1945. A simple 4x4 table will suffice, with the Unknown date taking the bottom row. Mjroots (talk) 19:38, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I might have the answer to the header issue.
What about this?
Try highlighting the above row to see what I mean. Mjroots (talk) 21:15, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
This here→ What about this? ←is white text on white background. FYI - theWOLFchild 21:28, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
New version. This uses style="margin-top: -1.5" to move the table up into the space occupied by the caption, which is still there but, because I also used style="opacity: 0" to make the caption fully 'transparent', it overlays whatever is above it without visual disturbance. I chose style="opacity: 0" over style="color: white" because there is no guarantee that the background will always be white.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Watching with interest (and some incomprehension) this techie stuff. Just one observation - the 3rd column heading "Comments/Description" looks very untidy, at least on my screen, due to varying RH inserts. May be better to have at least this heading left justified. Davidships (talk) 01:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I've had another play, adding the new style TOC, and moving the Wikinews entries and images into the text box. I can support a change to lists if it is done like this. My concerns of ease of editing have been addressed, as well as those raised by others re accessibility issues (as far as I can tell). Some minor rewriting of entries will need to be done once the list has been converted, but that should be seen as part of the normal editing process. The only other minor point which will need to be borne in mind is that the "unknown date" sections will need renaming by the addition of ...in (month) or ...in (year) as appropriate to make the new style TOC work. The latter will be needed, but the former might not. Mjroots (talk) 07:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Further thought: can we combine the first two columns, headed "Ship and flag"? Mjroots (talk) 07:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
We can but why? For tables with more than a handful of entries, it may be desirable to sort by flag or by name.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
My gut feeling is that by doing so, the combined column will be narrower than two separate columns. This makes the description column wider, thus reducing the overall length a list takes up. Mjroots (talk) 12:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
If saving a handful of horizontal spaces is important, then we should abandon this tables as a way of making the lists easier to read.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

New version that uses the {{shipwreck list}} templates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

templates to implement shipwreck lists

There are now three templates that implement the tables described above. These are:

{{shipwreck list begin}} – takes two parameters:
|date=: required – will show caption with red error message if not provided
|sort=: optional – when set to y adds sorting to the Ship and Country columns; Description
{{shipwreck list item}} – takes three parameters; named or positional but not a mix:
|ship= (first): the ship's name; the template does not provide any ship-name formatting
|country= or |flag= (second): the ship's country of flag
|desc= (third): a description of the ship's failure to float
{{shipwreck list end}} – required to close the table markup; takes no parameters

(we can create shorter redirects as a typing aid)

List of shipwrecks: date
Ship State Description
Shipname Country Uses parameters |ship=, |country=, |desc=
Shipname Flag Uses parameters |ship=, |flag=, |desc=
Shipname Country or flag Uses unnamed (positional) parameters

This one is missing |date=, not sortable:

List of shipwrecks: |date= required
Ship State Description
Shipname Country Uses parameters |ship=, |country=, |desc=
Shipname Flag Uses parameters |ship=, |flag=, |desc=
Shipname Country or flag Uses unnamed (positional) parameters

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Why do we need sortable tables? Chronological, then alphabetical works just fine. Mjroots (talk) 15:40, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
It's plausible that someone might want to find all the ships from a given country that sank during the period covered by the list, for instance. Parsecboy (talk) 15:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, this. The default case is unsortable but for tables with perhaps 5 or more entries, perhaps sorting is a useful tool for readers and really costs us nothing but |sort=y to implement.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It was suggested at WP:VPT that the summary attribute might be appropriate for these tables so I've added this to {{shipwreck list begin}}:

summary="First column, Ship, is the wrecked ship's name; second column, Country, is the country associated with the wrecked ship, often a country or navy flag icon followed by a link to the country or navy article; third column, Description, briefly describes the wreck and/or its causes."

Does this accurately reflect what will be the content of the tables?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Nearly, for completeness we should say "country, independent city or navy article". Looking good now, are we going to put forward a formal proposal or just go ahead? Mjroots (talk) 18:53, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
summary="First column, Ship, is the wrecked ship's name; second column, Country, is the country associated with the wrecked ship, often a country, independent city, or navy flag icon followed by a link to the associated article; third column, Description, briefly describes the wreck and/or its causes."
I see no need for such formality. This page is watched by 290 editors; none of the list pages that I looked at are watched by more than 10 editors. This conversation has been underway several days without much objection. These points seem to suggest that implementing this change would be accepted. It will take me a few days to hack together a script to do the raw change so there is time for page watchers here, who haven't yet noticed this conversation to have their say.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
In which case, I suggest you start at the 2016 list and work backwards. BTW, I watch just about every shipwreck list there is, but not so that I show as a watcher . Mjroots (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
First lists converted. I also created a template for the TOC
2010
2011 – has §Unknown date so {{shipwreck list toc}} parameter |ud= should be set to 2
2012
2013 – |ud=3; not going to fix the code to handle multiple ships per line item see 27 February
I amended the entry to cover the situation. Mjroots (talk)
2014
2015
2016
I need to create documentation for the template suite so I'll do that before returning to the list conversion.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Looking good so far. Mjroots (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. Looking good. However, could we agree to have the pictures inside the table? In some cases, they are, in some cases not. Also, how about not including the ship type in "ship" column, but have it linked in the description? Tupsumato (talk) 17:29, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
The script is and shall remain agnostic about both of these issues. Its purpose is to do a reasonably good job of converting from one format to the other.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I've given the 2010-16 lists a going over. Images should be in the description box, before any text. Wikinews at bottom after text. If a flag is unknown, state "Unknown". Leaving it blank could indicate it has been forgotten. Ship type belongs in description. Mjroots (talk) 19:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Lists 2000–2009 done. There was a bug in my script that didn't correctly supply the date to |date= in {{shipwreck list begin}} when writing the first table of a month. That has been fixed; the 2010–2016 pages need to be tweaked. I'll do that.

Because editors have placed images inconsistently in the list, the script shall make no attempt to comply with Images should be in the description box, before any text. This same is true of {{wikinews}} templates. It is not the function of this script to make a judgement call and add information where, for whatever reason, that information has been omitted. Because editors have used a wide variety of styles to 'name ships' (plain text, wikilinks, templates, combinations of these) the script shall make no attempt to decode what is there. It is difficult enough to decode the differences in the basic format of an unordered list item; they are emphatically not all the same. Things like minor punctuation differences, placement, spacing, inadvertent omission or insertion, make the coding more difficult.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:58, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: - I see you've done back as far as 1930. The 1939-45 and 1955 lists need a working link to the "Unknown date" section. Also, you need to convert all 72 lists by month linked from {{WWII shipwrecks}} (those marked unknow date link to the year list). It will be the same when you get to 1914-18. Mjroots (talk) 20:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Setting the value of |ud= in {{shipwreck list toc}} is not a function supported by the script. When there is only one 'Unknown date' heading in a shipwreck list, set |ud=y; when more than one, count them and set |ud= to the number corresponding to the one that is the link target.
One task at a time. I'm doing the by-year lists now. By-month list will just have to wait.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:06, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

SS Connaught

I came upon this BBC article today on the PS Connaught (1860). The article states that it was the second largest steamer in the world at the time, second only to the SS Great Eastern. I wanted to read some more about the ship an so searched here on Wikipedia but I'm unable to find anything. She is not even listed in List of shipwrecks in 1860 (6 October). Am I not looking in the wrong place, has the BBC article got it wrong or is there simply no article on the ship yet? Could somebody please point me in the right direction? Regards, Calistemon (talk) 04:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

There are lots of famous ships that don't have a Wikipedia article yet. You'd think as the then-second largest ship in the world there would be an article about this ship, but in fact I've never even heard of it. Ships with a very brief history, like this one, often don't have much chance to make their way into the usual records. In Connaught's case, the ship sank without loss of life which would have made her demise a lot less newsworthy at the time. I am sure though, that there will be more than enough in the historical record to be able to create a decent article, and now you've raised the issue here, it probably won't be long before somebody does put an article together. Gatoclass (talk) 06:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Entry added to the 1860 shipwreck list. Tynebuilt has a bit on her. UK newspapers of the period are available online to those with access to the Gale News Vault. Might be something in the Australian papers which are available via Trove - Telegraph was well-developed by the 1860s making communication of information around the world easier. Mjroots (talk) 08:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the feed back! Looking at the Tynebuilt articles she sprung a leak on 6 October and sunk around 2am on 8 October. Calistemon (talk) 09:02, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
If I read the article correctly, she was lost on her maiden voyage. In which case, {{maiden voyage sinkings}} needs adding to the article and the ship to the navbox. Article should really be at the title I added above, as there were other ships of that name. Mjroots (talk) 08:09, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
No, the ship was lost on its second voyage, not the first, according to the BBC article. That looks about right, since the ship was launched in April and sank in October - plenty of time to get a second voyage in. BTW, I disagree that the article should be at "PS Connaught" - "PS" is a rarely used term and should probably only be used when a vessel is clearly associated with the term IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 08:36, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Agree with Gatoclass. Connaught (1890) would be just fine - with an SS if a superfluous accretion is really necessary. Davidships (talk) 09:20, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

National Maritime Museum's Warship Histories

The very large collection of Warship Histories (which was placed online as part of Wikipedia:GLAM/National Maritime Museum has disappeared from the National Maritime Museum's website. Does anyone know whether this is permanent? If it has been removed, can the downloaded records still be used as references?Nigel Ish (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Byrd's "The City of New York"

Do we have an article on Admiral Byrd's City of New York? I can't seem to find it on Wikipedia, but we have a different SS City of New York... -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 08:25, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The ship is mentioned briefly in his BLP article (FYI) - theWOLFchild 10:53, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Some info on the ship here. - theWOLFchild 11:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
@ 70.51.200.135 - I see you have several successful AfC notices on your talk page. Why don't you create an article for the City of New York? (and, since you're an ongoing contributor, why don't you create an account as well? make things easier for yourself... ) - theWOLFchild 05:34, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
If no one writes such an article, I was planning to get around to it at some point (I do have a few drafts in the fire right now). As I do know the AfC process, I find no sufficient difficulty necessary to needing to create an account. -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 05:06, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I doubt there'll be any such article popping up soon, but who knows? As for account creation, it's not just about "avoiding difficulties", there are also benefits to having an account, both for yourself and others here, making it easier to collaborate with you. But, it's up to you. - theWOLFchild 11:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Naming dispute

Please see Talk:HMS Ajax (S125). Thank you - theWOLFchild 15:30, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

SS Fort Stikine

The question of whether the list of ships sunk or severely damaged by the explosion of SS Fort Stikine is best housed at that article or the Bombay Explosion (1944) article (or both) is being discussed at talk:SS Fort Stikine. Additional views welcome there please. Mjroots (talk) 11:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Ship in active service

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Ship in active service#.22As of .7B.7BCURRENTYEAR.7D.7D.22... again. The template falls within the scope of this WikiProject, and there is discussion about whether to automatically include the current year in the template. Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:34, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

SS Santhia

The SS Santhia article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 17:20, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Trouble finding references? The Wikipedia Library is proud to announce ...

The Wikipedia Library

There are up to 30 free one-year Alexander Street Press (ASP) accounts available to experienced Wikipedians through this partnership. To apply for free access, please go to WP:ASP.

Alexander Street Press is an electronic academic database publisher. Its "Academic Video Online: Premium collection" includes videos in a range of subject areas, including news programs (like 60 minutes) and newsreels, music and theatre, speeches and lectures and demonstrations, and documentaries. This collection would be useful for researching topics related to science, engineering, history, music and dance, anthropology, business, counseling and therapy, news, nursing, drama, and more. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 22:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Sealift & Reserve ships

(edit: Moved the bulk of this comment to the article talk page) Just did a major overhaul at List of Military Sealift Command ships. It hadn't been updated in 10 years. Other related pages need work. Please see the talk page for more info. Thanks. - theWOLFchild 16:11, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

List of motor yachts by length...

...has become a dumping ground of mass additions with no sources, no supporting articles, no images and very little info by ip users. It's becoming a sea of red links and empty table cells. This page could use some attention from users perhaps interested in yachting and/or article clean-up. Thanks - theWOLFchild 11:13, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I've put forward a solution at talk:List of motor yachts by length. Mjroots (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Excellent suggestion. Thanks - theWOLFchild 14:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

archiving this talk page

On my talk page, Editor Thewolfchild has noted that User:ClueBot III has stopped archiving this page (last time was 26 February 2016). I think that I have added the necessary settings to get archiving going again with lowercase sigmabot III.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. - theWOLFchild 20:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

HMCS Uganda/HMCS Quebec

These two are the same ship, however there are two articles, one for the British era and one for the Canadian era. I started a merge proposal here but no one commented so I was hoping I could get some discussion there. Thanks for your time, Llammakey (talk) 09:24, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

SS Hopestar

The SS Hopestar article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 13:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Now withdrawn. Mjroots (talk) 17:52, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

RMS Titanic alternative theories

A discussion concerning this article is now taking place at the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion and/or to help improve the article. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

CS Pacific

Hello, sorry if this is not the right place for my request. I am wondering if anyone in this project can re-grade my article about CS Pacific (1903. It has being graded as Class C but I understand the article could be B. Thank you M0KLB (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2016 (UTC) 14/04/2016

Hi M0KLB, you're going to need to add more sources to the article before it can get to B-class status. :-) Try modeling it off of some of the featured ship articles! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:23, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Miramar database access

It's a private database for ships, mainly commercial though it does have some military info of use, especially for those that were converted into merchant vessels. You can get access through Wikipedia. Llammakey (talk) 01:11, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes. This post is for you, not for me. I was passing the word along. I have little inherent interest in ships. Cheers.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:58, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
I know, I was adding clarity to your vague post. Llammakey (talk) 08:40, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
WP:MIRAMAR! Great database for anyone in this project. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Tony DiGiulian emailed me that he will be reformatting NavWeaps.com in a way that will break all current links to it, but likely not for a year. Here's what he sent me:

Right now, there are about 1,600 links from Wiki English to NavWeaps plus more for those Wikis in other languages. The majority of these may all get broken over the next year or so with the exception of any link on Wiki to www.navweaps.com itself which would still work correctly.

The reason for this is that I am considering upgrading the website from being HTML 4 based to being HTML 5 (php/css) based. This means that my webpages will go from having .htm extensions to having .php extensions. This change would obviously break any existing link to my webpages that point to an .htm extension. My first example of a .php extension would be a new main page found here:

http://www.navweaps.com/NavWeaps.php

The “Contact” and “12”/45 Mark 5 and 6” webpages linked from the above webpage are also in php format. These php pages are not “live” yet, as I am still working out the details of the format and haven’t yet settled on the final form.

In addition, the web designer that I am working with is encouraging me to change my directory structures so as to make it more friendly to mobile users. For example, I use “index_tech” as the directory for my Technology pages, he wants me to change this to be more like “Technology/index.php” which is more user-friendly. Again, this would break existing Wiki links.

I just wanted to give you a “heads up” at this point as I don’t want to create unnecessary problems and extra work at your end. If I decide to go down this path, then I’m looking at a timeframe of something of over a year before the website would be completely converted over as I have 1K+ webpages and it will obviously be a considerable effort to change them all over to the new format.

Sincerely yours, Tony DiGiulian http://www.navweaps.com

RobDuch (talk) 23:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

He should really talk to his web designer about implementing rewrite rules to redirect from the old html links to the new php ones. As long as he's not replacing page names with arbitrary numbers, it should be pretty straightforward. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 23:49, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
While they're about it, lose file extensions from the URLs altogether. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:09, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Of the 1574 links to someplace on http://www.navweaps.com:

1243 of them link into http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/
2 link to /Weapon (singular)
2 link to lowercase /weapons
3 link to files off the root
230 link to '/index...' pages
86 link to the root (with or without trailing /)
2 link to broken paths)
6 link to /NavWeaps

and yeah, if you add all those numbers they don't tally; I'm missing 45 or so.

Of all of that, there are 478 unique NavWeaps urls.

I have recently created a couple of AWB scripts that replaced urls with appropriate templates so that changes to the url by source could be accommodated by a simple change to the template. These templates are {{NRHP url}}, {{NHLS url}}, {{MHT url}}, and {{NHC TCR url}}. More familiar to this project is {{navsource}} where the template provides the base url and the editor provides the unique ID of the target page. We can do something similar with the weapons pages where the template provides the base url and the extension and the editor provides the unique ID (the file name in this case). The output of this new template would be a url that will seamlessly replace a plain url wherever it is.

Shall we?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:15, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

That's mighty nice of Tony. At least this won't be like the NHHC, who gave us zero warning. ;-) Trappist the monk, could we not run a bot to change all the .htm links to .php? Is that the only change that will be needed? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:26, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
We could and that will 'work' until the next time the urls change at which point another bot must be developed to do it all again. With a template that provides all but the identifier, when the next change comes it should be possible to fix all of the urls with a single edit to the template.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 09:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Ship class articles: circular redirects

I find these really annoying. Take the article Apollo-class cruiser. On the table, "Indefatigable" appears to have its own article, but links straight back to the class article, though a redirect HMS Indefatigable (1891). Much better is the redlink - as with "Intrepid" - which not only conveys the right info to the reader but is also an elbow-jog to editors who might actually make an article. Generally circular redirects are discouraged and I cannot find anything about this in WP:SHIPMOS or these Talk Archives (though they are really hard to search). I am reluctant to just put up the redirect for deletion - or even just delete the wikilinking in the table - as there may be a back story somewhere. Davidships (talk) 21:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

In general those kinds of redirects are unhelpful IMO. For ships that will never have an article, they might be useful to keep for search terms (unfinished ships like SMS Mackensen come to mind), but redlinks are much more useful for ships that ought to have articles. Parsecboy (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree and have G6'd the link. Feel free to create an article. Mjroots (talk) 07:35, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks M. That looks like the right call - and searchers will still find the ship at HMS Indefatigable. Davidships (talk) 10:06, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
If any others are found, tag them with {{Db-g6|rationale=Creates impression article exists where it does not. Ship notable enough to sustain an article. [[WP:REDLINK|Redlinks]] encourage article creation. }}. Mjroots (talk) 12:42, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Multiplication symbol, "-pounder guns" in {{Infobox ship}}

Hello all- I find the style used for listing armament in many ship infoboxes to be awkward. For example, one article's infobox reads: 12 × 4-pounder guns and 14 × railside swivel guns. Though the infobox guide does mention the "times" symbol (×), it does not call for it to be used in this manner. Even if the guide did call for such use, I would disagree with it as unnecessary and distracting. I understand the motivation to avoid confusion when numbering a list of items that themselves begin with a digit, but I think the hyphenation of 4-pounder in this example eliminates confusion.

Plus, I find the construction -pounder guns instead of -pound guns to be awkward style, especially for an encyclopedia. In everything that I have read, conversational reference to ship armament would often replace 12 4-pound guns with 12 4-pounders (omitting guns), but not 12 4-pounder guns. I think it would look better (and save a few spaces) if we went with the style 12 4-pound guns. If the single space seems too small, maybe we could implement something that would double it (beyond my current wikicraft). Anyone else have a view on this? Eric talk 18:37, 19 April 2016 (UTC) Note: My post here is excerpted from a discussion at Template_talk:Infobox_ship_begin/Usage_guide#Multiplication_symbol_between_number_and_type_of_guns.

@Eric: Thanks for bringing this here! First, going to "pound guns" is a non-starter; the actual name of these guns is ex. 12-pounder gun. :-) Second, I dislike your proposed alternative because it's confusing. 12 12-pounder guns? 4 4-pounders? Something needs to be in between the numbers to separate them, IMHO. Also pinging Parsecboy, Sturmvogel 66, Nick-D, Saberwyn. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
32-pounder and the like is virtually universal in our sources, regardless of how ungrammatical they might be. And the information in the infobox is supposed to be abbreviated as much as is reasonable, so "pdr" for "pounder", etc. And the multiplication sign is needed because you can't spell out any numbers. I strongly disagree with your belief that we can have the number of guns in close proximity to the size or caliber of gun without causing confusion. I know that I'd have to look twice at an entry if it read 12 4 in guns regardless if the unit was spelled out or not, although doing that is somewhat helpful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:33, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for weighing in on the pound/-er question, guys (sorry, I couldn't resist). For me, the -er gets added to pound when gun is omitted. But from poking around wp usage just now, I can see there would be broad resistance to my view. I don't think my personal naval hero Patrick O'Brian ever put pounder gun into any of his characters' speech, but maybe it's been in wide use elsewhere. As for the separation of the two numbers, I think a bigger space would take care of it, but I don't know how to implement that. Eric talk 22:18, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Title problem

Can someone more technically minded see if they can fix the title of French battlecruiser proposals - it shouldn't be italicizing "proposals", and the {{displaytitle}} template apparently won't override it. Parsecboy (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks like Trappist the monk took care of it but is too modest to take credit here. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:10, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

John (1811 ship)

I am looking at creating an article on the sailing vessel John which undertook one convict voyage to New South Wales in 1837 and a emigrant voyage to Port Adelaide in 1840. The Lloyds Register of 1841 has an amendment to the entry saying wrecked, but I can not find any article in Australia that indicates wrecking location or date. Details of John are 1811 London built, barque of 473 tons. Registered in London and Liverpool. Any help would be appreciated. Regards Newm30 (talk) 01:02, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Might be a hard one this, given it was a fairly common name for ships of the time. If you have captain's names, research will be a tad easier. Do you have access to The Times online archive? Mjroots (talk) 18:33, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Doubly hard, as the captain's name was apparently Smith, as per Lloyd's Register 1841 (listed as a ship rather than a barque). Have found reference to a "barque John", master "A Smith" arriving Bombay from Manila 15/3/1841, but nothing more yet. That would be a typical route back from the 1840 Australian voyage
Then there is the obscure wreck of a sailing vessel John off Fremantle in 11/1841: https://dmzapp17p.ris.environment.gov.au/shipwreck/public/wreck/wreck.do?key=4292 though quite possibly an American whaling ship. Davidships (talk) 22:36, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Agree that's probably a whaler. Is also referred to in this article (far right column) in the Perth Inquirer of 12/1841, which states the men who arrived in Fremantle saying the whaler John of New York had sunk, were just deserters making up a tale. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:58, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Removing hull numbers from U.S. Navy ship articles

A lot of U.S. Navy ship articles have been renamed, removing the hull numbers. The rationale for this seems to be that the hull numbers are some sort of disambiguation tags. I seriously question this rationale, and the renaming of these articles. The hull number is an important part of the ship's identity. It almost always appears on deck logs, correspondence, and other official documents, as well as on insignia, and almost anything else having to do with a ship. About the only place it doesn't appear is on some of the rocker tags that enlisted sailors wear on the shoulder of their uniforms. I don't know where the present rationale came from, or if it was the result of an informed discussion, or whatever. Regardless, IMHO a modern ship's hull number is an integral part of its name and its identity, and should not ever be removed from the name of its article. Lou Sander (talk) 23:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Hull numbers are not part of any ship's name. They are purely for identification purposes, and if they are not necessary to identify a specific ship, they should not be present in the article title. This has been discussed numerous times over the years, and consensus is that we follow WP:PRECISE. Parsecboy (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Can you provide a link to some recent discussions? IMHO this practice is really strange. I am in touch with about 300 Navy ship reunion groups, and they pretty much don't follow this practice. Though the hull numbers may not be part of a U. S. Navy ship's name, they are a vital part of its identity in the real world. Lou Sander (talk) 00:32, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I can't recall any such discussions though it's very possible that I missed them. And I agree with Lou Sander; this seems odd. Hull numbers are not essential but considering that many ship names are and have been reused they would seem to be quite useful. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Here is the relevant part of WP:SHIPS. This was the most recent discussion, and there are several links to earlier discussions there.
Ad Orientem - obviously, for ships with repeated names, disambiguation is necessary and hull numbers are an obvious choice to use them. The issue here are ships like USS Cooperstown, which do not share their names with other vessels. Disambiguation is unnecessary, and so per WP:PRECISE and WP:NCSHIPS, should not be used. Parsecboy (talk) 00:48, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Fixed the link to the note at WP:NCSHIPS.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:58, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I've looked at some of the discussion, and it seems to me that it was not done by people familiar with U.S. Navy culture and terminology. Removing the hull numbers from the titles of U.S. Navy ship articles is doing a lot of harm, and it should stop. The damage that has been done so far should be repaired. I'm a former Naval officer who has started 117 articles on U.S. Navy ships. I know quite a lot about this stuff. I'm sitting here wondering why people who appear not to have much subject matter knowledge are savaging so much of the work of others, including my own small contribution. Lou Sander (talk) 01:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
You seem to be operating under a few misconceptions. We are not the USNavypedia. No knowledge of the culture of the US Navy is required to write encyclopedia articles about the organization itself, the ships, or the personnel. Nor does one need to have served in or on the subject to be qualified to write about it. Since you seem to think it matters, I've written 50 Featured Articles and somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 Good Articles on warships - is that enough experience for you? Parsecboy (talk) 09:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Lou on this, but I realize the ship has already sailed on the subject and it's probably not going to be changed. I recall that some items like coats and things issued to the crew of a ship only had the hull number stenciled on them, no name. The hull number is commonly used as short hand and, at least in the USN, it is inextricably linked to the name. They should have been left in the titles. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:24, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

That's well and good, but we're an encyclopedia, and we have a house style for how articles should be titled. And that style prescribes that for unambiguous titles, additional information that is unnecessary for identifying the topic should not be included. Parsecboy (talk) 09:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I know of several ships that had hull numbers before they even had names and certainly before they had "USS" in the name. Beyond that, I can only tell you this: if I create any US navy ship articles in the future, they will be created with the hull number in the title. --Dual Freq (talk) 18:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I'll be happy to move them for you. I like wikignoming. Llammakey (talk) 19:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Not to rehash the same old arguments, but look at some of the US Navy articles and their hull numbers look like somebody puked on a keyboard. AVG/ACV/CVE/CVHP-9. Which one do you pick to start the article off with? It's messy and CVE-9 is the only ship ever named Bogue in the US Navy. It's unnecessary and you can have redirects for all the acronyms you want, there is no limit to space in that sense. The crazy part is that you are fighting to have a number put in the title and yet the intro to many of these articles include every variation of the hull number known to man bolded, making the one in the title not significant in any way. I would argue that ships should disambig according to launch year, but that's something else for another time. Llammakey (talk) 11:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Not to mention the problems one unintentionally creates as a result of unnecessary pre-disambiguation. In the last set of moves I made the other day (which presumably are what got Lou's attention), I came across USCGC Duane, which was at that point a redlink because no one had thought to create a redirect from the primary location. We ought not go out of our way to make articles more difficult to find, solely for the sake of consistency. Parsecboy (talk) 12:08, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I'll admit that I'm an "all or nothing" man on such matters, I like all the articles to adhere to the standards or none of the articles to adhere to the standards. In this case I'd support the hull numbers because it keeps new editors and veteran contributors from wondering whether the article is correctly named, and would make it easier I think for those trying to break into editing for ship articles to pick up the format without having to worry about where the articles should go on a technical level. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:PRECISE is the standard ;) Those of us who've been here a while can always help newbies figure out the more technical aspects of editing. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
True, but remember that life is like the English language we use to edit this encyclopedia: there are rules, and then there are exceptions to those rules. There is no harm in letting this run, though, as consensus is the gold standard it would do us all well to debate the point some to see where the rest of the editors/contributors stand on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but I don't think you have a good case to invoke IAR here. And let's not forget that whatever WP:LOCALCONSENSUS we might develop here does not trump PRECISE, which is a site-wide policy. Parsecboy (talk) 12:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree completely - there is no reason to invoke IAR here - at least not yet (and in all honesty, more than likely not at all). Lets see what the rest of the people think first. On that note, I'm signing off. I've been up all night and I really need some sleep. I'll speak to you all later. Have a good Friday! (PS: I updated the WP:MILHIST template to note this discussion, so hopefully we will see more input as the day goes on. Just wanted to let you know.) TomStar81 (Talk) 12:48, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
100% on board with Parsecboy here. One could argue that we should also get rid of USS, HMS etc for "American battleship ..." and "British battleship ...", but I'll leave that for another day. ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:22, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
I understand the feelings of the U.S. Navy experts, but I think we have to follow the site-wide policy. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:PRECISE doesn't have to be the standard. We can set up a WP:Naming conventions#Explicit conventions for US Navy ships. There are a lot of cruisers and destroyers that have repeating names, you either have to put the hull number or the build year, why not use hull number that outsiders would be familiar with. That's my 2-cents, now flame away.Pennsy22 (talk) 06:30, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
PRECISE is the standard, since that is a site-wide policy, and there are very few exceptions to that policy. No one has removed disambiguation from ships that share names with other vessels. The issue is ships that have unique names - disambiguation is not necessary to identify the ship. Parsecboy (talk) 10:59, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Sierra line of ships

There are a number of ships in the Sierra line that someone might wish to write up. I couldn't find mention of these at present. Images can be viewed at The south Australian Government photo collection

In particular, there are the ships below from the South Australian government collection referenced above:

Peguin blue (talk) 11:26, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Surviving United States Lightships

I just spent this evening changing the Surviving American Lightships section of the Lightships article so that the format is uniform. In the process I ended up changing the titles of a number of the articles (i.e. moving them) on specific surviving lightships so that they follow what appeared to be the established convention. However, from what I can tell, the names and designations of American lightships have changed considerably over the years. This has created a complicated mess in which I have no experience. (FWIW, my focus has been retired military aircraft.) Therefore, I was hoping that someone here would be able to help (read: take over). Thanks. —Noha307 (talk) 03:13, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Prefix for Spanish oceanographic ship names

E.g. BIO Hesperides, BIO stands for 'Buque de Investigación Oceanográfica'. Now, this edit changed/introduces the abbrevs BO and B/O (indeed, I see in google, e.g., 'B/O Sarmiento de Gamboa'), which stands for ' Buque Oceanográfico'. My first question is: are BIO and BO of the same type. The second issue is that similarly to HMS this must be explained in wikipedia in at least three places: BIO (done) and in an article in Category:Ship prefixes, as well as listed in "ship prefix" page. Same for B/O, if necessary. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

This begs a more basic question: should the article be entitled BIO Hesperides at all? This is a naval ship, so should perhaps follow WP:SHIPNAME, bearing in mind that Spain does not itself use a national prefix. I don't think that in English WP we follow the practice of some navies in using ship-type prefixes in their national languages - for example, we have Brazilian training ship Brasil (U27), rather than the authentic NE Brasil or the fake BNS Brasil. Perhaps this one should be Spanish Oceanographic Ship Hespérides, with or without the (A 33)? In any case it can be appropriately spelled out in the Lead, as in [3]. Davidships (talk) 19:31, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Per our naming convention, Spanish research ship Hespérides (A33) would seem to be the correct name for the article. Mjroots (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Drop the hull number and we'd have a winner ;) Parsecboy (talk) 20:32, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Is it the only one? Mjroots (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware. Parsecboy (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Soviet merchant ship histories

Recently, Грищук ЮН has been expanding ship articles, with particular emphasis on merchant ships of the Soviet Union post WWII. I first became aware of this due to edits made to the SS Heinrich Arp article. The history of this ship during the Soviet era was greatly expanded. Unfortunatly, the source used was a forum, which generally fails WP:RS. That said, it is probably the best source available for the information. Manxruler has noted the use of ru-Wiki as a source in places. Whilst I don't want to discourage the improvement of articles, there is also WP:RS to consider. My marking of sources as unreliable was reverted. Raising the issue here for discussion. Mjroots (talk) 07:57, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Articles edited include -

Copied from user talk:Mjroots

Good morning and Many thank Deas Sir!
As You see all seamen talking wia Interned confirmed by the mentiond by other more really sourses which I searched also. And is better if the readers will understand that Sovier press, books often distort reality to bring all information to the Sovit norms.
I still translating the article SS Bratstvo (1963) and this article will looking more really due to ship's captain and crew information via Internet (forusm, captains letter) as during Soviet Union period was only military version do not show that the Soviet military guilty. Also I will ajust some previous my article to show difference in Soviet press and books information and thir discrepancy. It will be article SS Leninsky Komsomol when I will write new article SS Metallurg Baykov due to the construction of the ship Metallurg Baykov had to be completed and handed over before New Year celebration to compleat Shipyard yearly plan in 100%. But due to previous ship Lenisky Komsomol had plenty defficioncies the ship Metallurg Baykov construction was completed after New Year. And in the same book (book about Kherson shipyard) mentioned that the ship Lenisky Komsomol had not defficiencies. Often the Soviet Shipping Companies had to take any ship from Soviet shipyard to show good yearly shipyard plan and the shipyard had to assit the shipping company if futire with this ship: after firts year in operations or earlier the ship visited shipyard again to close defficiencies if it was possible.
I try to write correct information only. If any information in doubt I write it with remarks: like it is position of any person, or it is in doubt, or legend, e.t.c. But any legend is really information partly or fully.
The same time I am traning my English also. It is another side why I have interest to write articles in English Wikipedia.
If you see my mistakes (wrong translated phrazes, missed or wrong characters in the words, e.t.c.) correct please.
And the article SS Liza Chaikina is looking better now. I tried to describe all searched by me information and what was in doubt I described also correctly - like no any good information and only some sources say opposit information. Can be anybody in future will found out the truth.
BRGDS Грищук ЮН (talk) 08:43, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

@Mjroots: Yes, and the citation to Russian-language Wikipedia over at SS Johannes C Russ is back now. Furthermore, I'm concerned over the fact that most of HDMY Dannebrog (1879) appears to be a direct translation of its Danish language source into English, with some minor tweaks. Manxruler (talk) 21:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

SS Nezhin

Good afternoon Dear Sirs, Can be You can give advise to me what to do in this situation. One time (about one month ago) I wrote the text in the article SS Nezhin where was mentioned that the ship had other name before 1974 due (two attached photo in this article confirm this). The text about othe ship's name on English was deleted. Now I found out confirmations and proved this but somebody (one file directly Russian man and I and Ukranian) wants to delete both files.

I already sent messeges to Russian deleter, to see below: 

 The photo maden by me due to my search via Internet. It is Internet search to confirm that ship's name and city name НЕЖИН was written in another manner as Nezshin and not as Nezhin today. I tried to prove it before and only by this search it possible and I afraid that later will not possible to confirm that same. It why this photo placed in article SS Nezhin as if later this search will not possible to do can be will not possible to prove that the ships with Russian name НЕЖИН (built in XIX century) was named on NEZSHIN on English. And Soviet ship НЕЖИН (built in 1954) had nema NEGIN or NEZSHIN before 1974. It delete this confirmation - somebody will delete again the part of text in article SS Nezhin due to absent confirmation. One time I already wrote the same text about and the text was deleted due to confirmation absent. Now the confirmation present, but declared to be deleted. What to do??? How to confirm???

I already described more information in File description part. Can the photo of my Internet search is not good vissible but in case it will be deleted again will not possible to prove that the ship had other English name before 1974. She had name NEGIN before 1974.

Can be You abvise will assist me and my article SS Nezhin.

BRGDS Грищук ЮН (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

SS Nezhin

Here is aiusted by me description o the other FILE:Protocol....

Due to You have interest to the article about the ships here is good information and can be will assit You to search the samen Soviet ship which has some names due to Protocol dated 1974. It is not secret. Now everybody know this extraction of Protocol as everybody in Russia whe receive foreign passport has in this pasport English na,e also and everybody know which rules used for this translation. It is not secret.

Extractions from the Protocol of Third Soviet-American Session regarding maritime shipping dated first part of 1974, the crew members names in English crew lists and ship's names had to be ajusted on English before 1st of June 1974 as per agreement. The copy of this extraction was given on each Soviet ship to ajust properly ship's name and crew full names in Crew List on English. It is not full text of Protocol.

It is confirm that some Soviet ships had other English name before 1974 what I want to say in the article SS Nezhin. It can assist to search information for other articles about the Soviet ships. As example can be SS Leninsky Komsomol due to this ship possible to search by three names.

Also before 1974 Russian family names and names was written not like today due to was not this Protocol yet.

For example:

  • Russian name Evgeny and after 1974 Yevgeniy.
  • Name Alexandr and after 1974 Aleksandr.
  • Ship's name Leninsky Komsomol and after 1974 sometimes Leninskiy Komsomol. And new ship with the same name was built in 1980s has exactly name Leninskiy Komsomol.
  • Ship's name Negin and after 1974 Nezhin.
  • The ship Toyvo Antikaynen received name in honor of fin kommunist Toivo Antikainen and now You understand why the ship/s name and person's name have differences.

On my opinion it will assist in information search for articles.

If you will found out this extraction on English can better.

BRGDS Грищук ЮН (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about template "Template:Infobox ship begin"

You are invited to join the discussion at Template_talk:Infobox_ship_begin#Position_info_available, which is about a template that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:48, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

An interesting discussion has developed on that, though as the basic question is really about the desirability/practicality of indicating or linking to so-called "current positions", rather than the Infobox itself, maybe it should be somewhere else (here, for example). Davidships (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Draft:Stowage plan for container ships

Please evaluate this draft for acceptability (other than the obviously inadequate sourcing). Please post your comments on the draft's talk page. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:08, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Who do we have to bribe to get a response to this request? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:05, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Dear Roger (Dodger67), you don't have to bribe anyone. I have done some hard work on the draft and I think you will find it much improved and IMO ready for main space so that it can be linked to other articles related to it. I have left a 'Comment' at the draft. Cheers, w.carter-Talk 17:30, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Use of non-free image in a list

A discussion is taking place at talk:List of shipwrecks in 1952 re the inclusion of a non-free image in that list. Please make your views known. Mjroots (talk) 05:33, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Purton Hulks

I've just started an article on Purton Hulks "the largest ship graveyard in mainland Britain" and added this project banner (but wasn't sure if it applies as they are "ex-ships/boats"). If anyone can help fill in any information about any of the vessels that would be great.— Rod talk 18:34, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rodw: Abbey and Barge Abbey appear to be the same vessel. Mjroots (talk) 20:03, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
@Mjroots: I thought that however, This specification sheet for Abbey and this one for Barge Abbey have different ID Nos & there is 5 years difference in breaching dates.— Rod talk 06:51, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

See also sections with very broad lists of ships

Editor Robert Brukner has started adding "See also" sections for List of ships of the Second World War and List of ship classes of the Second World War to a bunch of class articles that I watch. The first one is totally inappropriate for class articles, IMO, but I can see a valid argument of sorts for the latter. I could have sworn that we generally discouraged See also sections for our articles in general, but I didn't see anything to that effect in WP:MOSSHIP and an archive search of the first 40 or so references to that term didn't yield anything relevant. Am I misremembering things things or have we just not formally codified an informal policy or guideline?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I believe it hasn't been codified. I remember a discussion about that from a while back. There's been a series of incidents like this where stuff has been discussed but never codified. Hull numbers as disambiguators, launch dates, dates, see also sections. There was an editor who added every type of ship class under the sun to ROK ship class articles the other day but due to the MOS, I couldn't see any reason to revert him. Llammakey (talk) 18:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
@Sturmvogel 66: Hi, If you feel its inappropriate just delete it. But please let me know where and why so I can avoid the error in future. thanks Robert Brukner (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your willingness to be reversed, but I do think that we need to establish something a little more permanent so other people don't spent their time doing the same sort of thing. My objections are that the list of ships of WW2 isn't really relevant to ship class articles and the list of ship classes of WW2 would probably be better handled by a category, not least because there are probably about a thousand different classes of ships that served during the war and a list that large is really too unwieldy to be managed by hand.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:42, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
I thought we had a template somewhere that had a list of all the important ship classes of World War II so as to avoid this issue (or was that a figment of my imagination?) TomStar81 (Talk) 23:43, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
I dunno about that, but I'd prefer a category as that doesn't have be hand-maintained.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:06, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Check out ″Category:Ship classes″. We can create a new sub-category Category:Military Ship classes. Its in line with what has already been developed. Robert Brukner (talk) 23:01, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

If you're going to do that, then we need Category:Merchant ship classes too. Mjroots (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
@Mjroots: @Sturmvogel 66: Do you mean Category: Merchant navy ship classes? That sounds fine to me. Both that, and Category:Military Ship classes and/or maybe Category:Navy Ship classes would seem to be appropriate. Robert Brukner (talk) 21:05, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
To preserve transatlantic neutrality (Navy v Marine) and for non-ambiguous brevity I think that Category:Merchant ship classes is better. Davidships (talk) 00:02, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Template:World's largest wooden ships

After a question raised by an IP on Talk:Götheborg (ship), I wonder if there is any particular reason why the USS Constitution is not included on the Template:World's largest wooden ships? Or does that template simply need an overhaul? w.carter-Talk 11:18, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Constitution is dwarfed by just about any 1st rate ever built, so, no, she shouldn't be in the template, IMO. She maybe large in comparison to surviving tall ships, but I think that the template should be about the biggest ever built, not surviving.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:00, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. In that case should not the Göteborg be removed from that template? Not only is she smaller that the Constitution, she's also a modern rebuild. w.carter-Talk 13:17, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
The template has little purpose-- it lacks criteria and is populated in a haphazard manner. There are both ships and and least one barge, and long-gone vessels as well as extant ships (both in and out of the water). And what is the measure of size? Tons burthen (and, if so, US or British measurement)? Gross register tonnage, net register tonnage, or gross tonnage? Capacity, and if so, by what measure? What is the practical use of this template? Kablammo (talk) 13:20, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
It's good trivia, at least. Needs sourcing. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 13:22, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
If displacement is the chosen measure of size, it would be impossible to source for virtually all merchant ships, and most naval vessels as well.Kablammo (talk) 13:26, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
So I guess someone just thought it would look good with a footer on these pages and cooked up something. ;) Anyway, thanks for this little chat, I think I'll leave this to better captains than I. w.carter-Talk 13:46, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

nvr

It appears that someone at nvr decided that it would be a good idea to change the path portion of the url to all uppercase:

{{NVR|http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/DDG81.htm}} – as it used to be (doesn't didn't work – does now because of a temporary patch applied to the template; see below)
Public Domain This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
{{NVR|http://www.nvr.navy.mil/NVRSHIPS/DETAILS/DDG81.HTM}} – as it is now (does work)
Public Domain This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.

There are about 770 pages that use {{NVR}} and about 2500 links to http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/ (list).

The simple fix for the template is to just force the path provided in {{{1}}}to be uppercase. Independent uses of links to nvr will require modification in the wikitext.

Is there a better solution? We could do something sort of similar to {{navsource}} and change the {{NVR}} template to provide most of the url and have it accept just the hull number so that when someone at nvr decides that uppercase is bad an changes the path to lower or mixed case, we only need to change one thing to fix the template. So {{NVR}} would change from:

{{NVR|http://www.nvr.navy.mil/NVRSHIPS/DETAILS/DDG81.HTM}}

to:

{{NVR|DDG81}}

We could create another template: {{NVR URL}} which would accept the hull number and simply create a url suitable for use in cs1|2 citations or anywhere else that a bare url is needed. We could also make this template accept a title so that it would create a properly formatted external link:

{{NVR URL|DDG81}} → http://www.nvr.navy.mil/NVRSHIPS/DETAILS/DDG81.HTM
{{NVR URL|DDG81|''Winston S. Churchill''}} → Winston S. Churchill

This template could be called from {{NVR}}.

For the time being I'll work on getting {{NVR}} to force the path to uppercase. —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

{{NVR}} updated so now both examples at the top of this discussion work. This should only be a temporary fix; it's a bit ugly.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:43, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Two new templates {{NVR url}} for the urls to ship detail pages and {{NVR SC url}} for the urls to service craft detail pages. I used AWB to replace the broken urls in {{NVR}} and in external links and citation templates with the two new templates. I hand tweaked the nvr.navy.mil urls that point to locations other than detail pages. Because of the new templates, the fix to force the path portion of the url to uppercase in {{NVR}} was no longer needed so I have reverted that change.
I did not 'fix' NVR detail links on user or talk pages.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:01, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Renaming new Sibir nuclear icebreaker

I was on the way to create a Sibir (LK-60Ya) article, but, following the Template:Nuclear-powered icebreakers of Russia I found a Sibir (2019 nuclear icebreaker). I have opened a talk, to have consensus of what to do. --Robertiki (talk) 01:20, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

In the media, this icebreaker class is typically referred to as "Project 22220" or, less commonly, "LK-60", but not "LK-60Ya". Personally, I'm very strongly against using Russian project numbers or other numeric codes as disambiguators; year and ship type should be fine. I also really dislike the term "nuclear icebreaker" as these are "nuclear-powered icebreakers", but can accept that if others like it. Regardless, we should strive for consistency, and thus I'd prefer the following which is in line with other icebreaker articles:
Of course, the biggest problem is that the new icebreaker class is yet to be referred to by its lead name. I believe that the Russian sources are doing this deliberately to avoid mixing it with the old Arktika class (and also because they seem to like their project numbers so much that they come up with numbers even for projects which do not have an officially assigned Russian project number). Thus, we can leave the class article at "Project 22220 nuclear icebreaker" or something for the time being. Tupsumato (talk) 03:44, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Before taking a position about your list, I don't agree in letting "Project 22220 nuclear icebreaker", because I can see two reasons why it is commonly referred:
1) because until a couple of years ago it was only a project and the first ship exists only today
2) because “Project 22220” has proliferated thanks to Wikipedia.
Proof ?
“Project 22220 nuclear-powered icebreaker” (Wikipedia named) gets 3520 hits
"Project 22220 nuclear icebreaker" gets 1760 hits
"Project 22220 icebreaker" gets 509 hits
Writing a cumbersome “nuclear-powered” is less natural than simply putting a “nuclear”, so I feel that usage is influenced from what found in Wikipedia.
We should concentrate on recent sources, and it looks you are right: LK-60 is preferred above LK-60Ya. But LK-60Ya makes sense, because:
  • LK stand for icebreaker (Ledokoly), and class (klass) (stands also for not related ship-of-the-line - Lineynyy korabl' -)
  • 60 for the power in MW
  • Я translates to Ya and stands for nuclear (Yadernoy, stripping Ya-dernoy)
Use of LK-60 is justified because we have already 180 hits for "LK-110" "icebreaker", the next LK-110 class of icebreakers, so it looks that the russians are sticking to the LK coding (Ledokoly klassa), with 39 hits also for LK-110Ya searching with "LK-110Ya" "icebreaker" (I add "icebreaker" to strip away what maybe hits not relating to icebreakers). I would also remark that LC-25 or LK-25 (depending how klassa is translated, as K or C) are diesel icebreakers, as per Viktor Chernomyrdin (icebreaker), and that justifies my preference toward a trailing Ya for nuclear powered icebreakers. So, I feel that LK-60 is simply a lazy carryover from the sources of the complete LK-60Ya naming. That is what I have looked on yesterday, for yours.
About the naming, I may agree about dropping nuclear and:
but propose:
because there is no certainty that the Sibir will be launched in 2019. Once launched, we may change the name to Sibir (year_of_launch icebreaker). --Robertiki (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Sibir (planned 2019 nuclear icebreaker)? If that becomes an article? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I was on the way to create a Sibir (LK-60Ya) article. You are right, non need to move, space is empty, only a redirect to the class. Only need to change redirect. --Robertiki (talk) 17:09, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
We don't need to disambiguate by adding in "nuclear". Therefore "(shipname) icebreaker" or "(shipname) (dabyear) icebreaker" is fine for article titles. Mjroots (talk) 18:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Sibir is already under construction, so IMHO we can disambiguate by planned launching year without identifying it as "planned" in the article name. If the launch year changes, we can just move the article. I could even accept the same scheme for Ural. Tupsumato (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm definitely against using different disambiguation styles in different articles — we should follow the same style through all icebreaker articles (except ships that are commissioned naval vessels, for they have a different disambiguation style). For some reason, WP:NC-SHIPS does not support "(<year> <type>)" for civilian ships, but at least disambiguation by launching year is accepted. At least for now, all ships named Sibir in Wikipedia are icebreakers. Are there any preceding cases of civilian ship classes where ships of the same name had to be disambiguated?
As for "K vs. C", the Russians themselves have used "LK" e.g. in conference papers and presentations since the 1990s (e.g. page 25), although I've even seen "IB60" in some presentations. However, these are general icebreaker classes based on propulsion power — once the Russians have a project number, they'll use that; e.g. Project 22600 instead of LK-25 or Project 21900(M) instead of LK-16(M). Yet, existing ship classes are also referred by the lead vessel, not by project number. Perhaps LK-60/Project 22220 will become known as "new Arktika class" or something.
Anyway, let's wait for comments from other editors before doing any dramatic article moves. Regardless of what we end up with, it should be logical. Tupsumato (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Same name ships: Rotterdam. Discovery (1602 ship), Discovery (cruise ship) (a redirect), Discovery (fireboat), and RRS prefixed: RRS Discovery, RRS Discovery (1962), RRS Discovery (2013), SS Europa (1922), SS Europa (1928), and MS prefixed MS Europa, Independence (cruise ship), Independence (schooner), ... --Robertiki (talk) 21:52, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I think Tupsomato's suggestions makes sense, seeing as they are in accordance with guidelines by not being overly specific, by providing disambiguation and by including the type of ship. Manxruler (talk) 02:02, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree the most, apart for:
until launched, it is better to use a temporary coding (otherwise, at launch day, the web would be filled with a "2019" Sibir that maybe is launched in 2018 or 2020). I see no problem in moving in the future the name of Sibir to:
once it is launched in the sea (and acutual xx date is known). --Robertiki (talk) 02:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
I still don't understand what's wrong with using a planned launch date in the article title? I mean, it's information that can be cited from WP:RS, e.g. here. If it changes, we'll just move the article and clean up Wikipedia from the incorrect launch date. I'm strongly against "LK-60Ya" because it simply makes no sense for the general public whereas "2019 icebreaker" clearly shows that it's an icebreaker scheduled to be launched in the near future. Tupsumato (talk) 04:12, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
As for "web being filled" with a wrong launch date, I wouldn't be too worried. Today, the web seems to be full of badly-translated Russian icebreaker press releases (not just this project) that are typically copied word-to-word from one Western news aggregator to another, or otherwise articles full of strange factual errors or inconsistencies. For example, in this article on Daily Mail they talk about "ice up to 10 feet thick, and 13 feet deep", and I have absolutely no idea what that means. Also, the commissioning dates for Sibir and Ural are set in stone, not indicated as planned like we would do it here in Wikipedia. Tupsumato (talk) 04:41, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Tupsumato. Nuclear icebreaker is too specific and a random hull number is not descriptive enough. 2019 icebreaker is a nice middle ground. Besides, if the ship is never built, the hull number could be used again. The purported launch date will not be. I'd also like to ask the question about creating articles for ships that have yet to be constructed. Shouldn't all this info end up on a more general coverage page until the ship has actually been constructed? Llammakey (talk) 12:25, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
Sibir is already under construction, so creating an article for it shouldn't be an issue, but IMHO Ural can wait until we actually see something on the slipway. Tupsumato (talk) 14:09, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree, Ural can wait. Last question: in other talk, an editor, suggested NS Arktika, that would imply:
Following problem: MS, NS and SS should always be used ? What are the rules ? --Robertiki (talk) 00:52, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
We should discourage the use of prefixes unless they are already widely used (e.g. RMS Titanic). The nuclear-powered icebreakers are rarely, if ever, referred to by the prefix "NS". It is also completely redundant as a disambiguator as we already have year and ship type. Tupsumato (talk) 08:26, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Maybe, only a thought, widely used by the Russian classification would suggest KM(★) Arktika (1972 icebreaker), KM(★) Arktika (2016 icebreaker), KM(★) Sibir (1977 icebreaker), ...
My last hurdle is about ship classes with same name (as per your proposal Arktika-class icebreaker (1975) and Arktika-class icebreaker (2017). I found a preceding case Independence class. It gives a choice between Independence-class littoral combat ship with Lead ship USS Independence (LCS-2) and Independence-class aircraft carrier, with lead ship USS Independence (CVL-22). No year in class name because of different type ships, but it gives an approach on how to manage the class name. Following Russian new ship classification would suggest:
Classification source and Ice class. Also a naming description. --Robertiki (talk) 14:49, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
I see your pair of Independence classes and raise you with two pairs:
Also, let's not make things complicated with classification society notations — would you book a cruise on +1A1 Passenger ship BIS COMF(V-1) ECO F(M) Fuel(700 cSt, 991 kg/m3, 0 °C) LCS(DC) RP(S) Oasis of the Seas?
Both the old Arktika and the new Arktika belong to the same sub-type of ships: "nuclear-powered icebreaker". However, as per WP:NC-SHIPS, we should not be overly specific with the type, so "icebreaker" should be fine. Tupsumato (talk) 15:43, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Could any of the more experienced editors help us out a bit? While there are preceding cases for using "name-class type (year)" for similarly-named ship classes, in this case we have the following complications:

  • The old Arktika class is widely referred to as "Arktika class", but the new class of nuclear-powered icebreakers has been referred to by either the project number "Project 22220" or Russian icebreaker type "LK-60Ya". Considering that pretty much all Soviet and Russian ship classes are referred to by the lead vessel, should we expect it to happen in this case as well and, more importantly, can we use it as the article name without violating WP:CRYSTAL?
  • Assuming the first issue can be solved in favor of the proposed naming scheme, should we disambiguate the ship classes by launch year of the lead vessel (1972 and 2016) or the year when the first vessel of the class entered service (1975 and 2017). In case of the latter, the entry to service is of course planned and may change, but this is often the case with ships that are under construction.

In my opinion, we need to come up with a solution and perhaps write it up to WP:NC-SHIPS as there are future cases where the same issue may arise once the articles are completed, for example Moskva-class icebreaker (1960) and Moskva-class icebreaker (2008). Tupsumato (talk) 16:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

From class articles: ship classes may need to be disambiguated:
By date:
King George V-class battleship (1911)
King George V-class battleship (1939)
So disambiguation should be as your first proposal:
Arktika-class icebreaker (1975)
Arktika-class icebreaker (2017)
... if only the new class was already named. Should we force the LK-60 type of ships as Arkitka-class before the Russians do it ? We should not expect it to happen for sure. From the convention above: when the class is not named after a member of the class, the class name is not italicized, for example the Battle class of destroyers is named after battles, about class of ships not named after a ship, we learn the reason is that there is no HMS Battle that is a member of that class. If we name the class LK-60Ya-class icebreaker it should be acceptable, also if there is no ship with the name LK-60Ya; until the Russians sources start to name the new class as Arktika, if it happens. I don't like to refer to 22220 because it's only a number. Following Russians sources ru-wiki writes LK-60Ya. So, for now, we could let the classes as they already are, and move all ships following WP:NC-SHIPS, as your first proposal. Sometimes, waiting is the better solution. --Robertiki (talk) 20:44, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
One of the issues of using "LK-60Ya" is that it's a "type size category" introduced in Perspective types of Arctic icebreakers and their principal characteristics by Tsoy et al. in POAC'95 whereas "Project 22220" refers to the specific design of the new Arktika, Sibir and Ural. Theoretically, there could be several different designs (identified by project number) for each "type size category". This is actually the case with Project 21900/21900M (LK-16/LK-16M), although the latter design is a further development of the former instead of being completely new design.
Anyway, I'm ok with waiting in case of the class article. However, the individual ship articles should be disambiguated by "(type)" or "(year type)", with the year being the (planned) year of launching and type being "icebreaker". Tupsumato (talk) 07:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
Ships just moved, new names are:
Also updated Template:Nuclear-powered icebreakers of Russia. --Robertiki (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
Edited two redirect pages to {{Shipindex}}:
If it looks alright, other will follow. About the new Sibir and planned Ural, I have made the following labels:
As a matter of fact, we are only sure that the first is laid down and the second is planned. In the future we may move the names as appropriate. --Robertiki (talk) 14:15, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
IMHO we can use the planned launch date for article name consistency. A future launch date includes the term "planned" or "laid", and if the ship is launched when planned, we don't have to move the article. Otherwise, we always have to move it. Tupsumato (talk) 15:14, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
It is not a good thing to have wrong names thriving under the search engines on the web. Many sites blindly duplicate wikipedia without updating and propagate disinformation. I don't see any difficulty in moving a article. Nothing goes lost, not even the Talk page. And it takes only minutes. The temporary discriminators (laid or planned) are self explanatory and will never be a potential source of misunderstandings. --Robertiki (talk) 15:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

After so much debating, I have to admit that I cannot find a reliable source where the launch date of Sibir has been stated. This is likely due to the fact that unlike keel laying and delivery dates, launch date is not relevant for contractual issues. Therefore the only reliably citeable future date regarding Sibir is the planned delivery date (25 December 2019). So, if we were to disambiguate by year, I would propose Sibir (2019 icebreaker) which is obviously against WP:NC-SHIPS. This makes me wonder why WP:SHIPS has chosen to disambiguate ships by launch year anyway when it is the least important of the three major dates (keel laying, launching, delivery)? Oh well, it was decided before my time...

I guess the reason is that the launch year is objectively defined: the ship touches water and floats in a univocal instant. Delivery date may be a question of interpretation, some bureaucrat has to sign a piece of paper. --Robertiki (talk) 00:38, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
I guess you are correct. All ships are launched sooner or later. Tupsumato (talk) 05:16, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, I am still against "laid icebreaker" for a few reasons. First of all, this disambiguation has never been used before, so we would be creating a new convention — better keep it as simple as possible. Secondly, while I'm not a native English speaker, I think "laid" is not the correct term when talking about keel laying. While the keel is "laid", the ship as a whole is "laid down" on the slipway. However, I don't think it's proper to talk about a "planned" ship either when the hull is 11% complete and the construction is ongoing. Planned ships are those that are still on the drawing boards. Still, it's definitely better than "laid", so my proposals are Sibir (2019 icebreaker) (disambiguation by planned year of completion in lieu of launch year; something that can be cited with WP:RS) and if that is not accepted, Sibir (planned icebreaker) (for a ship that is under construction).

Tupsumato (talk) 19:03, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, you get your point. And finding an alternative for both cases is better (we reduce to one move). Instead of laid and planned, what if to be ? or project ? or queued ? next ? coming ? forthcoming ? I am through some synonyms. Hmmm ... wait: Sibir (coming icebreaker) could get both planned and in construction. --Robertiki (talk) 00:24, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
I think we should settle for "planned", for it fits everything from vessels still on the drawing board to ships on the slip awaiting launching. If the planned launch year can be reliably cited, that should be used instead. Less options for disambiguators is better. Tupsumato (talk) 05:16, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Ship template question

... over at WT:MILHIST. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:04, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Sun deck, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:07, 18 July 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Move discussion

Please join in the move discussion at Talk:Essex (whaleship)! –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:37, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

USATSS

I was reading a WWII book on a fighter squadron and it made reference to the USATSS President Coolidge. We have an article on SS President Coolidge, and I found that WP refers to these ships as USAT, so I created USAT President Coolidge as a redirect. I also added it to List of ships of the United States Army. My question is about USATSS. My book says it means U.S. Army Transport Ship. But it is not used anywhere in WP. I thought about creating USATSS as a redirect to USAT, but USAT is a dab page. So USATSS would have to redirect to List of ships of the United States Army. Is this reasonable, or should I consider the use of USATSS in the book so uncommon that it's not worth even mentioning? MB 16:58, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Just found that USATSS can also mean U.S. Army Technical Support Squadron. So maybe I will create USATSS as a dab page. MB 17:14, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
In this case, I don't think Coolidge would be considered a squadron. What I think this book has done is merge the prefixes, as in USAT SS President Coolidge. SS meaning Steamship. Llammakey (talk) 17:17, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
The exact text in the book is "USATSS (U.S. Army Transport Ship) President Coolidge", so it looks intentional.
It may be intentional by the writer, but it looks as if Carl Molesworth - an undoubted specialist in WW2 aviation, but not shipping - has made it up (and not even very well as he loses an "S" in his explanation). It doesn't surface as an abbreviation anywhere else in Google Books nor more generally, and is not used by David Grover in "US Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II", a leading authority on this subject. Suggest ignore as no reliable source. Davidships (talk) 02:32, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. I did some further searching myself today and didn't find any other uses of USATSS either, so it probably is an error by Molesworth. MB 04:33, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Category discussion

There is a discussion re the categorization of ship articles at WT:SHIPWRECK#Categorization issue. Input from members of this Wikiproject is requested. Mjroots (talk) 07:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

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