Category talk:Lists of ship commissionings

Civilian and/or Military?

The Lists of ship commissionings have apparently been subject to multiple interpretations over what exactly should be included in these particular lists. The main problem revolves around the term 'commissioning'. I assumed that these lists were for military vessels and had been removing any civilian vessels on the lists when I was informed that other editors had interpreted the lists to include civilian ships entering into official service. Several possible solutions include, but are not limited to:

1. Create seperate lists of civilian and military vessels
2. Rename the lists to something less military oriented
3. Leave the name alone and use it for both types anyways

Please leave your recommendations and/or comments.Cromdog (talk) 00:37, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Ship commissioning is a very military term, so if this category retains its current name, I support removing all strictly commercial vessels. Personally, I have no objection to renaming the category to something more universal for both civilian and military, and that would be my first choice - the only challenge is lining up a bot to make the category conversions. If others object to that solution, my second preference would be placing civilian ships in their own comparable category. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Most ships not in a Naval force are not "Commissioned Ships". I've noticed in looking throughout the global naval forces that only those of a Navy are commissioned, and not always even in they are in a Navy (Sea Fighter) if they are not going to be "in harms way" but used for research purposed only. This also applies to many ships of the US Military Sealift Command such as the USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE-1). Leobold1 (talk) 01:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts ... Separate lists for military and commercial vessels would have certain advantages - the table format could be optimized for the two types better (no "pennant" field for commercial ships, no "flag" field for military ones) and the two types wouldn't "clutter" each other's lists. On the other hand, there are a large number of ships that have had both a commercial career and a naval career - most are originally commercial ones, but sometimes navy ships later refit for commercial service. Having them suddenly jump from one list to the other could cause confusion. And as Leobold1 notes above, not all military vessels are commissioned, so which list should they be in? ...That actually pretty much outlines the pros and cons on renaming the lists as well - except that this option would mean a lot less work than separate lists, as the only change actually needed is the name change. Option number 3, leaving things as they are, is definately the least desirable of the three we currently have. On the whole I'm leaning towards renaming the lists, into something along the lines of "List of ships that entered service in XXXX" (and "List of ships that left service in XXXX" for the current decommissionings lists), as the easiest and least confusing option. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 10:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to separate mil/civ lists. Non-warships, whatever their use, fall outside "commissioned". As for "jumping", I'd say put them on both lists with a "year used" tag. Ones like the merchant aircraft carriers will fall under "commissioned" anyhow, & then it's a "fate" or "decommissioned". Trekphiler (talk) 12:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that many ship info boxes simply list the ones that weren't commissioned as "Not Commissioned" or "Not placed in Commission". This could be used for the Military ships that were never commissioned. The problem comes with civillian ships that are used as part of a Military command, but this could be a 3rd list. As to the ones that are started as a civillian ship and then placed into military service (or vice versa) could be listed in both lists with a comment that it was launched as a civillian/military ship and the name of the ship. Leobold1 (talk) 20:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I for one am not very keen in having three separate list pages for entering and leaving service for each year. One possiblity, as a mid-road proposal between 1 & 2 in Cromdog's list, would be to rename the individual pages into "ships that entered/left service in XXXX" but then include the commissioned military, uncommissioned military and commercial ships as separate lists within the page - this would also alleviate the problem of "jumping" ships. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 21:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Kjet, I think that would be the best idea for now. If these lists eventually become cumbersome, they can be split apart if needed. Cromdog (talk) 21:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)