Talk:Second VA-64 (U.S. Navy)

Some of this page is from the US Navy's Naval Historical Center , in a work entitled the "Dictionary of American Naval Squadrons", as such, it is the work of a US Government agency and in the public domain, not under copyright protection. Toddst1 (talk) 17:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Move to VA-64 seems out of step

If you look at Category:Attack_squadrons_of_the_United_States_Navy, most of the articles are "Attack Squadron..." not "VA-n". In fact many VA-n article are redirects or DABs. I think this should be moved back to Attack Squadron 64 (U.S. Navy). If there's a naming guideline here, we're not doing a good job following it. Toddst1 (talk) 14:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Look at it the other way. Most if not all of the other squadron articles are like VP-45 etc. etc. The problem is they need to be disambiguated from the Virginia state highways which also use VA as an abbreviation. The (US Navy) is there to disambiguate. If you ask any US Navy airman what squadron heor she is on they will give the designation like VA-65. So it is the Attack Squadron titles that are out of step.--Petebutt (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok what you say makes sense. Having only looked at the attack squadrons, I came to a different conclusion but in the broader context, you appear to be right. Toddst1 (talk) 14:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Second?

Just came back to this and it appears that @Lou Sander: has moved this article to Second VA-64 (U.S. Navy) with no reference to any "first" squadron on any talk page or in the article and there's a redirect from VA-64 (U.S. Navy) to Second VA-64 (U.S. Navy) . Unless someone can explain why this move was legit, it should be moved back to VA-64 (U.S. Navy). Toddst1 (talk) 15:00, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

A year ago or so I started this article and a large number of others about Naval Aviation squadrons. It was extremely difficult to decide what to name many of them, because of complicated lineages, confusion (in the case of attack squadrons) with articles about Virginia highways, etc. I REALLY worked hard on optimizing the naming of these articles. I don't remember the details, but I ended up by naming the articles by the name that DANAS used for them. Those names look crazy to some people, but they apparently make a lot of sense to the folks who wrote DANAS. The more I looked at DANAS, the more I respected the excellence and integrity of their work, and the less I questioned their decisions on names. So if somebody questions the naming of an article, they need to look closely at DANAS, because in my experience there is always a good reason for the name (allowing for errors by me, of course, but I don't make many of them in this area).

Things have grown more complicated recently, because the location and organization of the DANAS online version has changed quite a bit. The information is still up there, but it has moved and isn't as easy to access. Hope this helps. Lou Sander (talk) 21:47, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Uh. You didn't start this article.[1] Toddst1 (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

To get the straight dope on Second VA-64, you need to go to the current location for this stuff, then look at or download the section that includes VA-64, and also Appendix 6, which discusses the VA-64 lineage. I'd be glad to put those links into the article, but I'm traveling and only have access to a computer that makes that pretty hard to do. Lou Sander (talk) 22:02, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but that source only refers to the squadron as "second" in the header section, then it goes on to talk about VA-64 as is there is only one (as does every other source):

"Established as Attack Squadron SIXTY FOUR (VA-64) on 1 July 1961. ..."

It makes no sense to refer to the squadron as "second" since Grossnick is the only source that refers to it that way (even the USN didn't). Specifically, VB-17 was briefly reclassified as VA-64 between 27 Jul 1948 and 08 Apr 1949 according to Grossnick's appendix 6. If anything, we should include that the seemingly WP:NN VB-17 was briefly named VA-64 in this article, but it appears the official name of the squadron is "VA-64" not "Second VA-64". Toddst1 (talk) 04:54, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

The naming of squadrons is a hugely complicated situation, due to the comings and goings of squadrons, the frequent renamings, the changes in naming procedures over the years, etc. A lot of stuff in DANAS is devoted to clarifying the situation, and Appendix 6 seems to be sort of the ultimate reference on it. The naming of Wikipedia articles about squadrons is also a hairy situation, because of the conflict with Virginia highways, the somewhat unusual use of "second", "third", etc. in the authoritative reference work, and several other situations that I don't remember right now. There was a LOT of discussion of this stuff when I was adding the squadron articles. Believe me, I've spent many, many hours struggling with the situation myself, and trying to find the best way to refer to squadrons. I don't seek to get into any arguments about it, and I don't claim that my way is the only way, though it HAS received a lot of thought; instead I seek to have Wikipedia's approach be a rational one. If you are determined to name the article VA-64, nobody would complain too loudly, but you should probably include the fact that it is the second squadron with this name, and that it is listed as Second VA-64 in in DANAS. Just because the first VA-64 may not be notable enough to have its own article in Wikipedia doesn't change the fact that the current VA-64 is the second one to bear that name, or that if somebody wants to find the present VA-64 in DANAS, they need to be looking for Second VA-64. Lou Sander (talk) 05:42, 31 May 2016 (UTC)