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Support/oppose

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Medium-strength oppose. Back during the RfC I was a weak oppose. Having since had more time to think on it, and since having more experiences looking up ship articles, and after seeing the specific proposed wording, my opposition has strengthened somewhat. I have four main issues with this:

The first is ...to be disambiguated by year of launch only.... All other forms of disambiguation (including ... pennant/hull number, ship type...) are depreciated. and since this is the main point of the proposal, as I understand it, this is thus my biggest point of opposition. As stated at the RfC, System "A" is useful in some situations, un-helpful in others, likewise with System "B". yes, "A" is imperfect and so is "B", so why FORCE one or the other system? Let the editor use what's appropriate in the particular case.

Secondly Deemphasise the use of prefixes for civilian vessels unless part of the common name. Prefixes are (almost) always needed to disambiguate from the vessels namesake.

Thirdly, in cases where this only one vessel of the name, why is any disambiguation needed at all? An example I recently came across is RMS St Helena (1989). Brevity is, in most cases, better in article titles. Since the article is titled with a year, it requires an additional re-direct at RMS St Helena. Is there anyone who would really enter a search string of "St Helena (1989)" when looking for the wikipedia article on this ship? no, they would either enter "RMS St Helena" or "St Helena (ship)"

Update: I just found out there were two previous ship's of the same name of "St Helena", but the overall point still stands (and even adds another point), the article titled "RMS St Helena" would make far more sense (and be far more useful) than "St Helena (1989)" or it's current "RMS St Helena (1989)". Likewise the oldest vessel's article should stay as it is, namely "St Helena (1814 ship)" rather than "St Helena (1814)" as this proposal would rename it, because a year without context is meaningless (was someone named Helena made a saint in 1814 by the church?). The second vessel named St Helena is a little less clear, but serves to reinforce my prior points (and really they could all use hat-note's linking one another). Gecko G (talk) 19:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably you mean SS St Helena (1936), which was torpedoed and sunk by U-124 on 12 April 1941. Mjroots (talk) 06:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
ok, three previous.... ;) Gecko G (talk) 08:56, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fourthly, as stated back at the RfC, this seems such a minor issue (has anyone actually reported significant problems trying to find an article as it is?) that the whole thing just seems to be WP:CREEP.

Thank you, Gecko G (talk) 19:38, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments and discussion

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Can a bot be used to move the pages

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Assuming this proposal is accepted, we will need to check over 26,000 articles (This number is derived from transclusions of the {{infobox ship career}} section of the ship infobox) to determine which ones to move, and then move a significant chunk of that total.

I have posted at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Feasability of using a bot to determine and move large number of pages for updated guideline, asking for advice on if a bot could check if articles already have a parenthical disambiguator, check if that disambiguator corresponds to the year of launch, then move the article if not. A second bot operation could generate a list of articles using a civilian ship prefix, so humans can check if the prefix needs to be removed as unnecessary, replaced by year of launch disambiguation, or is part of the ship's common name. -- saberwyn 03:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A reply at Bot Requests suggests that this is feasible, with recommendations on the bot's workflow, and the note that nothing will happen until the proposal (or at least the part on how ships will be disambiguated) gets 'locked in' by consensus. -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Trickle-down to other guidelines/items

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Assuming this proposal is accepted, there are other guideline pages (at WP:SHIPS and elsewhere) that may need to be updated. Below is a list of ones off the top of my head.

Can anybody think of any others? -- saberwyn 03:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

General comments and discussions

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Comments from Mjroots

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Disambiguation of sailing vessels

Can we make this specific? The term "ship" needs to be clarified as meaning a full-rigged ship, and no other type of vessel. I don't want to see (full-rigged ship) as a disambiguator where (ship) works perfectly well.

  • Question: How will Wikipedia refer to large floaty things on the water that are not 'ships', and how does this help the non-expert reader/editor? -- saberwyn 12:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • You mean such things as oil rigs / FPSOs etc? I think they are treated much the same as ships. For the non-expert reader/editor, either they will have some idea of a vessel they are looking for, or there will be a shipindex page in place for vessels that share names. Mjroots (talk) 12:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have misinterpreted your comment. I thought you meant that "ship" = "full-rigged ship" and nothing else is allowed to use the term. -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not as a disambiguator. Mjroots (talk) 05:51, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • If (ship) is to be used as a disambiguator and locked down to mean "full rigged ship", I think there should be 'wiggle room' to use it as a placeholder when the article-creator does not know or is uncertain as to the type of ship the article subject is. The general reader/editor is not going to be an expert in age-of-sail rigging styles, so will (correctly) assume that ship is a generic term for a large floaty thing. Once the more specific type is determined, we can always move the article to a more correct title. -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. The great divide in nautical terminology comes with mechanical power. The barque Name, ship Name or brigintine Name were the common names of the time. I support recognition that by using the "Name (rig)" format. Due to the reuse of full rigged sailing "ship" names in more recent times for powered vessels the "Name (ship) can lead to confusion. Palmeira (talk) 13:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Further disambiguation

This needs to be addressed. For sailing vessels, disambiguation by rig, or year and rig is the general method in use. For non-sailing vessels, disambiguation is generally by builder and year. If this is not possible, it may be possible to disambiguate by month and year.

Have you introduced conflicting requirements / examples into §Disambiguation?

The requirement is: to use only year of launch; the contradictory requirement is to disambiguate sailing vessels by rig: the example is Santa Maria (ship)
The examples are SS Canberra and FV Girl Pat; the requirement is: Prefixes should not be added to a title for the sole purpose of disambiguating articles.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:13, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those examples as originally given contradicted other examples previously occurring and established use. The Girl Pat article should really be at FV Girl Pat, but whilst this discussion is going on and until the new proposal has superseded the old convention, there is no point in moving articles around. In Santa María's case, it may well be that Santa Maria (1460 ship) is going to be needed to disambiguate that vessel from others of a similar name. Mjroots (talk) 13:05, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that I have failed to communicate. In Editor Saberwyn's original writing, the ship names were disambiguated with a year: Santa Maria (1460), Girl Pat (1935), and Canberra (1957). This accorded with the immediately preceding statements:
"If disambiguation from other topics is required, add the year of the ship's launch to the end of the article title in parentheses. No other forms of disambiguation are valid."
and with the last statement in the section:
"Prefixes should not be added to a title for the sole purpose of disambiguating articles."
When you changed the examples, you did not change the accompanying text. You have changed the section to permit disambiguation by rig, but that is contrary to the "No other forms" rule. Similarly, a prefix is a form of disambiguation so contrary to the "No other forms" rule and also seems to run afoul of the "Prefixes should not ..." rule.
Do not mistake me, I am not opposed to the changes that you have made, it just seems that the rules regarding disambiguation are not now as clear as they were in Editor Saberwyn's original.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted Mjroots changes. The main point of this proposal is, per the RFC and previous discussions, to standardise first-level disambiguation format as "(yyyy)". [D]o you mind if I add a bit to the proposal covering further disambiguation[?] to me means adding suggestions for second-level disambiguation for cases where first-level disambiguation is not sufficient. What you did was rewrite examples to completely contradict the proposal, specifically the points of standardising disambiguation and depreciating prefixes that are not part of a subject ship's common name. -- saberwyn 08:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Further to above, I concede that I may have overreacted. Mjroots, I apologise. I have started a dedicated section below for the specific discussion of second-level disambiguation methods. -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Shipindex pages

Pursuant to the most recent discussion, we should move to "List of ships named Foo" as the best way of handling situations where there are many types of vessel with the same name. The existing arrangement can continue in place for vessels where this is not a problem. If there are motor vessels and steamships with the same name, then they should move to the list format.

  • These are where readers find their target out of multiple entities, including ships, with the name. I would suggest the index description include advice to briefly list the hull/pennant numbers with inclusive dates for naval ships to assist searchers that may often be using an external reference, a report or news article for example, that uses a particular contemporary designation during a ship's operational life. Some form similar to:
USS Wasp (1943), aircraft carrier laid down as Oriskany 18 March 1942, renamed Wasp on 13 November 1942, launched 17 August 1943; designated CV-18 1943—October 1952, CVS-18 November 1956—July 1972 when decommissioned.
That should include propulsion changes for a ship so that searchers will not be confused by references to SS Name that became MS Name in the years after modernization. For example:
Name, a cargo and passenger vessel launched XXXX, steam powered SS Name 1920—1947, diesel powered MS Name 1947—1951 disposal.
I expect most general readers come here after finding some mention of ships in news reports, personal papers or stories in which either prefixes or hull/pennant numbers are mentioned that may only apply to a period in the ship's operational life. This would assist in one stop identification. Palmeira (talk) 13:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That was in the very initial form of the proposal, but I stripped it out shortly after publishing, on the thought that the content of shipindex pages is outside the scope of naming conventions, and would be of more use as part of WP:SHIPMOS#Index pages. -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
civilian ship prefixes

From the bot req query listed above
articles that use a civilian ship prefix (which, under the proposal, will also be depreciated as part of an article title in most cases)...

I am strongly against any proposal to remove MS, MV, SS, PS, TSS, QSMV etc from the title of ship articles.

  • That is the only part of the proposed change about which I have reservations as the well known and established prefixes help distinguish ships from their various namesakes (see note about Turandot as a possible example). I emphasize well known and established because I do question those arcane ones, some seen perhaps only in certain trade journals, and the splitting down to number of screws as in QSMV. Really? The general reader will know that? Certainly MS or MV, the general propulsion type, but "Quadruple Screw Motor Vessel"? Did we have TSSS or QSSS? Some of these things I have to look up (and I cannot find an independent reference outside Wikipedia for some) and I've been dealing with ships a long time. The proliferation of prefixes in Wikipedia's Ship prefix is questionable as most have no source given (I would like to see each entry and addition sourced). I do not think we should encourage use in ship titles of MS/MV going down to number of screws. I do not think we need to someday find TSSSS for Triple Screw Sea Scout Ship! Maybe for fun I should add SKSS for Skinner Uniflow Steam Ship and then DSSKSS for dual screw Skinner Uniflow Steam Ship. No! Let us just stick to those basic, long used ones based on propulsion type and a few based on function (CS, RV or SY for example) without all the bells and whistles. Palmeira (talk) 12:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who determines what are the "basic, long used" ship prefixes? The same users/readers we can't trust to pick the most well-know name or identification number? What makes civilian type prefixes so significantly less cryptic to the general reader/editor than pennant/hull identifiers? As for using them for disambiguation, isn't that what disambiguation by launch year in all cases is supposed to solve? -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC) -- saberwyn 22:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer it if replies to these points were added to the bottom of the individual subsections please. Mjroots (talk) 11:10, 13 September 2015 (UTC) (amended by addition of civilian ship prefixes 18:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Saberwyn

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I am opposed to the naming and disambiguation convention in its current proposed form.

TLDR: Contextless string of digits is as unclear as pennant/hull numbers for disambiguation (if not more so). Will require expert knowledge of ships and Wikipedia policies to interpret article titles. Specific date disambiguation inappropriate for subjects with long 'lifespan', particularly without context as to what the date means. Prefer disambiguating by type, with year-with-context for refinement as first choice, and by year-with-context as second choice.

I concede that disambiguating by pennant/hull number can be unclear for non-subject-experts (although I personally believe that it is a useful, prominent identifier in many official and non-official capacities). But before we move up to 26,000 articles, we need to be sure we are improving the situation instead of settling for merely "different, consistent, but still unclear (if not more so)".

I disagree completely with using a contextless string of digits that only expert Wikiproject Ships editors know corresponds to the year of launch. If readers and editors do not know what the disambiguator means and represents, how can they use it effectively to navigate, link, and create articles? If the year of launch is unknown for the subject, what do you use instead? And if you use Some Other Date, how will readers and editors know that the context is different, particularly after they've been trained to assume "four digits in brackets = year of launch"?

Disambiguating by a specific year is good if most of the content related to the subject happens in proximity to the specified date, like a historical event or a movie launch. But a ship's career usually does not begin until several years after the launch date, and usually ends many years later. People looking for a ship based on a date will be incredibly unlikely to have the year of launch as the date on hand. Instead, it will more likely be the date that Something Happened in the ship's history, or the date that Someone Was Aboard (even plankowners would be more likely to recall the year of commissioning than the year of launch).

Very few areas of Wikipedia use year displayed contextlessly as a disambiguator, let alone as the sole disambiguator. Dates are typically used as a second level of refinement after disambiguating by type: for example, if people share the same name and career 'type', the year of birth is added to the disambiguation in the form (<type>, born <year>). Eli Cohen (disambiguation) lists a primary topic, one (actor), two (politician)s refined by year of birth, and two (footballer)s refined by year of birth. In situations where the year of birth is uncertain, circa can be added to the disambiguator (example, John Munro (New Zealand politician born c. 1798) disambiguates by type "politician", refines by nationality "New Zealand", then refines further by approximate year of birth "c. 1798"). When the default year is unknown, alternate context can be described then used (example, John Harley (bishop, died 1788) disambiguates by type "bishop", then as birth is unknown, refines by "died 1788").

As at the request for comment. I propose that ships be disambiguated by the ship type, with a year-with-context for refinement. I believe that the ship type is a more useful disambiguator for the general audience than a string of four digits that apparently represents the year of launch, as more people are going to be familiar with common ship types. It also provides valuable context when disambiguating against non-ship subjects: consider the cruise ship Pacific Pearl, which needs to be disambiguated from "Pacific Pearl (airline)" and "Pacific Pearl (company)"... is it more useful for the reader/general audience to disambiguate as (cruise ship) or as (1988)? For further refinement, using a year and specifying what that year means will help get people where they need to go. Example: USS Enterprise (aircraft carrier, launched 1960), to disambiguate from USS Enterprise (sloop, captured 1775), USS Enterprise (schooner, commissioned 1776), USS Enterprise (schooner, built 1799), USS Enterprise (schooner, launched 1831), USS Enterprise (sloop, launched 1874), USS Enterprise (motorboat), USS Enterprise (aircraft carrier, launched 1936, USS Enterprise (aircraft carrier, planned commissioning 2025), USS Enterprise (building), and USS Enterprise (fictional starship). (When I typed this, I found it odd how few of those have a confirmed launch date, which would cause us to mislead readers if we used the contextless year as the sole disambiguator). If disambiguating by type is detrimental to the ability of readers and editors to find and identify a particular ship, as a second option I would suggest disambiguating by year-with-context, so when the available date is not year of launch, we can modify the disambiguator for accuracy and to prevent misleading others. -- saberwyn 12:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Addition: In the collapsed boxes below, I have added the variant text that would replace the text in the proposal, should one of the above suggestions be accepted. Here is a diff showing the changes from the main proposal. -- saberwyn 10:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Preference 1: Disambiguation by type
Replaces the content of "Article titles for ships > Disambiguation"

If a ship's name is unique, or it can be considered the primary topic for subjects of the same name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic? for advice), it does not need to be disambiguated.

No other known ships or topics are named "New Carissa", so the article for the freighter New Carissa needs no further disambiguation.
The merchant brigantine Mary Celeste, famous for being found under sail but abandoned with no explanation, is considered the primary topic for that name.

If disambiguation from other topics is required, add the ship's type or role (or rig/sail-plan for sailing vessels) to the end of the article title in parentheses. No other forms of disambiguation are valid.

Santa Maria (carrack) to disambiguate from other topics named Santa María, not Santa Maria (ship) (refers to a full-rigged ship) or Santa Maria (1460)
Canberra (ocean liner) to disambiguate from other topics named Canberra, not SS Canberra (unless it can be demonstrated to be the ship's common name) or Canberra (steamship)
Girl Pat (trawler) to disambiguate from other topics named Girl Pat, not FV Girl Pat (no evidence that the prefix was part of the ship's common name)
USS Arizona (battleship) to disambiguate from other topics named USS Arizona, not USS Arizona (BB-39) (pennant/hull numbers are depreciated for article titles)

Prefixes should not be added to a title for the sole purpose of disambiguating articles.

If additional disambiguation is required, add the ship's year of launch to the disambiguation in the following form:

(<type>, launched <yyyy>)
USS Enterprise (aircraft carrier, launched 1936) and USS Enterprise (aircraft carrier, launched 1960), vs USS Enterprise (motorboat) (not USS Enterprise (motorboat, launched 1917), no further disambiguation needed as no other motorboats of that name)
USS Enterprise (1936 aircraft carrier) or USS Enterprise (1960)

If the year of launch is unknown or uncertain, use an appropriate confirmed 'milestone' date, and change "launched" to the appropriate context. 'Milestone' dates are important dates in a ship's construction and operational history, and include (but are not limited to) completion of construction, commissioning into naval service, entry into civilian service, acquisition or capture (Many of the fields at {{Infobox ship career}} deal with milestone dates, see Template:Infobox ship begin/Usage guide#Infobox ship career for further information on what they represent). Be careful not to use one milestone's date with another's descriptor: a ship commissioned or entering service in a certain year may not have been launched or completed in that year. Any date used in the title should be supported by reliable, published sources in the article itself.

USS Enterprise (sloop, captured 1775)
USS Enterprise (schooner, commissioned 1776)
USS Enterprise (schooner, built 1799)
USS Enterprise (schooner, launched 1831)

Do not be over-specific with the ship type in the title. (Note: This could be combined with the almost identical advice on type for class articles and split into a separate section)

aircraft carrier, not fleet aircraft carrier or nuclear-powered aircraft carrier

If a ship is identified as having been of different types or roles throughout its career, use the type the ship was best known for. Create redirects from other type disambiguators to assist in successful article location.

Canberra (ocean liner), with a redirect from Canberra (troopship)
Additional examples for clarification. Examples throughout the proposal/guideline would be modified to suit.
New Carissa, not New Carissa (freighter): no other subject with this name, so no disambiguation needed
Russian battleship Sevastopol (launched 1895) (Or, per Gatoclass's suggestion below, Sevastopol (battleship, launched 1895) )

May add more as necessary.

Preference 2: Disambiguation by contextual year
Replaces the content of "Article titles for ships > Disambiguation"

If a ship's name is unique, or it can be considered the primary topic for subjects of the same name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic? for advice), it does not need to be disambiguated.

No other known ships or topics are named "New Carissa", so the article for the freighter New Carissa needs no further disambiguation.
The merchant brigantine Mary Celeste, famous for being found under sail but abandoned with no explanation, is considered the primary topic for that name.

If disambiguation from other topics is required, add the year of the ship's launch to the end of the article title in parentheses. No other forms of disambiguation are valid.

Santa María (launched 1460) to disambiguate from other topics named Santa María, not Santa María (ship) or Santa Maria (1460)
Canberra (launched 1957) to disambiguate from other topics named Canberra, not SS Canberra
Girl Pat (launched 1935) to disambiguate from other topics named Girl Pat, not Girl Pat (trawler) or Girl Pat (1935 trawler)
USS Iowa (launched 1942) to disambiguate from other topics named USS Iowa, not USS Iowa (BB-61)

Prefixes should not be added to a title for the sole purpose of disambiguating articles.

If the year of launch is unknown or uncertain, use an appropriate confirmed 'milestone' date, and change "launched" to the appropriate context. 'Milestone' dates are important dates in a ship's construction and operational history, and include (but are not limited to) completion of construction, commissioning into naval service, entry into civilian service, acquisition or capture (Many of the fields at {{Infobox ship career}} deal with milestone dates, see Template:Infobox ship begin/Usage guide#Infobox ship career for further information on what they represent). Be careful not to use one milestone's date with another's descriptor: a ship commissioned or entering service in a certain year may not have been launched or completed in that year. Any date used in the title should be supported by reliable, published sources in the article itself.

USS Enterprise (captured 1775)
USS Enterprise (commissioned 1776)
USS Enterprise (built 1799)
USS Enterprise (launched 1831)
Additional examples for clarification. Examples throughout the proposal/guideline would be modified to suit.
New Carissa, not New Carissa (laid down 1989): no other subject with this name, so no disambiguation needed
Russian battleship Sevastopol (launched 1895)

May add more as necessary.

.

Also consider User:Saberwyn/Alt Preference 1A, which incorporates suggestions made by Gatoclass and Trappist the Monk in the sections below. -- saberwyn 09:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am a minimalist when it comes to article naming, so I don't like the idea of pre-emptive "year-with-context" disambiguation. Year of launch/completion only, further context only when necessary would be my preferred approach. As for disambiguating by ship type, in many cases ships of the same type take the same name, so I don't think this approach would be helpful. Gatoclass (talk) 12:49, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
pre-emptive "year-with-context" disambiguation: Preemptive disambiguation is not on the cards in any scenario. If a disambuguator is needed beyond the common name, what is more useful to the reader/editor, a year-with-context to help them determine which article they want, or four digits that could mean anything (and in many cases, where year of launch is unknown, will not mean what we say it means). If my preference for type-disambiguation is accepted, "year-with-context" would only be used as a second level of disambiguation.
in many cases ships of the same type take the same name: That is what second-level disambiguation by "year-with-context" would address, just like using "born/died year" as a second level of disambiguation for people. -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Preemptive disambiguation is not on the cards in any scenario. If a disambuguator is needed beyond.... Well that addresses one of the problems with the proposal, though that's not what your proposed text seems to say. Gecko G (talk) 19:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From the "Disambiguation" section of the proposal: If a ship's name is unique, or it can be considered the primary topic for subjects of the same name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic? for advice), it does not need to be disambiguated. (emphasis added). I am adding a second example and rewording the first to (hopefully) clarify. -- saberwyn 22:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is your rfc only a straw man? You now appear to be arguing against the proposed changes you have presented—one I fully support with minor tweaks suggested. The only two real problems I see with the proposal are a possible issue with dropping the well established and known commercial prefixes. A hypothetical case in point is Turandot. The opera Turandot is covered and the U.S.N. vessel is no problem as we still would have USS at USS Turandot. If someone ever decides to cover one of several commercial ships (New Barber Line Ship and G.R. No. L-25266 January 15, 1975 as examples of actual ships with the name) we have two identical italicized names and SS would help distinguish the ship(s) from the opera. I think those cases would be fairly rare but a possible cause to retain the option of use of widely known ship prefixes where confusion might exist. The second is the issue of the sailing ships where rig has a particular place in the ship's common name. The barque Name was immediately recognized by the general public then as not being the ship Name or brigintine Name. Those were the common names of the time.
Long ago I pointed out that the title is only a target at which the reader is directed by efficient prior disambiguation on index pages where multiple things have the same name. Redirects can bring a reader with a bit more than a name to the target. As long as we have unique titles as targets, even a serial number, a reader using a good index arrives at the right place. We need to focus on indexing and redirects to solve almost all the "problems" of simplifying article titles, particularly ridding them of pseudo expert looking hull and pennant numbers applying only to one period in the ship's operational life. Palmeira (talk) 13:22, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am arguing against the changes in the proposal. The RFC was closed as support for the idea of standardising disambiguation for ship articles on the "(YYYY)" form used for civilian and no-ID-number military ships. However, the closure also stated "No specific language was presented and so there is no consensus on what that language is supposed to be" and attempts to clarify the language or the method of implementation during the RFC were met with dodges or handwaves that it would be dealt with 'later'. In the 4-5 months since, none of the supporters (and none of the opponents) have come forward with a proposed alternate text, instead continuing to argue at length at WT:SHIPS and other forums whenever the issue pops up. So I took it upon myself to put together the best proposal I could, based on the result of the RFC.
While I do not agree with the apparent-to-some burning need to standardise disambiguation, I do not disagree with it either. And as much as I like pennant/hull numbers, I can live without them, I am not arguing for them here. Where I do disagree is the method of disambiguation proposed by the consensus at the RFC. As stated above, I think "(YYYY)" is so contextless as to be useless (particularly in the many cases where year-of-launch is unknown: what we say it means won't actually be what it means!). A disambiguation method that provides some context will be of significantly more value to readers and editors, expert and non. If we are going to move up to 26,000 articles, lets move them to a useful disambiguation and get it right first time.
A hypothetical case in point is Turandot. Under the proposal, contextless-year-of-launch disambiguation should be sufficient to separate the civilian ships from non-ship topics. If the title Turnadot (1958) (the ship) is not sufficient to disambiguate from Turandot (the primary-topic opera), then that suggests that the method of disambiguation could be improved with additional context. -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I misunderstood then, I thought you were proposing the contextless year. Again, not what your proposed text seems to suggest. Gecko G (talk) 19:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote the proposal based on the outcome of the RFC. For the purposes of this argument, imagine a hypothetical editor, "User:The RFC", wrote everything on the main page, and a second hypothetical editor, "User:SaberywnsPersonalOpinion" wrote everything in the talk page section "Comments by Saberwyn". While User:SaberywnsPersonalOpinion agrees with (or is neutral on) most of what User:The RFC has written, User:SaberywnsPersonalOpinion disagrees with standardising disambiguation as contextless-year-of-launch for the reasons above. -- saberwyn 22:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC) finishing fragmentary comment -- saberwyn 10:24, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Then this does not seem to be an "honest" RFC in which we hammer out the issues. You did a good job in presenting the core of the proposed wording changes that I thought formed a basis for examining and resolving issues. Now it appears to be a strawman, a poison pill, designed to fail and thus prevent some reasonable and rational changes. Your outright rejection and revert of the suggestions concerning the sailing ships is a case in point. It now appears you have written a straw man for an all or nothing, up or down, resolution to kill reasonable resolution of issues—something akin to what our Congress is so fond of doing in poison pill amendments to kill any progress on anything. If that is true this is disappointing and not quite a good faith, neutral effort.

There are issues, particularly with the sailing ships that can be resolved. For example, and possibly in line with an argument you seem to be presenting here in places, to "prefix" ships with with ship type; i.e., the historically accurate "(ship) Name" or "(bark) Name" and even perhaps "(steamship) Name" that serves as that hint for even the novice ship searcher and a target separate from namesakes for purposes of the Wikipedia "system." Bluntly, this is not the way to do an RFC (as in resolving cost/technical issues in development contracts) and disappointing. If this is a poison pill strawman to delay and kill change, the only thing I would support is a competing RFC open to rational discussion and a resolution. Then perhaps User:SaberywnsPersonalOpinion and the rest of us can get something effective done in what "User:The RFC" has "proposed." Otherwise this is probably just wasting your and our time in another endless, ineffective, effort. Palmeira (talk) 11:34, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above: I Do Not Oppose standardising disambiguation for ship article titles, but I Do Oppose standardising titling at a bad form of disambiguation that will disadvantage readers and editors more than the current system does. I assembled the best possible proposal based on the starting material and the result of the RFC. I then voiced disagreement with a (unfortunately major) element of the proposal, the same element I contested in the RFC, and the same element I would have contested if any other editor had drafted the proposal. However, if you choose to assume bad faith about my actions or intentions, I doubt anything I say or do will change your mind.
The changes I 'rejected' regarding second-level disambiguation went well beyond what was suggested on the talk page, and were coupled with edits to other points of the proposal that caused it to contradict itself (as noted by Trappist the Monk above. I concede I may have overreacted, and have created a dedicated section below where the most appropriate form of second-level disambiguation can be hashed out.
I would be opposed to 'prefixing' ships with the ship type as if falls completely foul of the advice on disambiguation (particularly parenthetical disambiguation) at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the specific topic articles and Wikipedia:Article_titles#Disambiguation. Imagine as a counterexample the article title (politician) Barack Obama or politician Barack Obama. -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Response to "All ships have a year of launch..."
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The most common argument I see in favour of contextless-year-of-launch as a disambiguator is that "all ships have a year of launch". I understand and acknowledge this: Every ship had to begin some-'when' (although sources disagree on what is the 'origin' milestone: launch, laying down, completion, first steel cut, commissioning/entry into service, maiden voyage, etc), it gives a unique title (except in cases when the ships have the same name and same year of launch, or same name, builder, and year of launch), and with four-or-fewer characters to type, its a fantastic saving on keystrokes. However, there are two main problems I find with this method.

The first is that it is incredibly unlikely that a reader/editor (even the subject experts among us) will know this incredibly obscure fact for a specific ship we are looking for. The point of disambiguation is not just generating unique titles, but "Ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily" (paraphrased from the lead of Wikipedia:Disambiguation). The usefulness of contextless-year-of-launch vs other methods of disambiguation for non-experts looking for a specific subject has been/is being discussed elsewhere, so I won't say more here.

The second (which I think has fallen through the cracks a bit) is that, while every ship has to have been launched at some point, there are many cases where this fact is not known. How can we use the year of launch to title a ship article when the available sources do not specify when the launch was? From WP:SHIPS current Featured Articles: Yugoslav monitor Vardar does not support the infobox-claimed 1915 launch in prose (it appears to be a guess based on the prose-cited laid down and completion dates), SS Mauna Loa does not mention launch at all (the earliest date given is completion), nor does New Carissa (first date is laying down). Several A-class articles (including MS West Honaker, SMS Körös, and SS Panaman) either lack a cited launch date, or don't mention it at all, while the GA-class HMS Campania (1914) was launched (uncited) 22 years earlier than its 'year-of-launch' disambiguator!

Its not just older ships (where records could conceivably be lost to time or otherwise incredibly hard to find). The Armidale-class patrol boats are modern warships currently in operation, but the website of the Royal Australian Navy, several editions of Jane's Fighting Ships I have checked, and the shipbuilder Austal's website all neglect to mention the dates of launch of any of the 14 vessels. Lost to time, or just couldn't be bothered publishing? Locking into year-of-launch also causes problems for creators of new articles... if you don't have the year of launch, you can't title the article.

So, how do we disambiguate these ships? Suggestions have been made to pick Some Other Origin Date. This has the problem of "which one?" (and who are we going to trust to pick it?), and could be used to provide incorrect information to readers/editors (if we tell everyone that "(XXXX)" = "year of launch", then use something other than "year of launch" for (YYYY), won't people incorrectly assume that "(YYYY)" = "year of launch"? It gets even worse when the subject has no known Origin Dates: the only year mentioned in Sydney (ship) is 1806, the year the ship was wrecked. How is the year the ship was destroyed an appropriate substitute for the year(s) the ship was created? -- saberwyn 10:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's pretty obvious that when a year is mentioned in a title, if refers to the year the event occurred or the year the thing was made. It's true that in many cases we don't have a year of launch, but in almost all cases, in my experience, either a year of launch, or the year a ship was built, is available. Where one is not available, the other can be used, people will still get that this is the year the thing was made. In a relatively small number of cases, there is neither, but just a date of entering service or whatever, and in my opinion that can be substituted just as well. Where even an approximate year is not available - a rare occurrence - a different form of disambiguation may be necessary. But there is almost always going to be the occasional exception for any rule you come up with. Gatoclass (talk) 15:37, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK, the year disambiguator in Royal Navy vessels is the year of commission, which is not necessarily the year of launch. Mjroots (talk) 18:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's news to me. It says nothing about disambiguating RN vessels by commission date in the guideline. Gatoclass (talk) 05:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mjroots may possibly have arrived at this conclusion from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ships)#Naming_articles_about_military_ships, "In instances where a ship was captured or otherwise acquired by a navy and the article is placed at that title, use the date of capture or entry to the navy, rather than the date of launch, so the name and prefix are in agreement with the date disambiguation." This was one of several inconsistent practices that I dropped when drafting this proposal, because the outcome from the RFC was that all ship titles should be standardised on year-of-launch disambiguation. If we start using different milestone dates for different subgroups of ships (particularly without some attached context identifying for the non-expert or drive-by reader which is which), how are non-WPSHIPS experts going to find and identify the ship they are looking for without jumping through more hoops than necessary. Even if that subgroup is "year of launch not known". -- saberwyn 09:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I've said before, what you think is obvious, Gatoclass, may not be what others think is obvious. What I this is obvious about years as part of a parenthetical disambiguator (such as Casino Royale (2006 film)) is 1) it is being used as a necessary second level of disambiguation following a type disambiguator: to differentiate from Casino Royale (1967 film) and Casino Royale (novel), although I can accept the counterexample where the logical type disambiguator is already part of the common name, a la Hurricane Lane (2006) vs Hurricane Lane (2006 hurricane). 2) the date chosen is the point of high historical impact for that subject: there was a 'long tail' of leadup to the film arguably going back as far as the novel, and a similar long tail of people watching and discussing the film for years to come, but the defining point of that subject is the month-or-so when the film was released in cinemas for public consumption, during which it made the vast majority of the money and secured the vast majority of reviews and attention that it was ever going to. A 1944-launched ship did not have the point of impact confined to 1944: it was still several years away from completion, and once in service would have a 'band' of historical impact stretching across 20, 30, 40 years before the long tail of rememberance by history. Even saying that "this year is the year the ship was built" is misleading, because, particularly for post-age-of-sail vessels, building is a multi-year process. There are two reasons why I've argued for contextual year disambiguation if years are used as (either the main or secondary level of) disambiguation: to prevent misleading of readers and editors by letting them 1) assume that the ship's historical impact is limited to that year, or 2) assume that the date given is always going to be the year of launch, particularly when that obscure factoid is unknown. -- saberwyn 09:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Gatoclass

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Firstly, I suspect this is the wrong way to go about making changes, because many respondents may agree with some changes but not others, leading to unmanageable discussion. Wouldn't it be better to propose changes one at a time?

Secondly, I am concerned about at least one proposed change, namely "Deemphasise the use of prefixes for civilian vessels unless part of the common name." The relevant part of the proposed guideline states "Ship prefixes should only be used in article titles if multiple reliable, published sources consider the prefix to be a part of that specific ship's common name." I don't think that is a good idea, at all, because steamships are referred to generically as "SS" even though reliable sources commonly leave out the "SS" as redundant. "SS" is a very simple and straightforward identifier, without which we are going to have to start using the cumbersome identifier "(steamship)". It's also going to lead to a lack of standardization in steamship identifiers.

One further point. If we are going to totally rewrite the guideline as proposed, isn't time we ditched the awkward and redundant "country shiptype shipname" format for foreign warships? I would much rather see "German battleship Bismarck" at simply "Bismarck (battleship)", which is not only more concise, but also conforms to the disambiguation format used for all other ships (and other article types), while getting rid of the redundant disambiguator German. Gatoclass (talk) 12:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an article in Wikipedia where the reader could find the meaning of identifiers (i.e "SS", "MV", "FV", ...)? If there isn't one then perhaps the uninformed reader needs one. I know that sometimes that I have to search my memory for some identifiers when reading an article but then I am somewhat familiar with different classes of ships. The average reader probably isn't.Cuprum17 (talk) 13:09, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Ship prefix.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I thought there probably was but I couldn't for the life of me think of what to call the article to find it. It is kind of obvious now that you tell me. Would the average reader be able to find this if they had a question about a prefix? IDK, maybe I'm making this too complicated? Thanks for the reply.Cuprum17 (talk) 13:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If someone who knows about ships has trouble understanding the various prefixes, or finding the article where the explanations of the prefixes are, what hope do non-subject-non-Wikipedia experts have? -- saberwyn 08:52, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we have to address this as a whole, just as changes in a systems contract requires looking at interrelated technical and cost issues as a whole. Still, each specific section gets addressed if I recall correctly and hammered out while making sure all the related issues are harmonized. I tend to agree with your reservation on depreciation of well established and known prefixes as noted elsewhere here. You have identified another difference in standard; the ship type in some warships. I have used the names with (ship) and (tug) and also support the single disambiguator in titles of launch year. I think almost all the other issues can and should be resolved in index pages. That includes directing a reader to the battleship Bismark vice the chancellor or some other ship named after him. I am looking at the system aspects here. The title only serves as the target for a sorting of the reader's choices that has been done in an index. Keeping those titles, the targets, from accumulating character strings (particularly ones most readers do not or poorly understand) like an old hull does barnacles is something I think is served by pushing for common name titles with minimum distractions. All the other identifiers in the index description serve to resolve options into a single click to to the correct article which itself is the simplest possible common name. Maybe the reader has neither clue nor interest in launch year, but that tends to be ship unique within a name series. Neither does it support the erroneous belief that various naval or commercial designations, classifications, hull and pennant numbers are part of a ship's name. Palmeira (talk) 14:16, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"SS" is a very simple and straightforward identifier. Its also as obscure to the non-expert as pennant/hull numbers are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by saberwyn (talk • contribs)
Any reader of Wikipedia reading newspapers, trade journals and literature covering the last century or so with some clue as to maritime history would know SS, MS/MV and possibly the CS for Cable Ship that has been in use since early transatlantic cables were being laid. The fact that prefixes from what I call the "cottage industry" of populating Ship prefix with prefixes such as those extending MS/MV to number of screws (I'd like to see the references!) is precisely why I am less than enthusiastic in a possible use to help distinguish ships from namesakes. Palmeira (talk) 11:42, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Any reader of Wikipedia reading newspapers, trade journals and literature covering the last century or so with some clue as to maritime history... So... subject experts? Wasn't the entire point of the many discussions leading here to move away from forms of titling and disambiguation that only subject experts understand, in favour of titles that assist a general reader/editor in identifying and navigating to the desired article? -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re: such as those extending MS/MV to number of screws... See Mjroots example of QSMV Dominion Monarch and my reply in the #Civilian ship prefixes in titles section. -- saberwyn 00:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
isn't time we ditched the awkward and redundant "country shiptype shipname" format for foreign warships? If the method of disambiguation is changed from "contextless year" to "type" as I've suggested above, doing so along the lines of your Bismarck (battleship) example (with nation as a second level of disambiguation and year-with-context as third level) is a definite possibility. -- saberwyn 09:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The more I think about this, the more it appeals to me. At the very least, it could greatly simplify the advice on ship article titles. I'll try to throw something together for comparison. -- saberwyn 00:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Example below (although its pretty rough, and the sections could probably be reorganised more optimally). Diff from current proposed version here. -- saberwyn 02:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Link to Saberwyn's preference 1A: Disambiguation by type, depreciate "country shiptype shipname" (too complicated to transclude)

Transclusion of {{User:Saberwyn/Alt based on suggestion by Gatoclass}} here buggers up the TOC because all of the header anchors aren't visible to the browser until it renders the content in the collapse box. Perhaps a simple wikilink is more appropriate. It could be highlighted to distinguish it if you want:

{{highlight|[[User:Saberwyn/Alt based on suggestion by Gatoclass]]|#CFC}}

I am in favor of dropping the <nationality> <ship type> <name> <(dab)> format because it is inconsistent with WP:COMMONNAME.

Adopting ship type as disambituator will probably require us to change how the template {{ship}} (and its mates {{HMS}}, {{USS}}, etc.) renders its unspecified (default) form. Currently, {{ship}} defaults to:

USS Lexington (CV-16)

so using ship type and launch date as disambiguators:

{{ship|USS|Lexington|aircraft carrier, launched 1942}}
USS Lexington (aircraft carrier, launched 1942)

The default display for these templates should probably be equivalent to:

{{ship|USS|Lexington|aircraft carrier, launched 1942|6}}
USS Lexington

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Place your bets people, was {{ship}} and its derivatives crafted the way it was because of the USN preference for displaying hull numbers in works such as DANFS (which in deadtree works makes sense, but not so much for an online resource)? Any change to ship naming conventions to move away from pennant/hull numbers in titles will require those templates to be changed to default to hidden disambiguator. I'm flagging it in the "Trickle-down" list. -- saberwyn 09:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It would seem that the rules for disambiguating ship classes that share the same name and type is contradictory:

For disambiguation of ship classes with the same name and type:

  • If they are military vessels operated by different nations, add the nationality in front of the class name
    United States Porpoise-class submarine and British Porpoise-class submarine
    Porpoise-class submarine (British)
  • In all other cases, disambiguate by the year of launch of the first ship in the class
    King George V-class battleship (first launched 1911) and King George V-class battleship (first launched 1939)
The two Porpoise classes can be disambiguated by launch year of the first boat in their respective classes:
British Porpoise-class submarine → Porpoise-class submarine (first launched 1956)
United States Porpoise-class submarine → Porpoise-class submarine (first launched 1935)
For classes, because ship type is already part of the name, it can't be used as a disambiguator as it is for ship articles. Instead, if two ship classes are first launched in the same year, the class may be distinguished by month of first launch, or possibly, nation of origin.
In this version of the proposed convention, disambiguation of class articles by prefix should be avoided just as it is avoided for ship articles.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As stated below, I left class pretty much alone because most of the arguing was focused on individual ship titles. I like what you are suggesting, and am incorporating it into my 1A alternate (would require further support to make it into the proposal proper). -- saberwyn 09:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tupsumato

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I oppose the strict guideline ...to be disambiguated by year of launch only.... All other forms of disambiguation (including ... pennant/hull number, ship type...) are depreciated. because I simply can't remember each vessel's launch year. I remember that Aleksey Chirikov is an icebreaker, but if you asked me if it was launched, I could say anything between 2011 and 2013. Also, I have absolutely no idea when Viktor Chernomyrdin is going to be launched. What about ships like Ilmarinen for which no-one knows the launch year?

Also, why in the name of Zeus's butthole "ship" is only reserved for full-rigged ships? Where does this requirement come from?

Tupsumato (talk) 12:00, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that disambiguating by year of launch is bad, because its a fact that very few people looking for the ship are going to know, and in many cases, the fact is not going to be available in reliable, published sources for it to be used as a disambiguator. What makes it worse is the contextless format which will not aid readers, and will lead to misunderstandings when non-launch dates are used for the sake of making disambiguation possible. Better to use a type descriptor: even if the reader doesn't know what a 'frigate' or an 'icebreaker' are, they should be able to quickly pick up the context of 'type of ship'. -- saberwyn 07:26, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you are going to disambiguate by ship type, then we have come full circle, because the original objection to hull and pennant numbers was that these numbers can change through a ship's career. But it's just the same thing with types—ships not infrequently undergo conversion from one type to another, so which type does one pick? The advantage of disambiguating by ship launch is, again, that a ship is launched only once in its history. Gatoclass (talk) 08:25, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I understood, there were multiple objections to hull/pennants: from the recent RFC, too obscure and opaque to non-experts, insufficiently contextual for use in disambiguation, forcing a two-tier system where ships without needed alternate disambiguation, prone to duplication and requiring alternate disambiguation, prone to being mistaken for part of a ship's common name, and (like you state) they do experience change. The older debates likely have other reasons.
Using a string of digits as a disambiguator requires being a WP:SHIPS expert as well as a subject expert to understand and effectively use the disambiguator. The former to understand the context "the digits represent the year of launch of the subject of the article (except in the cases when the year of launch is unknown, where some other, as yet undetermined, representative date may be inserted instead without any indication that the date we hope to have trained non-WP:SHIPS-experts to interpret as being)", and the latter to know the specifics of this date (despite the fact that the average reader/editor, if they have a date at all, it is going to be any other date than the launch date, which is typically several years removed from the ship entering service, let along the typical multi-decade career) and how it applies to the subject ship.
Yes, using ship types mean that they will still be prone to change, but they will be much clearer to non-experts, provide contextual topic disambiguation, will be consistent within ship topics (and with disambiguation practices for non-ship topics), and are unlikely to be mistaken for part of the ship's name. Change of type can be accommodated for by redirects (like with any other article with multiple names and/or viable disambiguators), and duplication of name and type can be solved by a further-refined disambiguator (such as a more-specific type) or adding a second level of disambiguation (such as nationality, ship class, or a date-with-context). -- saberwyn 12:08, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think a year for disambiguation is clear enough without additional context. It ought to be clear enough to anyone that an object with a year after it is the year the object was made - I certainly never had any problem understanding this when I first encountered Wikipedia. As for disambiguating by ship type, I'm still not convinced this is the best approach. For example, it is very common for private companies to hand down names of previous ships to new ships because of the recognition factor. If the name is unique, there is no need to disambiguate by type, launch dates will be more than sufficient. We don't want to be adding more information than we have to - that is a fundamental principle of MOS TITLE. Gatoclass (talk) 16:47, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From WP:TITLE: "Article titles [including disambiguation] should be recognizable, concise, natural, precise, and consistent." (square brackets mine, paraphrasing Wikipedia:Article_titles#Disambiguation: "When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in:") Although type-disambiguation 'fails' conciseness if you want to count characters type (though I think the intention is to favour things like "submarine" over "nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine"), "USS Arizona (battleship)" is far more recognisable to non-experts, is closer to the natural, contextual form of expression when identifying the subject ("...the battleship USS Arizona was..."), sufficiently precise (and repeated names-and-types can be dealt with in a similar fashion to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Disambiguating's poker player example), and can be consistently applied (plus has the bonus of being consistent with most other uses of parenthetical disambiguation). Whereas contextless-year-of-launch disambiguation ("USS Arizona (1915)") is very character-concise, but relies on an obscure factoid that even subject experts are unlikely to know, is not part of a natural form of expression for the subject in most contexts ("... the USS Arizona of 1915 was..." or "...the 1915 USS Arizona was..."?), overly precise (the entire subject did not happen in 1915), and cannot be consistently applied internally (because for many ships, the year of launch, or even more broadly, any construction date, is unknown or unclear) or externally (the only other articles using a year as the only disambiguation are historical events that occur within that specific time period). -- saberwyn 02:56, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also, just because its clear to you, doesn't mean its clear to others. Date-only disambiguation is only used (as far as I am aware) for historical events that take place wholly within the date(s) specified in the disambiguation (yes, I am ignoring instances like King Lear (2008 film) because "film" provides additional context/disambiguation, and even so, the main 'impact' of the subject is confined to that year or a very narrow period surrounding it). Ship histories do not take place entirely within the launch year, and often aren't considered to really 'start' until after construction is completed. The advice at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles for parenthetical disambiguation is to use "the generic class (avoiding proper nouns, as much as possible) that includes the topic, as in Mercury (element), Seal (emblem); or the subject or context to which the topic applies, as in Union (set theory), Inflation (cosmology)" (emphasis theirs). Using ship types is more in line with overall disambiguation practice. -- saberwyn 02:56, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, when you have completely different things with the same name, it makes sense to differentiate them by type, so yes, mercury (element), seal (emblem), and as I previously suggested, Bismarck (battleship) because there are other things named "Bismarck" that the ship has to be disambiguated from. This is not the case, however, with many ship names, for example "SS shipname" where there is more than one ship of that name, doesn't need to be disambiguated as "cargo ship" or "passenger ship" when a launch date will suffice. If people are looking for "SS shipname" when there are multiple ships of that name, then unless one is obviously the primary topic, they are going to end up at a disambiguation page anyway, where there is enough information for them to be able to identify the particular ship they want whether they know the launch date or not. So what purpose is served by having long and potentially messy type disambiguators in actual article titles? Gatoclass (talk) 04:47, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Consistency: why change one two-tier system (pennant/hull vs launch date) for a second two-tier system (launch date vs type), when you can have a single system, particularly if, as part of the proposal, not-part-of-the-common-name prefixes are depreciated, many more articles will be without the (completely obscure to the non-expert) 'clue' that says "This Is A Ship"? Recognisability: What would convey more meaning to a non-expert searcher (who I believe would be more likely to look for "a ship named Shipname" than "a Shipname, prefixed by a string of letters that tell experts something"), a string of contextless digits, or a word with a meaning? Naturalness: using type-disambiguators is closer to the natural form of contextually identifying the ship (my google test for "battleship USS Missouri" vs "USS Missouri launched 1944" gives 428k vs 81k results).
But you are not proposing a "single system". If we adopted your proposed method, many articles would end up with both type and launch disambiguators, since, as I pointed out earlier, many commercial ship companies recycle the same name for the same type of ship. Also, there is the problem with nomenclature. Is a ship a "merchant steamship", a "cargo ship", or a "freighter"? Is another type of ship a "passenger-cargo ship" or a "cargo liner"? Is it "passenger steamship" or "ocean liner"? Is it "sidewheeler", "sternwheeler" or just "steamboat"? And on it goes. Not only that, but what do you do with ships that were converted to another type of ship, perhaps more than once?
There is also the problem of title length which I already addressed - launch date is very concise by comparison with type/type plus launch date. And there is nothing obscure about prefixes like "SS" for steamships - anyone with the remotest interest in the topic will be familiar with it. Gatoclass (talk) 10:37, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
System: Fine. Its a single system with a subsystem for when the top level is insufficient alone to clearly disambiguate, which works in the same way as the disambiguation system used across most of Wikipedia, which uses type-nouns in the first instance and dates if further refining is required. Every ship that requires disambiguation will have a type (the aspect of the ship that I think will be most widely known by non-experts), but some will require further disambiguation by year-and-context. It works for (as an example) people named Eli Cohen or John Harley.
Nonclemature: Same way Wikipedia editors decide the name of an article... what do the reliable published sources commonly call the subject?
Title length: From Wikipedia:Article_titles#Conciseness: "The goal of conciseness is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area." Per mine and other comments on this talk page, a string of digits that are purported by WPSHIPS-Experts to represent the year of launch (maybe) of the subject, while fairly brief, is not sufficient information to identify said subject (unless you know the exact obscure factoid that the article-titler was thinking of when they titled the article). So people are going to have to type a few more characters to make an article title that is 'sufficiently identifiable' to Non-Ship-Non-WPSHIPS-Expert readers/editors. If character-counting-conciseness is an issue, we could always advocate the Star Trek style: (A), (B), (C) etc, or go (1)/(I), (2)/(II), (3)/(III) etc. We can sort the details of actually finding a specific subject when we get to the shipindex/disambig page two or three clicks later, right?
Prefixes: Concede that "SS" is understandable to people who know a bit about ships and know they are operating in a ship-subject context. Now, without looking, can you tell me what a GTS or an SSCV is? -- saberwyn 08:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Let me ask you a question. Are you proposing to do away with prefixes for warships, such as USS and HMS, and just substitute ship type? That does not sound like a good idea to me. But if you are not proposing that, doesn't it make sense for both warships and merchant ships to include the prefix, for consistency? Gatoclass (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Commissioned naval ships typically have an established prefix (e.g. USS) or it's possible to use the nation-type-name trifecta if there isn't one, but merchant ships don't necessarily have one. Sure, ships like RMS Titanic obviously are best-known with their prefix, but who gets to decide if a modern cruise ships is prefixed "MS" or "MV"? Should the generic prefixes be used for all ship types, or should we allow some extremely obscure ones as well? Tupsumato (talk) 17:29, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Some naval prefixes (like your examples) would be considered part of the common name of the ships (per "Ship prefixes should only be used in article titles if multiple reliable, published sources consider the prefix to be a part of that specific ship's common name", in all forms of the proposed guideline so far), as they would be what a non-expert reader would expect the article title to be at. As examples, this news article names the two warships mentioned as "HMAS Newcastle" and "HMAS Melbourne", the various memorials at Pearl Harbor are the "USS Arizona Memorial", "USS Oklahoma Memorial", and "USS Utah Memorial". Conversely, this article mentions over a dozen cruise ships, with not a prefix in sight, with the same lack of prefixes on this container ship company or this cruise ship company website, leading me to conclude (at least for this very small, modern-biased sample) that prefixes are not part of the common name for these types of ships. Not all navies use prefixes anyway (unless we want to start making them up, like a minority of sources do and both the existing and proposed guidelines advise against), so even if we forced prefixing on civilian ships, there would still be a number of ships 'inconsistently' un-prefixed. -- saberwyn 09:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Second-level disambiguation

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Starting a dedicated section for the discussion of adding advice on second-level disambiguation (i.e. how to disambiguate further when two ships share a name and a launch year). -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Per my comments above:-
Sailing vessels are further disambiguated by launch year and rig - Foo (1757 ship) vs Foo (1794 ship).
Powered vessels are further disambiguated by builder and launch year - SS Espagne (Anversois, 1909) vs SS Espagne (Provence, 1909).
This should cover the vast majority of cases where further disambiguation is needed. Mjroots (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Has the potential for further confusion for non-expert readers/editors, by requiring them to know or identify two obscure facts to correctly identify the article (year-of-maybe-launch and sail-plan for the former, year-of-maybe-launch and builder for the latter). When the latter method was proposed in the RFC, I got it wrong in the first instance by assuming that builder was actually geographical region (partially because Provence is a geographical region).
Why the two-systems disconnect between sailing and other vessels?
For sailing vessels, wouldn't we only need second-level disambiguation when there are two ships of the same name and same contextless-year? Or are you proposing that all sailing ships are pre-emptively disambiguated by type/rig in addition to disambiguation? Am also assuming that per your comments above, the word "ship" should only be restricted to a specific rig type. Would a better example be "Foo (1757 schooner) and Foo (1757 brigantine)? -- saberwyn 00:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, (ship) means a full-rigged ship, so Foo (1757 ship), Foo (1757 schooner) and Foo (1757 brigantine) would refer to three different vessels. Mjroots (talk) 07:31, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not proposing that all sailing vessels are pre-emptively disambiguated. This is the best way that I can see for when further disambiguation is needed. Mjroots (talk) 07:35, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for clarifying. -- saberwyn 09:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Civilian ship prefixes in titles

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Starting a dedicated section for the discussion of civilian ship prefixes in titles, which seems to be one of the more contentious points of the proposal in its current form. -- saberwyn 14:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ship prefixes are an established (integral?) part of a vessel's name, at least for the common ones (SS, PS, TSS, RMS, MS, MV, FV, ST). Others might not be so well known (I note the above discussion re QSMV used in QSMV Dominion Monarch - You'll have to take this issue up with the article's creator via the talk page), and thus harder to argue for. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal text currently reads Ship prefixes should only be used in article titles if multiple reliable, published sources consider the prefix to be a part of that specific ship's common name. (in the 'main advice' section). I believe that ship prefixes are part of the 'official name' of a ship, not necessarily the 'common name', (per the Article Titles policy, the latter is the one article titles should reside at, because its the one the average reader/editor would expect). As non-topic examples, consider US President Bill Clinton (not "William Jefferson Clinton", although William and Jefferson being established/integral parts of the person's official name) or Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith (not "Ben Roberts-Smith, VC, MG", despite the post-nominal suffixes being part of his official title). There are ships (military and civilian) where the prefix is part of the commonly used name, and ships where it is not. The wording above (which may be a little strong and need refining) was intended to allow articles where the prefix is part of the common name to be titled so, instead of either forcing the prefix on all articles regardless of whether the prefix is commonly known or not, or forcing no prefix, regardless of whether the prefix is commonly known or not.
Of the given example of an 'uncommon' prefix, QSMV Dominion Monarch, the first three Google web results (for [Dominion Monarch ship]) and one one result from Google Books (same search string) appear to consider the QSMV prefix to be part of the ship's official name. Whether the prefix is part of the common name is a debate for that article's talk page.
As for the idea of "the common [ship prefixes]", who decides what a Common Ship PrefixTM is? The editors on the ground dealing with a specific article, who have access to the reliable, published sources describing that ship and how its referred to, or a guideline which forces a particular outcome, even if its inappropriate, (or worse, incorrect) for the ship in question? -- saberwyn 00:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO prefixes can be, in many cases, be considered as a type of disambiguator. Thus, in cases where there is no need to disambiguate (e.g. most modern cruise ships which follow some company-specific name family), should we discourage their use. After all, it's much easier to write ''[[Oasis of the Seas]]'' than ''[[MS Oasis of the Seas|Oasis of the Seas]]''. Of course, we could have a redirect from the non-prefixed article name to the prefixed article name (like in case of Oasis of the Seas, but shouldn't we strive towards simpler article names with less disambiguators? Tupsumato (talk) 11:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Merchant prefixes are most certainly not part of the official names of ships in almost all cases (there are of course a very small number of exceptions, but these would be a fraction of one percent), indeed in some jurisdictions, such as the UK, it is specifically disallowed. That doesn't mean that they are not commonly used in conjunction with the ship name, just as the same ship name may commonly appear elsewhere without it or with a different one, according to the writer's predilection of MoS. What the "common name" is in WP terms is often a matter of judgement. But to be honest, I would sweep the whole lot away for article titles (and then let the article itself follow the sources as appropriate). My reason is a simple one: finding articles. Some of us here know lots about ships, the historic and arcane nomenclature and all that; and the vast majority of WP readers don't. However, what all have in common is that when searching for an article on a specific ship the most logical thing to search by is the ship's name. I would not expect to find some listed under "M" (randomly MS or MV), some under "S", more under "T" or "R", just as I wouldn't expect to find personal names listed under Mr, Sir, General, Rev or Adm, however commonly those additions may be used. The same applies to Ships Lists - I don't care that much about what comes after, but the first word should always be the name in question. Service target: two clicks should get you to your article or, at least, a ship list or dab page that describes the ships enough for a high chance of correct selection. Davidships (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

§Article titles for class articles

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Would it be appropriate to discourage the use of TLAs and the like in class article titles?

Samuel Beckett-class OPV

Would it be appropriate to require ship type?

Tuzla class
Maersk Triple E class

If ship type is not required, then class names should not be hyphenated

PR-72P-class
Willemoes-class

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the argy-bargy over ship article naming has been focused on individual ship articles, so I left the existing content regarding class more-or-less alone (only updating/fleshing out examples and adding advice on non-'standard' names and not making up classes. To answer your specific points.
  1. Discouraging TLAs: I'm inclined to agree. Advice at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Abbreviations#Acronyms_in_page_titles is to avoid them unless the abbreviation is well known and primarily linked to the subject (example, NASA). The abbreviations for ship types are unlikely to be well known by general readers/editors (which was one of the main arguments for discontinuing using pennant/hull codes in article titles), and are not primarily linked to that one ship/class. If abbreviations are accepted, and by-type disambiguation is as well, it should be consistent between both to avoid confusing readers/editors: Canberra-class landing helicopter dock and HMAS Canberra (landing helicopter dock) OR Canberra-class LHD and HMAS Canberra (LHD), not a mix.
    Actually, the more I think about this, the more I'd like to see others' opinions before I lock in my own. For a lot of warships, particularly the amphibious warfare vessels, the acronyms like LHD, LST, LPH, etc are how sources and people refer to the type, particularly because the full names tend to be unwieldy. On the other hand, if you do it for those, consistency would require that we do it for all possible names-with-acronyms, such as OPVs, which (in my experience) are more commonly referred to as "patrol boats" than the "offshore patrol vessels" that the acronym represents. On the third hand, are people going to use advice in favour of TLAs as an excuse to bring in pennant/hull number-like structures to article titles ("Oliver Hazard Perry-class FFG", or "USS Enterprise (CVN)")? -- saberwyn 08:05, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Require ship type?: I think it would be appropriate, because in the majority of situations, the common name of the subject includes the type. To use your first example, the subject is not "Tulza class", it is the group of vehicles referred to as the "Tulza-class patrol boat". No problem with the 'typeless' title serving as a redirect if its the only example, and it should be the title of the disambiguation page when there are multiple subjects (like the 6 ship designs named Bay class).
  3. No hyphenating 'typeless' titles: Agree, and such advice should be rolled into general hyphen usage when referring to classes. I wonder how many articles like your examples have been created because people were trying to replicate class article titles without fully understanding the naming convention. -- saberwyn 09:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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