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RMS Titanic II (proposed ocean liner)

RMS Titanic II (proposed ocean liner) Here we Go Again. Some things never get old; they just get repeated differently. Brad (talk) 14:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about hoaxes but it wouldn't surprise me if it was coming from people hoping to gain interest and investment in their replica Titanic project. In other words simply advertising. A new Titanic cruise ship has been talked about since the 1997 movie and about 5 or 6 attempts on wp alone. Brad (talk) 00:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh good! The Magnificent Ed did a snow delete. I didn't even get a chance to stick my fork in it. Brad (talk) 00:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Nice work, Ed. Parsecboy (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
"The Magnificent Ed"? I like the sound of that... but quit whining about not being able to participate. :P Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we should keep all of these articles and eliminate the need to repeat ourselves every other month. Brad (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the general consensus is no article until the keel is laid, or at the very least a constract for building the ship is signed. Mjroots (talk) 06:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Even a proposal or a design can be notable, if reliable sources devote sufficient time to it. I don't think the decision to keep an article should be determined in terms of project milestones. (Do we AfD a ship when it's sent to Alang?). We even have an FA on a highly notable ship which was built but never entered service. If sufficient reliable sources felt that some new Titanic was worth close attention (which is not the case now), then it would pass the GNG on that basis, regardless of its construction status... bobrayner (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
(I must confess to a slight conflict of interest, having created this article earlier this week) bobrayner (talk) 13:54, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
The key to this issue is one of having reliable sources. The article here in this case did not have any. My comment about keeping all the articles was a misfired joke. There is one article about a Titanic replica that was kept as it did have reliable sources. Brad (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
That is true, there was one Titanic replica article that was kept, however that was only after it was taken to AFD and members of Wikiproject Ships (perhaps even including some present in this very conversation) advocated its deletion, despite that it was sourced, and also that the subject should be put on a list of subjects never to be permitted. That article survived but it wasn't for lack of opposition. Weakopedia (talk) 06:08, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

National Maritime Museum Collaboration

I just wanted to let you know that I am having discussions with the National Maritime Museum about them releasing a large tranche of information about Royal Navy warships for use on Wikipedia projects. If anyone's interested please have a look at Wikipedia:GLAM/NMM and ask any questions/sign up. Regards, The Land (talk) 19:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation help needed

I need help with disambiguating Amaranth. I think it needs a ship page as well as a disambiguation page, and a better hatnote. Thanks! Djembayz (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the situation I don't think there is any better way to disambiguate than the way it's already being done. I would however, remove the hat note pointing towards the plant. That's available on the disambig page already. Brad (talk) 04:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I'll do that. Djembayz (talk) 05:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Soviet tracking ships

Hi, there are several sources, such as this NASA document (page 263) that refer to "Soviet tracking ships" from the 1960's, whose purpose was to track spacecraft as they flew around the Earth. They name the ships, but I haven't been able to work out what class of ship they were. Can anyone help? The names of the first generation of ships were: Sibir, Suchan, Sakhalin, and Chukotka; and the second generation ships were called: Dolinsk, Ilichevsk (or Illchevsk), and Krasnodar. Any more information about these ships would be appreciated. I'd like to add information, such as their class, into the Vostok programme article. Thanks, Mlm42 (talk) 03:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

New project scope page

@ Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Project Scope. It probably needs more work but it's a good start for now. I've linked it to the main page and the project sidebar. Comments welcome. Brad (talk) 05:09, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I've left a comment there. Gatoclass (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved from scope talk page

Much of the content of this page has yet to achieve consensus IMO. Certainly I think some of the statements could use further discussion. Are we sure ship owners should not be included? I can't think of many reasons why they should not. I'm also not altogether happy with the notion of an arbitrary cut-off of 100 feet/100 tons. They are a couple of concerns that immediately come to mind. Gatoclass (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Isn't the cut-off why WP:BOATS was proposed? 184.144.164.14 (talk) 08:45, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Since I've tried 2 or 3 times to get a consensus from ships editors and no one wanted to discuss; I finally went ahead and did one myself. Nothing is set in stone here but this page is reflecting several past conversations that were had on the topic plus what has been a daily practice for quite some time now. Brad (talk) 08:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree that there needs to be a cut-off somewhere between ships and boats. 100ft/100t seems to have broad consensus. 100ft means we don't get many of the smaller pleasure yachts seen on large inland rivers and lakes. 100t means we do cover many of the smaller historic sailing vessels. Of course, 100ft/100t is not a sole limit, as there are/were commissioned naval vessels which fall below this, but are still under the remit of WP:SHIPS. Mjroots (talk) 09:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
I guess it's largely a philosophical issue. I tend to the view that anything nautical should probably come under the remit of Wikiships. I mean, theoretically some nautical topics only deal indirectly with ships as a topic, but from a practical POV, there has never been enough interest to create viable subprojects, so it seems to me the sensible approach is to deal with it all at this project. I don't feel that strongly about it though - as long as we're not going to treat this guideline as "set in stone", to borrow Brad's phrase, because at some stage we may want to revisit one or two of these guidelines. Gatoclass (talk) 14:28, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
By the way, this discussion should probably be on the main project page. Mlm42 (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Discussion of this issue has taken place many times on the main project talk page. This is a good location for further discussion. Mjroots (talk) 06:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm hesitant to jump into this one without knowing more of the history, but at the risk of covering old ground, I have a reservation and a suggestion. The reservation is that the length and tonnage are too large to include some historic (mostly sail) vessels that clearly were more than boats. The suggestion, why not include anything with an Official Number - ie for the US, anything in the Annual List of Merchant Ships or its successor, and similarly for comparable lists of other nations.Dankarl (talk) 04:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I moved the conversation here. Right now there are comments being left in three places. Too spread out. Brad (talk) 19:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Dankarl that the length and tonnage limits are somewhat arbitrary, I know of a number of historic steamships that fail one or both of the criteria. I guess as long as we don't treat these numbers as absolutes they shouldn't cause too many problems. The guideline may need a tweak at some point though. Gatoclass (talk) 06:29, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Large sailing vessels

Moved from thread near top of page

Good start on scope page. Two comments re: sailing vessels: Could we add "Large sailing vessels" as being in scope? And could we add "WikiProject Sailing" as a related project on our home page? Djembayz (talk)

Can you explain what a "Large sailing vessel" is? Being vague is how we get into trouble. Brad (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Large-- starts about 50-70 ft., really kicks in at 100 ft. If it's too big to singlehand, because you need crew to help with sails, and it's not a racing yacht, it's large. Does 70-80 ft. work for our purposes? Djembayz (talk) 05:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Keeping the guideline at 100/100 does not mean something at 99ft isn't allowed. The 100/100 cut off leaves room for interpretation like allowing Virginia (pinnace) when it would otherwise be excluded. If we lower the official bar to 75/75 or even 50/50 then it won't be long before we're forced to make exceptions for ships that are less than 50/50 and so on. Next thing you know we'd have jet skis in our scope. Brad (talk) 20:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Agree with Brad. What the guideline is saying is that if 100/100 is met, then the vessel is within scope, if 100/100 is not met, then the vessel may still be within scope, but other factors need to be taken into account. Mjroots (talk) 10:13, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

My next inquiry is if we should have in our scope:

  • Articles like US Navy, Royal Navy etc. We have some of them under scope currently but wonder if they're correct. (Covered by Milhist/maritime)
  • Articles about cruise lines and shipping companies (Covered by Transport/maritime transport) Brad (talk) 22:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Bah, I get so tired of these definitional debates :/ Off the top of my head, I would say, cruise lines and shipping companies - maybe, US Navy, Royal Navy - no. But I might find it difficult to provide an appropriate rationale. Gatoclass (talk) 06:21, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge De Ruyter class cruiser and HNLMS De Ruyter (1935)

It looks to me the articles De Ruyter class cruiser and HNLMS De Ruyter (1935) need merging as for De Ruyter is the only ship in class and other unique ships on Wiki don’t have class articles. 86.87.73.104 (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

There is some ancient precedence where it was decided that a class article in addition to a ship article for single ship classes was ok. I happen to think that a single ship class should only have the article about the ship including everything about its uniqueness and not a separate class article. Brad (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I see no reason to have separate class and ship articles if the ship is unique.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Follow the fleet

Copied from Talk:Submarine

Is there enough information out there to warrant a separate page on the fleet sub? The redirect to Submarine doesn't seem terribly helpful in describing the technical details & development. I'm not sure if it wouldn't just reproduce what's in the individual class pages, tho. Nor am I sure a page on a U.S.-only term (if it is...) is wise. (FYI, also posed here.) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 20:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

While the US subs were called fleet boats I don't think that they were designed to accompany the fleet like the British WWI ships were. I think it was just a distinction between smaller, coastal boats and larger ones meant for long-range patrols. But I'd have to go through Friedman to find out for sure.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
On a side note, we don't have an article on fleet carriers either... we have it for most other major types of carriers, except the main type... 65.95.15.144 (talk) 05:57, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Ship of the Line naming convention

While not that interested in sailing warships, I've been adding infoboxes to a bunch of ship articles. Whilst doing so I noticed that just about all the articles on French ships of the line are formatted as French ship XXXX. This does nothing to distinguish the warship from any other type of French ship. French ship of the line XXXX is a little long, but better fits our naming convention and I propose to rename the articles thusly when I add infoboxes to those articles. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

In the context of sailing warships, "ship" means "ship of the line". Mjroots (talk) 05:13, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Ship boat etc

I noticed your discussions, didn't want to butt in, however there is this available: [1] Chaosdruid (talk) 02:13, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, we are already aware of the NMM's view on this matter. I feel that 40/40 is setting the bar too low. Mjroots (talk) 05:12, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

USS SC-42

USS SC-42 has been nominated for deletion, but the deletion rationale seems to indicate this is a test case for a wider ranging deletion of most non-capital-ship articles. 65.95.15.144 (talk) 05:17, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that this most recent rash of WWI navy vessels is essentially trying to reproduce http://www.subchaser.org/ The site holds about the same amount of content on individual ships as the articles being placed on WP do. I'm a quality over quantity believer but of course each to his own. Just seems like a waste of effort to reproduce something already available elsewhere. And with 400+ SC's built during WWI I guess we'll just have that many more articles with expand tags on them. Brad (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I pasted the above from the deletion page. There are other comments there too which are making valid points. Do we really want over 400 of these articles that have little chance of ever being expanded? Brad (talk) 05:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Sure, why not? Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, so the number of articles is no problem. All of the 400 could be sourced, and many of the 400 would be expandable beyond the single source you mention. The work would be done by someone who was interested in doing it, so really it is no bother to Wikipedia in general to have them. And, following the principle of verifiability, everything on Wikipedia should be found elsewhere, so the fact that the content of these 400 articles can also be found elsewhere is also not important. Quality over quantity is fine for article content, but as for article creation reducing the quantity can reduce the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. If someone wants to write an article and has a source to work from we should let them. Little chance of being expanded is not no chance of being expanded. Weakopedia (talk) 05:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I've started a class article here which may be a helpful target for merger of some of the ones for which there is little data.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
You're going to find that 95% of these SC articles have little if any information outside of what subchaser.org already has. This was the point I made above. Subchaser.org has already utilized what information is available from the US Navy about these ships. All that is occurring here is essentially duplicating the website. The effort would be better expended on bringing the class article you started up to snuff. Brad (talk) 20:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

  • {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

SS Cotopaxi

The SS Cotopaxi article was PRODded on 8 March by Brad101 (talk · contribs), with the PROD being seconded by 86.186.44.85 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). I've managed to find references that prove the ship existed and disappeared at about the time claimed, and for its fictional appearance in an edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As the Plimsoll Ship Data website is currently offline for maintenance, further expansion of the article will have to wait. It appears that a number of ships were named Cotopaxi over the years. This one was an American tramp steamer which disappeared in 1925. Assistance in further improving the article is welcome. Mjroots (talk) 06:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

by Htphilly (talk · contribs). Leave or revert? Materialscientist (talk) 23:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Does not look commercial. I'd be inclined to leave them.Dankarl (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Unnecessary linking but basically harmless. I would have objections if these links were added to GA or higher rated articles though. External linking is more stringent with articles that are higher rated. Brad (talk) 01:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
It's an ad suported site. It would be one thing if it was linking to a well established site that already listed the crew members, but each of these newly created pages is empty. Hcobb (talk) 02:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Ohh yeah.. I remember now. hullnumber.com is a site to reunite crew members and nothing else. What is added to each ship page depends on anybody who cares to do it. In that case this is spam/garbage since they're blank and awaiting to be filled in. Would an admin care to warn the user? Brad (talk) 05:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
The linking pattern is clearly an attempt to promote the site, but it's not clear whether it's someone associated with the site or just someone who thinks it's a good idea. The site is not empty; I clicked half a dozen pages at random and all had at least some information. There are a couple ads on each page - always the same ads - but it does not look heavily commercial. This incarnation has apparently been up a while. I still think it's harmless and a substantial block of readers may find it useful.Dankarl (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
The site is no different than facebook along the lines of a social networking site. It is neither a reliable source for ship information. A few links here and there aren't a problem but massive linking for the sake of linking isn't. A link to a legitimate ship veterans website would be more acceptable. Brad (talk) 14:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Use of HMS prefix for pre-1660 English warships?

Your attention is drawn here: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(ships)#HMS_prefix_in_old_English_warships. The Land (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope we can actually get this to go somewhere this time around! I was thinking about tabling this one again myself just yesterday. Martocticvs (talk) 18:33, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

RMS Titanic

This article, which is WP:SHIPS most popular article, is now unprotected due to the semi-protection I placed on the article six months ago expiring. So far, the vandalism does not seem to be recurring. Should this situation continue, then I'm happy for the article to remain unprotected. A return to previous levels of vandalism will mean that regrettably the duration of semi-protection will have to be indefinite. Mjroots (talk) 06:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

If vandalism returns, why not just activate pending changes? 184.144.166.85 (talk) 05:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Class overview sub-template

Please see Talk:Yorktown class aircraft carrier# for an explanation of the situation. I'm at my wits' end dealing with this user, and could use some fresh input in finding a solution. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 05:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I am the other user and I am also at my wits end. The information we are debating is very simple and easy to verify. This needs to be looked at by someone who is impartial and it needs to be fixed in the spirit of accurate information. JFChandler95678 (talk) 05:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:HMS Anson (79)/GA1

I reviewed this article for GA on 12 March, but User:Thurgate has been inactive since then. Hopefully this user will be returning shortly, but I was wondering if anyone else here would be willing to have a look at my comments and help get this article to GA status, as it would be a shame to fail the article purely because the primary editor has disappeared. Harrias talk 10:57, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I can fill in if he hasn't resurfaced in a few days.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Akra Aktion

The Akra Aktion article has been prodded. Per discussion at user talk:Brad101, it contains some incorrect info. We have two choices here, allow the prod without prejudice to recreation, or bash the article into a shape resembling a ship. Mjroots (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

USS Proteus (CVL-1) - TFUAC

USS Proteus (CVL-1).. yeah. There is no DANFS article that matches this ship. There is no Proteus with that designation listed in a registry reference I have. USS Proteus (AC-9) was sold in March 1941 and USS Proteus (AS-19) was laid down in September 1941. CVL-1 article claims CVL-1 went in service in 1934. This obviously can't be. Also, the CVL-1 article is a spooky ghost of USS Langley (CV-1). CVL-1 consists of photos of Langley renamed to Proteus and additional photos recaptioned to fit the story. It has some references but no bibliography to back up the claims. Not quite a speedy-delete hoax but it's certainly close. Can anyone dispute my research before I go to AFD? Brad (talk) 09:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I've just deleted that as an obvious hoax and blocked the editor. All the photos were of Langley and the ship's service history is blatantly false (for instance, HMAS Sydney was in the North Atlantic in October 1916, the RAN wouldn't have named another ship this name if she'd been captured and World War 2 service history is laughably falsified. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
The mistake he made was dropping an article on people who know what they're doing. Brad (talk) 11:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Go team us!! — Kralizec! (talk) 13:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

On a similar subject, Port Glinsint. No evidence this place exists or existed, there were no captured U-boats brought to Britain in 1943, and no reason for them to be fitted with "decoy underwater device emmiters" with the suspicious acronym D.U.D.E's, and no evidence such a device ever existed. Benea (talk) 14:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Nuked - it was deleted a few days ago at Port glinsint (though the DUDEs in that article were "destroyer underwater device emmiters"). Parsecboy (talk) 14:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello all, and an AFD

Hello everyone, hope all is going well. And while I'm at it Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HMS Constance (1880), if people would like to comment. Benea (talk) 22:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope your return isn't temporary. Good to see you back here. Brad (talk) 00:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
WB, Benea. . Anyways, the AfD was snowball closed, and I then managed to expand the article so that the notability of the ship cannot be in doubt anymore. Mjroots (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Excellent work on the expansion, by the way. Parsecboy (talk) 17:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

File for deletion

File:SS LESBIAN (3).jpg has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been kept. Thanks guys! Mjroots (talk) 16:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Ship cost conversions

Something recently come up on HMS Speedy (1782), where Fifelfoo (talk · contribs) has removed the cost conversion templates (i.e. 'ship x cost £100, equivalent to £1000 today', etc) arguing that 'Capital or GDP expenses cannot be inflated in terms of CPI' and 'It is factually incorrect and OR'. Since these were conversions insisted on at the GA/A class level reviews, and I intend to take this article to FA class can I have it settled whether he is in fact right and there has been some change of policy, or if he should be reverted? Other highly ranked articles also have conversions I seem to recall (HMS Dreadnought (1906) for example.) Benea (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I would be inclined to revert and keep the conversions in and argue it out at FAC if necessary. One editor's opinion is not policy. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
For more background, I'd take a look at ARA Moreno's FAC. I think that's where Fifel started the crusade. He made a good argument against them, at least. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I've left out cost conversions from the FAs I've worked on because it always seems like there are different figures coming from different sources. It's confusing and does border on OR. The only solution might be to find a written source that says Speedy cost X in year comparable to X in year the source was written. Brad (talk) 02:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
The validity of cost conversion using UK CPI for large items of defence expenditure is very doubtful. The UK Treasury Green Book recommends the use of GDP Deflators. GDP Deflators are based on a different basket of goods and services than UK CPI. (Using GDP Deflators does not mean deflating using data on the GDP.) Before GDP Deflators were available, the measure used was UK RPI. In the last few years Defence Analytical Services and Advice (DASA) has done a series of reports on defence inflation (see latest DASA Report), which looked at inflation in like-for-like UK defence costs and compared with two measures of general inflation across the UK economy: the GDP deflator and the Retail Prince Index excluding mortgage interest payments (RPIX).--Toddy1 (talk) 06:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I have read the arguments on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/ARA Moreno/archive1. There are different ways of expressing historic defence costs. For costs that were a long time ago, they frequently give very different answers. Which method to use depends on the analyses planned. There is no single right answer.
As an illustration of variation in values produced by different methods of assessing the relative worth of $1k spent in 1910 in 2009 US dollars is:
  • $17.5k calculated using the US GDP deflator
  • $23.3k calculated using the US Consumer Price Index (comparable with the UK Retail Price Index)
  • $46.5k calculated using the value of US consumer bundle
  • $99.7k calculated using the US unskilled wage
  • $149k calculated using the US Production Worker Compensation
  • $127k calculated using the nominal US GDP per capita
  • $422k calculated using the relative share of the US GDP
See www.measuringworth.com--Toddy1 (talk) 13:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Toddy, there's more discussion on this here Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Type 97 U-boat - TFUAC

Type 97 U-boat is the title but the body describes Type 93 U-boat and a list heading for Type 81 U-boats that goes on to list Type 93's. German subs aren't in my knowledge base; can anyone straighten this out? Brad (talk) 11:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Question - what does "TFUAC" mean? - BilCat (talk) 14:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Conway's 1906-21 refers to a U-93 Class, while U-boat net refers to a Type U-93 Class, which is what the article appears, badly, to be dealing with.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:26, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
And there's a redlinked article for German Type U 93 submarine in the appropriate nav template.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
So there is no such thing as a Type 97 sub? If not I'll move the article accordingly. Brad (talk) 10:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Plimsoll Ship Data website

The Plimsoll Ship Data website (scans of Lloyd's registers) is offline for maintenance, and has been for a few days. Can we please ensure that references from this website are not marked as deadlinks. Even if the website remains offline, the original document is a Lloyd's Register entry, the web page being a convenience only. Mjroots (talk) 12:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Site is still offline. Just a note to prevent bot archiving. Brad (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Kaiwo Maru used to house and feed Fukushima nuclear power plant workers

A news report by Andrew Gilligan and Robert Mendick, "Japan tsunami: Fukushima Fifty, the first interview," 7:00AM BST 27 Mar 2011, shows that a tall ship named Kaiwo Maru [probably the Kaiwo Maru II] is being used to house and feed Fukusima nuclear power plant workers when they are off active duty. I think this is worthy of note in the entry for Kaiwo Maru II but I lack experience and the confidence to add to the report myself. I trust someone will do it.

I'm sorry if this note is in the wrong place and trust someone will move it if necessary, too.Bernard Macdougall (talk) 05:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8408863/Japan-tsunami-Fukushima-Fifty-the-first-interview.html

 Done - the only way to get the experience (and thereby the confidence) is to be bold and edit the article yourself. It doesn't matter too much if you make a mistake whilst editing in good faith, as it can always be rectified. Mjroots (talk) 06:13, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Class A article up for deletion

{{Class A article}} has been nominated for deletion. As this wikiproject uses A-class as a quality rating, I thought I'd let you know. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 07:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Naming of Kaiwo Maru, and splitting the article

Some issues have come to light at Kaiwo Maru II, see Talk:Kaiwo Maru II. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 08:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Category scope proposal

I've propsed a change of scope for Category:Ships of British Rail at the talk page. Your views are welcome there. Mjroots (talk) 08:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

5000 images uploaded

Nearly five thousand 1000px images of ships have been uploaded to Commons in the past week as part of the SLQ collaboration.(see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-12-20/Image donation for background) They have been automatically added to 'Ships in Queensland' and 'Ships of Australia', however in a large proportion of cases this will be wrong. I'll be herding them out of those high level categories over the coming weeks.

The high level categories are a bit broken at the moment (something to do with the ongoing upgrade). As a result, I have create a report on the categories on the images, so that contributors familiar with ships can scan down and work on ship names that interest them. See commons:Commons:State Library of Queensland/Reports/Ship categories. For people unfamiliar with Commons, commons:Category:Sydney (ship) is an example of how they do disambiguation.

If there are any tasks which can be automated to manage these images of ship, please let me know either here or at commons:Commons_talk:State_Library_of_Queensland. I'll be following this thread to help with any questions and see any suggestions. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work here, John – those are some excellent pictures. I hope this continues! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
There wont be any many more pictures of ships from this SLQ collaboration, as I've extracted all the ones I can find. However if the community provides a lot of extra metadata about these ships, I can use that as ammunition in our discussions with the other libraries around Australia (and the globe). At the end of this month we'll be writing a report (like this one), describing the first months activity improving the metadata for these images of ships, and a synopsis will appear in the outreach:GLAM/Newsletter (and maybe the Signpost, if there is significant improvements). All good examples of our work should be noted on commons:Commons:State Library of Queensland/Highlights, so they can be mentioned in these reports. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Great work! Could we bring this thread back from the archive?

What are our naming conventions on Commons for ships with the same name built in different years, or in different classes / sailing rigs? Example: The category Star of Italy (ship) in Commons was recently deleted as being improperly named. Djembayz (talk) 12:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Ships built in different years on en-Wiki are dabbed by year, or builder and year if necessary. Ships with different rigs are dabbed by rig. No reason why something similar cannot be applied to Commons. Mjroots (talk) 19:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
To clarify, I believe it's the launch year. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I was alerted to this discussion a while ago: commons:Commons talk:Naming categories#Ship naming conventions/policy. I trust it means more to you than it does to me. Another related discussion is commons:Commons_talk:State_Library_of_Queensland/Subjects#ships. --John Vandenberg (chat) 22:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I've started building the report for March, improving the reporting software as I go. See commons:Commons:State Library of Queensland/Reports/3/New categories and the previous report is here. The "new category" stats are skewed in favour of the current month because renaming categories involves deleting the old category and creating a new one. I can easily correct this in future reports, but it will be difficult to correct this in the current report as I don't readily have the necessary historical data.

If there are any lists or stats that you think would be useful, please let me know. John Vandenberg (chat) 22:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

A new draft redcats list is available Commons:State Library of Queensland/Reports/3/Red categories. There are only three missing categories which contain more than four images. See commons:Category:Windsor Castle (ship), commons:Category:Sunbeam (ship), and commons:Category:Warrego (ship). John Vandenberg (chat) 11:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

commons:Commons:State Library of Queensland/Reports/3/New Wikipedia pages is a semi-automatically generated list of articles created in March with an SLQ image on the page. Have any other articles been created this month? Feel free to add them to that page if they meet the criteria. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:13, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

2011 shipwrecks

I've added in three ships known to have been victims of the Japanese tsunami. Can anyone confirm which flag Asia Syndicate operates under. Unfortunately, a search on t'internet for "Asia Syndicate" produces lots of false results due to a heroin smuggling gang of the 1970s known as the "Mr Asia Syndicate". Maybe someone with a subscription to Miramar can help? Mjroots (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know the answer. I'll look around the net but doubt I can do better than you (I'm very persistent though). For anyone interested I can't resist citing a link to pictures of vessels stranded by the tsunami. I hope it's interestng and perhaps even useful - but maybe you've seen it already. Bernard Macdougall (talk) 14:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Telegraph

Featured article candidacy for USS New Ironsides now open

The featured article candidacy for USS New Ironsides is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat tangential...

Though related to ships, I'd like to get as many eyes on this as possible for clear consensus, so if anyone wants to stop by and voice their opinion one way or the other I'd be grateful - an issue over one or two battles of Trafalgar, being discussed here. Benea (talk) 17:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the merge has already been done. Roger (talk) 16:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

AfD notice

The LST-766 article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 09:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

HNoMS

Hopefully I wasn't too presumptuous, but seeing as we had prefix templates like {{HMS}} and {{USS}} and even {{HNLMS}} available, I thought I'd create the equivalent for ships of the Royal Norwegian Navy at {{HNoMS}}. The template itself and documentation is based on {{HMS}}, and it's been added to {{WPSHIPS shortcut templates}}. - Chrism would like to hear from you 23:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Being bold like that is to be encouraged. Mjroots (talk) 05:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Category sorting

I've noticed for a while that there are no guidelines for sorting ship prefixes. For example, should USS Ashuelot be sorted as "Ashuelot, USS" or "Ashuelot USS" (ie with or without the comma)? Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Use {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashuelot}} Mjroots (talk) 16:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but my point is, what if you end up with two ships with the same name in the same category, only distinguished by their prefixes? Then you will need to add the prefix as the separator, but we don't actually have a method for doing that in the guideline. Gatoclass (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
The "Ashuelot, USS" format is similar to writing a person's name. So I say include the comma. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay then, here's another question. Should all such ships be categorized as "Shipname, USS" or should the ",USS" only be added when there is a known conflict with another shipname? Gatoclass (talk) 12:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Crystal Symphony - TFUAC

Crystal Symphony is without a doubt the most disgusting piece of tripe within the scope of this project. I'm nauseated after reading that article. It was expanded and worked on by an editor we had problems with on other cruise ship articles. Anyway, unless someone wants to take a stab at rewriting this PoS I'm taking it to AfD in a few days. Now pardon me whilst I find some Pepto. Brad (talk) 01:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

There's no point in taking it to AfD, as the result will be "keep". The ship easily meets our criteria to sustain an article. There is a lot of stuff in the article which seemst to be promoting how good the ship is, but it is mostly referenced (sort of opposite to the policy on negative info about living people, as it were). I'd suggest that some pruning is needed, but an AfD is not. Mjroots (talk) 05:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I have taken the clippers to it - basically the whole thing is sourced to its owners' press releases, but I've left in the more encyclopedic content and taken out much of the gushing marketing copy. The Land (talk) 09:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for cleaning up; it's a lot better now. Taking it to AfD would have ensured the article was cleaned up. Brad (talk) 00:47, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
That's a big improvement - great work Nick-D (talk) 11:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The article has been chopped further, and as far as I'm concerned it is now neutral and acceptable. Two things on WP get my hair on fire and that's blatant glowing pro-subject advertising and trivia. Hail to the choppers! Brad (talk) 18:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Worth a quick hack of Crystal Serenity as well, then. Calling someone a chopper (meaning 4) is usually considered the opposite of a compliment. However, since the hat fits, I'll happily wear it. Shem (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I've never heard or seen the word "chopper" used for penis slang. Learn something new everyday. Eventually you won't be able to say anything lest some new slang meaning has come into popularity. Brad (talk) 23:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

U-233

There is a discussion here on where U-233 should redirect to; comments are invited... Xyl 54 (talk) 05:10, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Vietnamese naval ship image deletions

Image:Truong Sa Navy.jpg and Image:RVNS Ly Thuong Kiet.jpg have been nominated for deletion. 64.229.100.45 (talk) 07:14, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Stub class articles that aren't

I've been discovering quite a few articles that are rated at stub class that aren't in any way a stub. This is likely because the article has been expanded since it was originally assessed. Cruizer-class brig-sloop was a good example of this. I'm not suggesting a reassessment campaign of all stub articles but if we could be more attentive to what an article's rating is then little by little they can be reassessed accordingly.

A tool which has helped me to find articles like this is using a gadget under my/your preferences->Gadgets->User interface gadgets and ticking off Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article. This will show you the article rating on the front page rather than having to visit the talk page to find out. With that, if the article says stub and it's obviously not, it can be rerated. Of course if the article is overrated that can be changed too. Brad (talk) 11:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't appear to work for me, for whatever reason... Martocticvs (talk)
Ah, yes it does... needed a moment to catch up. --Martocticvs (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I use that gadget also and will reassess Stubs to Start due to length of text where needed. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
That is one cool gadget. Added it . Mjroots (talk) 10:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Cool indeed - using it now. Shem (talk) 11:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
It's very handy when assessing articles, especially since talk pages are slower to load than articles pages for some reason.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Out of curiosity how should HMAS Alfie Cam and HMVS Nepean be rated? What would you rate them as? Brad (talk) 08:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Those are borderline stub/start, imo. I don't think there is enough text to change to Start, but would not argue if someone else did. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Using Alfie Cam as an example and keeping in mind the B-class checklist which milhist and this project use it would be filled out this way:
  • |B1=y|B2=n|B3=y|B4=y|B5=y
The article does have inline citations (b1); it is not complete due to its shortness (b2); it does have a structure (b3), the grammar and spelling are good (b4) and it does have an infobox (b5). It meets 4 out of 5 items needed to meet B-class so it's definitely start class for milhist and makes C-class for this project. Short text may qualify it as a stub but the article stub tags don't necessarily mean the same thing for a project rating. I think we're cheating ourselves by considering so many articles to be stubs when they are really not. Brad (talk) 17:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
For comparison here are three articles that are stubs Betsey (schooner), CCGS Cape Norman and HDMS Søehesten. Brad (talk) 12:35, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, all the definitions have changed so much over the last few years. I see FA's now that I would barely pass as GA's. Basically, all the standards have declined over time. I guess it boils down to whether one wants to go strictly by the B-class criteria, or whether one wants to retain a degree of subjective valuation over an article. Gatoclass (talk) 12:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know that I'd agree with this at all. I've seen a number of older FA and A-class articles that are barely GA class, IMO. But I've seen several articles make it to FA that I thought weren't deserving of that accolade. YMMV.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I've never had much to do with FA, so maybe you are right. What I have noticed is that the TFA standards have declined. All the TFAs I used to look at were excellent articles. Now I see articles at TFA every other day that are not up to an appropriate standard in my view. Maybe those articles always existed, and were just rarely promoted, but are getting promoted now due to a shortage of better quality articles or something. Gatoclass (talk) 04:46, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
What you're probably seeing are the articles that were promoted in 2008 and earlier that were in the TFA backlog (we have far more FAs than days in the year). Of the four articles on the main page right now (today's FA along with the three listed under "Recently featured"), two of them were promoted in 2008, one in 2010, and one last month (Parkinson's disease, apparently rushed through in time for Parkinson's birthday). Standards have steadily grown over the years - we've seen this with regards to sourcing: for instance, navweaps.com used to be a valid source, but is now no longer accepted in FAs. Parsecboy (talk) 12:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I'll take your word for it. But if there's a long backlog one wonders why they don't just feature articles for 12 hours instead of 24. Gatoclass (talk) 13:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure that's been discussed. FWIW, there are 3,233 FAs at the moment, nearly enough for every day for 10 years. Of those, 1,342 that have not been featured, which gives us over three and a half years worth of FAs to go through (before we even begin to add in the FAs that will be promoted this month). Parsecboy (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Getting an FA demoted isn't exactly an easy thing. First you have to ping the talk page of the article and list the issues and are expected to help fix problems. If no response or action happens there in 30 days then you go to FAR. Then the article can sit at FAR for another two months. The process takes a lot of time and attention especially for the editor doing the nominating. Brad (talk) 04:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Copyright cleanup - assistance please

Hello all. It's turned up that there are potential copyright violations in a number of ship articles. User:Acad Ronin has, probably with the best of intentions, been adding text to articles based rather too closely on this copyrighted content. A number of people (particularly User:Shem1805 and User:VernoWhitney) have noticed this and been discussing the matter with Acad Ronin, but I think it's fair to say the scale of the problem has only just come to light.

We could use the attention of any experienced editors. Please looking at the list of articles here' which AcadRonin has identified as at risk of copyright violations. Each article on that list needs to be closely checked against the entry for the same ship at [2], and any section of it which is a copyright violation needs to be re-written or removed. In many cases, Acad has taken Phillips's text, and rewritten it a little, so it is not an obvious copy but rather (in copyright terms) a "derivative work".

In the meantime, please avoid any temptation to go around blanking Acad Ronin's contributions or shouting at him(/her). Many of Acad's contributions are of a high quality and, while we obviously need to deal with this copyright problem, I am optimistic that we can do it on an article-by-article basis with his co-operation and without removing large quantities of good material. Regards, The Land (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

All of these copyright issues in general could be nipped in the bud if new articles were examined more closely for violations. I've often thought that WP should change its name to "copypastipedia" because so many articles do have either blatant violations or paraphrasing which is the case here. I just caught USNS New Bedford earlier today with copyrighted passages mixed in with public domain material.
The trouble is that finding copyright violations can be time consuming; I spent like an hour total cleaning out the New Bedford article from multiple sources. There is a copyvio tool that attempts to find violations but so far I haven't found it to be all that helpful because it also identifies websites that have pasted WP articles without attribution. Brad (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I happened across Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ships/Sources#Royal_Navy and noticed the entry:

Apparently some sort of permission was given (years ago) but whether the above mention of The Epopt having an email qualifies the source as permissible now should be investigated. Brad (talk) 03:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... it probably does - but the permission probably belongs somewhere else in addition to in The Epopt's inbox! Has anyone asked him? The Land (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I left a message on Epopt's talk page but I'm not too optimistic of getting an answer. Epopt last edited in January but prior to that it was October 2009. I'll work on this in my spare time but I guess we should treat the source as copyrighted until we have some firm evidence of permission. Brad (talk) 22:01, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

USS New Ironsides

The article on the USS New Ironsides, an ironclad that saw action at Ft. Fisher and Charleston during the American Civil War is a featured article candidate. Feel free to drop by and review the article to see if it meets the FAC criteria.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Ship of the Line naming convention

I'd like to restore this for further discussion here as I notice Sturmvogel has started moving articles: Benea (talk) 20:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

While not that interested in sailing warships, I've been adding infoboxes to a bunch of ship articles. Whilst doing so I noticed that just about all the articles on French ships of the line are formatted as French ship XXXX. This does nothing to distinguish the warship from any other type of French ship. French ship of the line XXXX is a little long, but better fits our naming convention and I propose to rename the articles thusly when I add infoboxes to those articles. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

In the context of sailing warships, "ship" means "ship of the line". Mjroots (talk) 05:13, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't think this is necessarily a good idea, and actually may be incorrect for a number of the articles Sturm has been moving. The term ship of the line applies to ships that were considered powerful enough to stand in the line of battle. As ship armaments and sizes increase throughout history, a ship that brand-spanking new might have been classed as a ship of the line, would by the end of a 50 year career be considered too undergunned to do so. The problem is acute for British fourth rates for example which start off as ships of the line, and then as the time goes on, fall into a grey area, neither small and fast enough to be independent cruisers like the frigates, nor powerful enough to be ships of the line. Even the smaller third rates, the 64-gun ships, can no longer be considered ships of the line by the start of the nineteenth century. Ships they were definitely were though, the term as Mjroots correctly states, referring to their rig. I think we should retain the current convention for now. Benea (talk) 20:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Just calling them ship does nothing to distinguish them from any other ship of the same name and contravenes the naming convention as they are more than just ships. I agree that the border between frigate and ship of the line gets more nebulous with the advent of heavy frigates, but how is that any different than that between frigate/corvette/sloop? And "ship" in the context of the Age of Sail certainly does not mean ship of the line; it means a ship-rigged vessel. That will generally dictate a larger vessel, but perhaps not necessarily the size of a ship of the line.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
How is this contravening our naming conventions, which state 'Do not be over-specific about the ship type'? The tactics of line of battle fighting don't come into regular use until later in the seventeenth century. Frigates, with by definition their armament on a single deck, did take part in fleet engagements in the seventeenth century, often forming the main force of the fleet and serving alongside the 'great ships' of the first and second rate. The French similarly divided their ships up in the first, second, third, etc ranks. Some former ships of the line were even razeed to become frigates. I'm not seeing a need to change the convention where it applies a single definition of a type of warship indiscriminately and anachronistically over a historical period. Benea (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
French ship XXXX will do nicely. With British warships of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards people are perfectly happy with articles with the name expressed as HMS Speaker (1801). The only reason we use the format French ship Speaker (1801) is that there is no accepted French equivalent of HMS. Why is there any need to have a different name depending on what type of ship it was? There does not seem to be any point - indeed it makes it harder to find the ship in question.
The word frigate did not mean the same in 1650 as it did in 1800. The English ship Speaker (1650) was a ship of the line that was a frigate.
If you had to use more specific words than ship, then English Third Rate Speaker (1650) or French Third Rate Speaker (1650) would be defensible, because that was how they were classified. But for normal readers, "ship" is a more useful word than "Third Rate". With 19th/20th Century ships, over-specific naming has created a mess, where Wikipedia has categorised ships assuming an exclusivity that did not exist at the time. For example French ironclad Courbet (renamed by Sturmvogel 66), French battleship Courbet (1911) - except that they were both classified as battleships by the British. Or what about the article called Dévastation class ironclad (renamed by Sturmvogel 66 from Dévastation class battleship), which is very confusing as there was an earlier Dévastation class of ironclads. The Dévastation class laid down in the 1870s spent all of their lives classified by the French by the term that translates into modern English as battleship, and spent most of their lives classified by the British as battleships. (The terms ironclad and battleship are not exclusive in the real world, though they might be in Wikiworld.)
Incidentally, did you read Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(ships)#HMS_prefix_in_old_English_warships? If you did not, then please do. "It would not be sensible to use English galleon Revenge, English great ship Revenge, English carrack Revenge, English galley Revenge, etc. ... there was great imprecision in contemporary use".--Toddy1 (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
You're bring up strawmen. The first Dévastation class that you're referring to were floating batteries and unlikely to be confused with the ocean-going cuirassés built two decades later. And the older class is called a floating battery in wiki precisely to avoid any possibility of confusion. Unlike the generic "ship". And the first Courbet is arguably a pre-dreadnought so I'll let the battleship name stand without argument. And what exactly was the French term for ships like the Alma class ironclads, wasn't it something Cuirassé de station or something similar? So in French terminology a battleship is not always a battleship as we'd think of it today.
No navy ever called its battleships predreadnoughts, but scholars commonly use it to describe battleships built between approximately 1882 and 1905. Nor was ironclad ever used, but it's in pretty common usage nowadays. I see no reason why we shouldn't use it to discriminate between ships of the same name, especially as it tells a reader more information than the plain and very generic "ship" (which is so vague to be almost meaningless). We need not get into the differences between rates within the general category of Ship of the line, just as we don't need to get into the differences between broadside ironclad or central-battery ironclad. So I'm quite satisfied that ship of the line is not too specific, unlike y'all who are getting hung up on the bottom end of the ship of the line category. Have you ever, ever seen a 64-gun ship called a frigate? No, I thought not, mainly because it has two gun decks. But if it's not a frigate, then what is it? There's no other choice than ship of the line, even if it's no longer considered suitable to stand in a line of battle by the Napoleonic Wars. And if it gets razéed later to a single-deck 50-gun ship, what of it? Call it one or the other, based on what it spent most of its time as.
French ship Napoléon (1850) is often referred to as a steam battleship, but is that appropriate for us to use? I ask you which usage is the most precise? A merchant ship named after the Emperor laid down in 1850 or French ship of the line Napoléon (1850)? The first engenders confusion by its vague nature while the second is clear and precise, albeit long. And the guidance for old English ships is of no utility here where more information is available so we can determine for ourselves what terminology to use. Ship is too vague for anything other than merchant ships and the like.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
  • You are mistaken in stating "Nor was ironclad ever used". The term "ironclad" was used at the time; though EJ Reed in his 1869 book Our Iron-Clad Ships, hyphenates "iron-clad". He uses phrases like "armour of the iron-clads". The Times also used the term "iron-clads" to refer to ships - for example on 25 September 1865 (reprinted on p35, Captain Coles' letters &c., and the opinion of the press on turrets (pub 1866). It is actually quite a common term at the time; though it is not the only term for them; armour-clad, and line-of-battle ship were also used. Early editions of Brassey's Naval Annual uses "ironclad" unhyphenated.
  • The normal contemporary term for a ship like French ship Napoléon (1850) was "steam line-of-battle ship", though "steam liner" and "steam two-decker" were also used. Given that the modern word "battleship" was merely a contraction of "line-of-battle ship", it is difficult to see any objection to using the term steam battleship to describe the Napoléon. This is after all the term that Andrew Lambert used in his book on the subject Battleships in Transition.
  • The French classification for the Alma class ironclad was "Corvette cuirassé" (sources: Cents ans de cuirassés français and Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre Français de Colbert à nos jours) I suppose you could call them "armoured corvettes" (though they were still considered as a kind of lesser battleship). Academic discussions of these ships sometimes call them "Stationnaire ironclads". The Bayard class are the first French class described as "cuirassés de croisière". I suppose you could call them "cruising ironclads" (but not "armoured cruiser", because they were still considered a type of battleship). King in his 1880 book The War-Ships and Navies of the World describes the Duguesclin as a "second-rate armor-clad" (p19)
  • 64-gun two-deckers were not frigates.--Toddy1 (talk) 02:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
If you'd read my posting a little more closely, I never said they were. I did say that there's no other choice than to call them ships of the line, regardless of how well they could stand in a line of battle.
I guess that I wasn't clear enough on who used iron-clad terminology. No navy ever did, although perhaps the French and Germans were closest with terms that literally translate as armored or armored ship. HMS Warrior was officially designated as an armored frigate, although I'm not sure what the RN's official terminology was later during the ironclad period. You really do seem to be in love with the term battleship even though the majority of our readers think of a 20th century ship when they see the term. I think that using it much before ±1880 would just confuse them and there are plenty of other terms to use.
Even you had to concede that the term ship is too vague and that warship would better distinguish a naval ship from a merchant ship of the same name. So let's take it one step further and call them ships of the line, based on two or more gundecks.
It seems very odd to me that y'all are willing to use specific terms like frigate, corvette and sloop (Age of Sail definitions) with very nebulous boundaries between them, but balk at ship of the line.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Sturmvogel 66 - please go to the UK National Archives at Kew and look at Royal Navy official reports and papers from the 1860s and 1870s. You will see that you are mistaken in your belief that the Royal Navy did not use the term "iron-clads". (See for example, ADM 116/143 Reports of the Captain and Monarch prepared in accordance with the memorandum of the First Lord of the Admiralty, which was received on 17 January 1871. The main terms used are "iron-clad" for armoured ships and "line-of-battle ship" for steam two-deckers and three-deckers.)--Toddy1 (talk) 07:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, so the terminology did evolve; I'd wondered as much.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with "French ship XXXX (YYYY)" On the whole, I think there is more risk of being unclear or misleadingly precise if we attempt to put in more detail. "French ship of the line XXXX (YYYY)" is a bit longwinded, and there are cases where a ship will have dropped in or out of the "ship of the line" category. "Frigate" and "sloop" are a) shorter and b) better defined for much of the period in question (It's very rare to find a ship that started life as a frigate that stopped being one at least in the later 18th century, but I don't object to any marginal cases also following "French ship XXXX (YYYY)"). (And on the other issue; "Ironclad" might not have been used as a formal designation, but it was certainly used contemporaneously in naval circles). The Land (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I fail to see how ship of the line is too precise when applied to multi-gundeck warships. You simply can't use any other term for a two-deck 64-gun ship. I went with the ironclad term as it is nicely generic enough avoid quibbles, but orients a reader in time and function. How does "ship" accomplish even that much? It applies to pretty much everything that floats over an arbitrary limit and makes no distinction between warships and merchantmen.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
You could say XXXX (64), XXXX (64-gun ship), XXXX (two-decker), French 64-gun ship XXXX - ship of the line is not the only option. Indeed, in many periods the use "64", "64-gun ship", "Third Rate" etc is rather more common than "ship of the line". Of course, there was never a guarantee that a 64 had 64 guns, and a Third Rate is rather better than today's usage of the term suggests, but there you go. I wouldn't object to "warship" at all, and I only weakly object to "ship of the line", but I don't really see the problem with "ship". As we've often seen with ship naming, the lack of a clear right answer means there's a big risk of unproductive debate.... The Land (talk) 15:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion just goes to show why the whole pre-disambiguation (which most of Wikipedia does not do) is such a bad idea. Just what is wrong with Courbet (1911)? Shem (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, indeed. If we have HMS Dragon (1798) then for navies with no acronym, Courbet (1911) or Courbet (1911 ship) makes perfect sense to me. The Land (talk) 07:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I very much agree. In fact, I think there is arguably a degree of systemic bias in tagging articles from non-English speaking countries as French ship this or Russian ship that. We don't actually do this for, say, merchant ships from English-speaking countries, so why should it be necessary for the others? Gatoclass (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
One thing that has come out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LST-766 is that if a ship article has something like USS or French ship at the start of the article name, then it is easier to find it, so it does not become an orphan, and does not get unjustly recommended for deletion.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
All I see in that discussion is one offhand comment by Brad that the article would get more hits if it was (correctly) listed as USS LST-766 - but nobody is arguing that we should delete "USS" from ship articles. This discussion is about something else - namely, whether or not pre-disambiguation of ship articles is appropriate. But now that you raise the matter, I've yet to actually hear a compelling argument as to why pre-disambiguation is worthwhile. In fact the only argument I can recall being made in its favour is that it would be a bother to have to change all the names. That doesn't seem like much of an argument to me. But I can think of plenty of reasons why we shouldn't pre-disambiguate - this very discussion being one of them. Gatoclass (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Like Gato said ... Shem (talk) 15:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, looks like my minority view is quite so minority after all. I agree that we shouldn't unnecessarily dab ships. If the French had a frigate called Foo, then the article on the ship should be at "Foo (frigate)" If the Spanish also had a frigate called Foo, then we should dab - "Foo (French frigate)" or "Foo (Spanish frigate)". If the Spanish ship was a brig, then "Foo (brig)" would suffice to distinguish from "Foo (frigate)". Mjroots (talk) 09:59, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree, I'd just go a little further and say that Foo shouldn't be disambiguated at all unless it needs to be. Also, I think I personally would prefer to stick to disambiguations by launch date, and only start going to disambiguations by ship type and country when absolutely necessary. Gatoclass (talk) 12:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
I think we need a formal proposal. Can we broadly agree a formal proposal before we actually put it before WPSHIPS? I'd like something we don't have to argue too hard between ourselves! Shem (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
You do realise the havoc this will cause?! Any such proposal should cover all ships, merchant and naval. We will need to decide which navy's ships get prefixed and which don't, per ship prefix, which should be a good guide for this. Then we'll need to decide an order for dabbing, such as no dab, year, SS or MV, builder etc. Mjroots (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
In the interests of simplicity and getting things done, can we just concentrate for now on ships which have no prefix - Kriegsmarine, French Navy, Spanish Navy, English ships before 1789? I don't see any need to go into what needs a prefix and what doesn't - if the article doesn't have a prefix, then it should just use the name? Shem (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm amenable to that suggestion. Naval vessels only, merchant ships can remain at PS, SS, RMS, MV, MS etc. Mjroots (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The current naming convention says "For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Nationality) (type) (Name)". The alternatives I see are:

  1. For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Name) ( (year of launch) ) - ie Foo (1911)
  2. For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Name) ( (year of launch) (type) )- ie Foo (1911 battleship)
  3. For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Name) ( (Nationality) (type) )- ie Foo (German battleship)

My personal feeling is that year of launch is unique (in the sense that every ship has only one), whereas ships change nationality and even type. In the extremely unlikely circumstance that two ships bearing the same name (and neither employing a prefix) are launched in the same year, further disambiguation would be required, but easy to do. Thoughts? Shem (talk) 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I've come across this with merchant ships. Two ships that were both launched in the same year, and both carried the same name at one point in their careers. In these cases, I dabbed by builder. Mjroots (talk) 05:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
On a purely practical point, whether she was a warship and her nationality can help avoid mistakes when people are creating wikilinks, or have found some facts and are looking for the right article to add them to. (For example someone confused the German battleship Gneisenau (1936) with the German passenger liner Gneisenau (1935) in the article on Benigno Ramos - this has been corrected.) I would therefore prefer:
  1. For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Nationality) warship (Name) (year of launch) - ie German warship Foo (1911)
In such a scheme, in such navies, should unarmed commissioned ships like the HMY Britannia and BAP Bayovar (ATP-154) be named as warships?--Toddy1 (talk) 08:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I can't comment on Bayovar, but wasn't Britannia tecnically an auxiliary cruiser / hospital ship? Mjroots (talk) 18:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't care a whole lot whether the disambiguation method is by ship type or date, I'm basically just opposed to pre-disambiguation. I also think we should stick to wider wikipedia conventions when disambiguating, with ship name coming first and disambiguation after, in brackets. So, Foo (battleship) or Foo (1916) is fine with me, but "Nationality shiptype Foo" or "Shiptype Foo" is not. Gatoclass (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Any resolution?

Reading through the above discussion isn't showing any resolution or decision made to change the naming convention. Brad (talk) 00:54, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I've yet to see anyone put an argument in favour of predisambiguation. I'd like to at least know why some users apparently support this practice. Gatoclass (talk) 05:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Ditto. Shem (talk) 08:31, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the pre-disambiguation because it's easy to tell what you are talking about. Minas Geraes (1908) is not descriptive at all. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 14:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Easy for editors, but not easy for readers. I have no idea what your red link is, even though I know the ship name - how am I to find the article? Shem (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Whoops, I assumed that would be a redirect. Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes. By the way, you sort of proved my point -- you would have had no idea what that link was supposed to point too. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:04, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
It simply isn't necessary. The wiki search engine is very good now - just type in "Minas Geraes" and see what comes up. Gatoclass (talk) 00:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Should these ship class articles be italicized?

Should Borei class submarine or Audacious class aircraft carrier be italicized when mentioned? I.e. should it be 'Borei class submarine' or 'Borei class submarine?' It seems clear from the projects guidelines that the answer is no, because the lead vessel in each of these classes doesn't carry the class name but I am just checking the correct procedure.

"Ship class articles should follow the same general format as individual ship articles. If a ship class is named after its lead ship, the name is italicized (Ohio class); otherwise, use plain text (A class)." Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 04:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Audacious, yes. Borei, no. General rule of thumb, if the class and a ship in the class share the name, italicise (99% of the time, that will be the lead ship).
Although on a similar note, how does it work when part of the class name appears in one or more ship names? I'm thinking specifically of the Bay class landing ship dock, where all four ships have 'Bay' as part of their name. -- saberwyn 08:34, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. I asked about the Audacious class because in the end no vessels were called Audacious, although I suppose that Eagle having been initially laid down as Audacious counts. With the Bay class landing ships, I would guess the answer is that just 'Bay' is italicized? Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
With Bay, no. The British have a slightly different set of rules for italicization. Some classes are named for the common thread (i.e., the County class cruisers or the Admiral class battleships). This is the same situation with the Bays, and so they should not be italicized. Parsecboy (talk) 13:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Indeed; Glamorgan, London, Kent, etc were County-class destroyers (named after counties). Largs Bay, Cardigan Bay, etc are Bay-class landing ships (named after bays - the names of which all happen to end in "bay" as well). But there's nothing particularly British about this - see Canadian River-class destroyer & Australian River-class destroyer escort to name just two more nations that group ships by theme. Shem (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, the Canadians and Australians took the practice from the RN, of course. I can't think of any other major navy that does this. Parsecboy (talk) 14:27, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
What about the USCG Treasury-class cutters?Nigel Ish (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
They are not named after a ship, so wouldn't be italicized. BTW, I don't know why the article is named "USCG Treasury class", seems to me it should just be named "Treasury class". Gatoclass (talk) 14:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I think Nigel is trying to make the point that the USCG has done it at least once, which means it's not uniquely British (or even Commonwealth) to name ship classes by theme. There are more USCG classes named for a theme - Cape class patrol boat & Point class cutter. The need for a move seems to be obvious, so I've gone ahead and done it (Treasury-class cutter) - WP:BOLD. Shem (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

SS Marlin

The SS Marlin sank off the coast of North Carolina on 18 October 1965. A US Coast Guard cutter went to her assistance. Is there any editor with access to American newspaper archives who could find a name for the vessel please? Mjroots (talk) 14:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

There are a couple articles in the New York Times here and here, but I don't have a subscription. Parsecboy (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I've just had a look at the full New York Times articles and the cutter is not named in either. Perhaps a local North Carolina paper would say (to which I don't have access). —Diiscool (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Looks like Chilula.[3]. Gatoclass (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Here's a couple more links.[4] Gatoclass (talk) 15:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, article expanded with the relevant info. Mjroots (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorting CCGS names

I expect ship names to be sorted on the full name, without the prefix. However where the ship is named after a person, I find a mixture of orders - mainly sorting on the person's surname (correct for an article about the person). Is it correct to change this, so that eg. CCGS Sir William Alexander sorts as "Sir William Alexander, CCGS", not as "William..." or "Alexander..."? Finavon (talk) 10:34, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that it should be "Sir William Alexander, CCGS" or "William Alexander, Sir, CCGS" 65.94.45.160 (talk) 04:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
See "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ships/Categorization" Regards Oldfarm (talk) 05:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I can't see where that guideline covers this issue. However, I think the ship should be sorted as "Sir William Alexander, CCGS" because ships do not have surnames, given names or titles. Gatoclass (talk) 06:25, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
If there are two ships, "CSS William Alexander" and "CCGS Sir William Alexander", I think they should be sorted together... "William Alexander, ..." 65.94.45.160 (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
It's not a perfect world. Where a ship is named "CCGS Sir William Alexander", it should be sorted by her name - "Sir William Alexander", nothing more or less. The fact that two ships with similar (but not identical) names are not sorted together is neither here nor there. Shem (talk) 08:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. CCGS articles sorted on full name (ie Sir... and others where the name starts with initials). Finavon (talk) 20:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to drop the disambiguator in the lead paragraph

Please visit the discussion here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Guidelines#Proposal_to_drop_the_disambiguator_in_the_lead_paragraph. Thanks. Shem (talk) 09:00, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for HMS Hood (51) now open

The A-Class review for HMS Hood (51) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

New PS template

I've created a new {{PS}} template for paddle steamers, which works the same as the USS, HMS templates and so on. I would've done it a while back but the template was already in use by another project, so I had to shunt all the existing iterations of the other template to a new template first. "PS" is a useful disambiguator for paddle steamers, which is intended to replace cumbersome usage like "Shipname (steamboat)" or "Shipname (paddle steamer)" or "Shipname (side-wheeler)" and all the other variations. Gatoclass (talk) 16:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's definitely better usage than Potterly use. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 04:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Huh? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
{{PS}} used to be a Harry Potter template. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 04:44, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Do we need a bot run to change all uses of {{ship|PS| to {{PS|? Mjroots (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, maybe someone who is more familiar with coding issues could answer that. Gatoclass (talk) 11:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I can't understand why {{ship}} wasn't good enough in the first place. Certainly the number of more common prefixes should have their own template but I never saw the need for a PS. As for a bot run to change all of the instances where "ship" was used it's really a non-issue as far as main article space goes. Brad (talk) 00:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Because people are using all kinds of approaches to disambiguate paddle steamer articles, as I noted above. By adding a dedicated disambiguator, it encourages people to adopt a consistent method. Also, the "ship" template is longer and requires more fields. We could eventually end up with thousands of paddle steamer articles on this project, it only makes sense to have an appropriate template for them. Gatoclass (talk) 04:41, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
There are a number of paddle steamer articles with the style Foo (sidewheeler) or Foo (sternwheeler). Maybe these articles shoud be moved to PS Foo titles? I think the majority of these were created by one editor, so it would be a courtesy to inform him of this discussion before any mass moving of articles is undertaken. Mjroots (talk) 07:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm slightly concerned that you're suggesting we call all paddle steamers "PS Foo". Clearly the invention of a prefix where none was used for the ship is against our own guidelines. PS Commonwealth (1854) is a good example - nowhere in the article is it referred to as "PS", and as far as I can see, the references seem to refer to it as "Steamboat Commonwealth" if they call it anything but simply Commonwealth. Shem (talk) 07:37, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
To some degree, I share those concerns, since as far as I can tell, "PS" is a fairly recent invention that's been backdated to 19th century steamboats. However, the same can be said for other prefixes. Although I'm not certain about it, I think the prefix "USS" wasn't used until fairly recently. "SS" is another one you find only rarely used until the late 19th century, but these days any steamship is referred to as "SS" regardless of when the prefix actually came into use. But that is why I have proposed the use of "PS" only as a disambiguator and not for universal use. Gatoclass (talk) 08:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps I should add that I'd prefer to just disambiguate steamboats by launch date, ie, I'd much rather simply use Commonwealth (1854) than "PS Commonwealth (1854)". I've only proposed "PS" as a disambiguator because it's better IMO than using "(steamboat)" or any of the other alternatives. But if there's a consensus that it's acceptable to disambiguate only by launch date, then I'd be more than happy to go with that and dump the PS template in the trashcan. Gatoclass (talk) 08:45, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Gato, you're getting the military ship naming discussion confused. That was solely in relation to navies which do not have a set of letters to denote their ships, such as Germany, France, Italy etc. There never was any motion to remove prefixes from merchant ships. As such, PS is a valid prefix. Mjroots (talk) 10:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't think Gato is confused at all. We're talking about not inventing prefixes for ships (any ships) that never carried them, not naval prefixes. Shem (talk) 11:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I think this is only tangentially related to the naval prefixes question. This is basically a debate about whether we should disambiguate paddle steamers by using "PS" (in preference to the plethora of current clumsy approaches), or whether we should disambiguate just by using launch dates. Personally I'd prefer the latter, I'm just not sure the MOS mavens in the wider community would accept it. But if we can't get consensus for that here, then IMO the next best alternative is the use of "PS". Gatoclass (talk) 05:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
The meaning of "PS" may not be obvious to lay readers; this must be a new definition of "disambiguation" of which I was hitherto unaware. bobrayner (talk) 16:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
There are lots of prefixes that will be unfamiliar to many lay readers. Until I got involved in Wikiships myself, the only prefixes I knew about were USS, HMS and SS. But we use TS, MS, MV, GTS, HSC and many others. Gatoclass (talk) 11:14, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I apologise to everyone for deleting the above message by Gatoclass at 07:45 GMT today. I must have done it accidentally. I am sorry.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
No problem, I've made the same sort of mistake myself :) Gatoclass (talk) 14:51, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Right. These are prefixes. But if lots of readers don't know what they mean, it might be a little unreasonable to use them for disambiguation; particularly so in cases where the prefix isn't actually used in the sources which discuss each subject. If sources say that there is a paddlesteamer named "Foo", perhaps a title like "Paddlesteamer Foo" or "Foo (paddlesteamer)" would be appropriate, because these are readable to the average passer-by, whilst "PS Foo" may not be; and making readable encyclopædia articles should usually take priority over the urge to line up lots of different articles with standardised ascii characters in the title according to some scheme which would only be noticed by members of one wikiproject. bobrayner (talk) 13:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, where exactly are people likely to encounter these prefixes? They are not going to encounter them in articles, since generally articles omit the prefixes. They will basically only encounter them either in the titles, in which case they've found the article already and know what it's about, or else in categories, lists or disambiguation pages, but in all of these the meaning is already defined for them - if, for example, you are searching in the "steamboat" or "paddle steamer" categories, it's self-evident what the prefixed articles are about. Quite frankly I've never really understood this argument about carefully defined article titles - all that's necessary is that one article name doesn't clash with another, and IMO that should generally be done with the shortest possible title so that people who know what they are looking for can find the article they want with a minimum of typing. Gatoclass (talk) 14:49, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that the lay reader may never find the article they're looking for at all if it's hidden behind an impenetrable prefix. Shem (talk) 07:40, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Which is why we should create redirects from non-prefixed names. Thus Empire Cormorant links to the SS Western Maid article, and Empire Condor links to a shipindex page to allow the reader to find the article they require. Mjroots (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

And Wikipedia's search engine is pretty good now. If you know the ship name, you are going to find the article quickly no matter what the title happens to be. Gatoclass (talk) 06:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather disambiguate by year also. If people used inconsistent terms for these ships back in the day, then that's what they were called. I had an indexing job once where my boss explained that since technical terms change as the technologies evolve, my attempts to create consistent search terms would actually make it harder for the specialists to find the information-- better to transcribe it exactly like it stood on the page. Also, what will you do with Sail steamers that have a paddlewheel? They could get lost with this PS designation. Djembayz (talk) 11:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
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