Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)/Archive 1

message: Holland America Line apparently uses a lower-case prefix to designate their cruise vessels, e.g., "ms Rotterdam" rather than "MS Rotterdam," at least on their webpages ). I've not seen this done anywhere else.  None of the examples and references on this page or  on ship prefix show this styling of prefix.  Query: Should the encyclopedia use a conventional prefix when referring to these vessels, i.e., "MS", or do we indulge Holland America in their prefix style, i.e., "ms"? This issue has arisen on a couple of edit/reverts I've done. Thanks for your thoughts.--Evb-wiki 18:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holland America Line motor vessels 

message: It should be noted that USN practice uses the forms lead ship name Class and lead ship type hull number Class interchangeably.  It's equally correct to refer to the Ohio Class or to the SSBN 726 class.
Elde 07:52, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Accident of reorg, probably. There have been seven Royal Oaks, of which the 1914 ship is the seventh, so HMS Royal Oak will get the list of choices when I get around to typing them in from my printed source. There are relatively few capital ships of RN whose name hasn't been re-used, so nearly all such ships will need a year (or pennant, if recent) disambiguator. HMS Victory can be an exception, because it's so much more famous than its couple of predessors. Stan 23:54, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: USN naming practice for ship classes

message: Hi. I noticed that it says to create a new page for each new nationality of a ship, but only if the ships name changes as well! Um....it's the same ship! The was the carrier (Venerable?) which was British, then Australian, then Dutch, then Brazilian. it sepnt only about 3 years in the first 3 navies. The pages for this ship had the same details on each page, including details of its time in the other navies. There's no point in this. It is much easier for people to follow the ships career if they don't have to click back and forward through 4 pages to check and compare dates, etc. Put it all on one page. Link to that page from each reference to any name the ship had. I'm not sure why you'd not create a new page if the ship changed navies but DIDN'T change its name. Enterprise (1) in one navy might well be Enterprise (3) in another its tranferred to. It would seem to complicate things if it was left as Enterprise (1) even when referred to under the new countries flag.
SpookyMulder 11:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Same ship, more or less, but with a different crew, possibly local modifications, different armaments, etc, so the now-gigantic sidebar box would have to have a column for statistics for each nationality, have all the naval jacks stacked along the top, and a montage of photos, one for each nationality.  Also, the linking becomes nonsensical - a list of Dutch ships has apparent British ships on it, which is pretty weird-looking. You could also end up with a situation like HMS Macedonian vs USS Macedonian where the ship would be under HMS, even though 97% of her career was in the US Navy. Readerwise, clicking makes a nice "break" (OK, we're going to the Netherlands now, different navy, different conventions). I think the "no new article if no name change" is not actually followed - the reasons I've cited apply whether or not the ship's name changed. I'll give it a decent interval before changing. Stan 14:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: If you have multiple articles, each should refer to the other in abbreviated fashion ("Built as ..."), at least if the information is available, so you're not repeating the same stuff over and over. Changing navies entails conceptual changes too - for instance the British system of ratings is purely British, wouldn't be used on a US ship, even if captured from the British. The choice of separate articles vs one is a standard WP debate, comes up in a lot of contexts, and there's no standard answer. Partly it depends on one's model of the reader; if the reader is settling down in front of WP to read it like an online book, then fewer articles are better, and you want to have more continuous narratives. If the reader is using WP as a reference work to settle an argument (as I did just yesterday, on a music question), then you want articles that get right to the point. I tend to favor the "reference work" model, which for instance is why I write self-contained lead paragraphs, instead starting with one of those long rambles about the ship's construction dates that never actually says what kind of vessel it was. If I'm poking through a list of US ships, and Macedonian redirects to an "HMS" article, that's going to give me pause, and I have to think if this was a mistake or what. If ship info is cut up into per-navy chunks, it makes the body of a country's navy info "clean" and self-contained, at the cost of requiring an additional couple of clicks to read a continuous ship narrative from  beginning to end. Another thing that happens with accumulating conceptually-multiple articles into one is that "what links here" gets mystifying - for instance, if Phoenix and General Belgrano are one article, then "what links here" would show Phoenix as being involved in the Falklands War, which is only really true in the sense that some atoms of the hull were there. :-) But again, one can make a good argument either way; if it becomes a major sore point, then the usual thing is to call for a vote to set the policy - it may be that I'm the only person who thinks this way, in which case I'll be outvoted. Empirically, it would be a good idea to continue to be active and do your good work for a couple months, and to observe polls and how they go on other pages, before putting the question - relatively new people can lose out in polls because voters will tend to side with oldtimers rather than considering a proposal on its own merits (just like in real-life politics :-) ). Stan 14:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ships which changed nationalities 

message: Hello,
I would like to discuss the issue of CVA->CV, CVAN->CVN, CVS->CV, etc., for U.S.N. aircraft carrier designations.
Some carriers – for instance, CV 59, CV 60, CV 61, CV 62, CV 63, CV 64, CVN 65, CV 66 and CV 67 – have seen their hull type designation changed during their service in the Navy; An example is CVN 65 which has been previously called "CVAN 65", or CV 63 which has been previously called "CVA 63".
These differences all come from an obsolete Navy practice of dividing all non-light carriers into "anti-submarine role", "attack role" etc. But these differences completely seized to exist, still within the service time of CV 59, and all carriers were named either CV or CVN.
I suggest that for any carrier, the most general (e.g. "CV" is more general than "CVA") designation used for her within her service time(*1) would be used for her in the article title. That is in order to abolish the use of obsolete Navy terms, and also to simply present the carrier in its real role – no matter that some time in the past it has been limited to, say, ASW.
Any comments and proposals would be very welcome.
1. That, for instance, excludes CVA 58 from the scope of this discussion, for it has never entered service and will always remain "CVA 58".
--A.R., 12:29 May 06, 2006 (UTC)
:It's hard to say where I stand on this.  For example USS Ranger (CVA-61) (as it was originally named) spent 18 years of commissioned service as CVA-61.  It was then redesignated CV-61 where it spent another 18 years in service before being decommissioned.  To me either designation seems to fit.  I don't want to just make a sweeping change though and try to conform each ship to a designation to "abolish the use of obsolete Navy terms".  These terms help show the various motives within the Navy to classify ships for different types of service (and then changing that role to suit different needs as time progresses).  -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 19:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hull type designators which have been changed in-service 

message: Is it worth documenting specific rules for merchant ships? typically these named with the convention of "[shipping line] [vessel" or "[shipping line] [vessel", for example, the MSC Pamela and Kirsten Maersk, over time there may be more than one veseel with the same name, which could lead to ambiguity, however each hull is assigned a unique Lloyd's Registration Number, but this information is not readily available (Unless the vessel has been to Australia, where it would be detailed at:  )
Ratarsed 20:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merchant Ships 

message: What should be the standard capitalisation for Dreadnought/dreadnought and pre-Dreadnought/pre-dreadnought battleships? The Land 20:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that the rule would be if you're referring to the HMS Dreadnought (1906) specifically, it would be capitalized, but if you're just stating something more general, like "Germany had 16 dreadnought battleships" at Jutland", it's lowercase. Hope this was helpful. Parsecboy 15:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dreadnought, dreadnoughts 

message: Almost all of the discussion and article is concerned with military vessels. Am I reading it correctly that if a merchant ship has been renamed several times, there should be a redirect page for each name? Also, which name should be redirected to? The first, the last, the one the ship is most famous for? Cases that illustrate the problem:- MS Athina B, MS Riverdance and MS Explorer. Mjroots (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If practical, a redirect from each name with the article at the most famous name, or the name under which she was involved in her most notable actions.  ie for the examples you quote, they are at the names they either ran aground or sank under.  If there is no one outstanding famous name, then I think you have to use your judgement, but with the three you quote, I would say that there is no issue over them being at their correct titles.  Benea (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merchant ships 

message: a comment on the Coastal Forces example. Coastal Forces is the organization name not a descriptive phrase ("Coastal forces") so if there are other Coastal Forces then following general wikiedia conventions it would be Coastal Forces (Royal Navy) as with Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom).GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  unit naming 

message: There do not seem to be adequate conventions for the way naval ship lists are named. For example, there is a convention that countries come last. Thus List of ships of Canada rather than List of Canadian ships. I would assume that this would extend to navies as well, thus List of ships of the Canadian Navy, rather than List of Canadian Navy ships. However, because this had not been explicitly set out, the actual naming of navy ship lists is an inconsistent mess.
An exceptionally bold editor has recently renamed many of the world's major navy ship lists in alignment with the second option, for example List of Canadian Navy ships. The issue extends well beyond this to many other naval articles, and not just lists, for example Frigates of the Royal Navy verses Royal Navy frigates. --Geronimo20 (talk) 00:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking more closely at the country-specific guidelines, it says: This will usually hold true in other geography-specific topics, such as for cities, continents, provinces, states, etc. This extends naturally to navies – which are certainly geography-specific. Thus List of ships of the Canadian Navy and not List of Canadian Navy ships. However it seems to me that this should be explicitly spelt out in Naming conventions (ships) so the prevailing confusion about naming lists can be cleaned up. --Geronimo20 (talk) 07:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm rather surprised that no one has commented thus far but I think you're on the right track here. The collection of ship lists in general vary greatly and there should be a more stringent guideline for them. I see nothing wrong with the changes you have made to the guidelines. My own experience with ship lists is that far too many of them are unsourced, hard to navigate, are redundant of others and don't follow their own protocol. --Brad (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My experience closely mirrors what Brad101 said above.  I for one would certainly love to see some more standardization to these articles.  --Kralizec! (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

text: My support for List of XXXX ships, and a general XXX ships format - if you think about it, 'List of United States Army ships' isn't all THAT cumbersome at all. Is anyone aware of the procedure for clarifying such a naming convention? While I may have been bold in the past on renames, I am not that sure about how to go about it officially. Ingolfson (talk) 04:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree that List of XXXX ships is not awkward, which is what I was pointing out, even though I had agreed with Geronimo above. Once I started to apply the convention, I saw the awkwardness. This naming convention as I'm aware is not an official part of the Manual of Style so getting a change may require some effort. --Brad (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions for naval ship lists 

message: There has been some conversation on this topic after the above discussions took place. The point has been brought up, for example, that List of ships of the Canadian Navy is awkward when compared to List of Canadian Navy ships. List of ships of the United States Army is what brought the subject around again. However, in renaming ship categories, the convention Ships of the Canadian Navy has been used rather than Canadian Navy ships which seems to contradict the current naming convention. I'm not sure at this point whether there will ever be a consensus gathered to solve this issue. Lack of input will likely mean it remains unsolved. --Brad (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My support for List of XXXX ships, and a general XXX ships format - if you think about it, 'List of United States Army ships' isn't all THAT cumbersome at all. Is anyone aware of the procedure for clarifying such a naming convention? While I may have been bold in the past on renames, I am not that sure about how to go about it officially. Ingolfson (talk) 04:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree that List of XXXX ships is not awkward, which is what I was pointing out, even though I had agreed with Geronimo above. Once I started to apply the convention, I saw the awkwardness. This naming convention as I'm aware is not an official part of the Manual of Style so getting a change may require some effort. --Brad (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Some disagreement

message: For pages listed in , is there / should there be a standard way to link to another nation's similarly named ship?  For instance  and ?  I added a "See also..." but then figured there are way too many to do this by hand. :)  Thx. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You might use:  which gives:  and can be placed at the very top of the page. You could adjust the text accordingly if you think of a better way to describe it. --Brad (talk) 02:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  dab page question - same name, different nations