Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 1

message: I've got a question about the annotation format I'm using at List of United States submarine classes, comments welcome on the talk page. Elde 05:27, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[List of United States submarine classes]]

message: I added a List of fleets, in imitation of the List of armies.  It currently links to the US Navy page (which lists the current fleets), and to a couple of named British fleets of the twentieth century.  -- Walt Pohl 17:57, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea, there's a bunch of un-indexed historicals randomly scattered about, like Asiatic Fleet. It wouldn't hurt to repeat the US Navy list either, the article is pretty long and it would be easy to miss the fleet list. Stan 19:46, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[List of fleets]]

message: Noting the above type of message, I would suggest that creating MediaWiki messages for ship classes would be an excellent idea. I'm going to try it out using the Iowa class ships. David Newton 20:50, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There are more than a couple. I've covered every British and American dreadnought battleship class, all British and American fleet and light fleet aircraft carriers, and a few others besides. Still, a list of them doesn't seem unreasonable. David Newton 21:20, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw that you added the page.  Excellent.  How do you feel about actually including the footers themselves? That makes it easy to compare the formatting, etc. Also it lets you admire your handiwork. :-) -- Walt Pohl 22:58, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure if i'm too late, but the tables are located at User:David Newton/Tables. SoLando 19:00, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not strictly true. It is true that my page has the most blank ship tables around (varying only by the ensign/jack they have at the top, apart from the Military Sealift Command one which has cargo capacity as an additional row). However, I did not create that table design originally. I merely went round various articles and saw the tables, and created templates in one place which is convenient to me. I also saw the table list on the Infobox page. TUF-CAT put it up on there on 4 February. I'm not sure where it came from prior to that. Still, my page does have the templates listed in one place. David Newton 06:20, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Templates for ship articles

message: The guys at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft have come up with a table format. It is now being rolled out on aircraft pages. I think it looks pretty good. Should we make use of it or something similar for ships?Bobblewik 19:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Infoboxes

message: having come across this missing page, I've put some effort into filling the need and have taken care to use the title Waverley (boat) already on the disambiguation page. The result has an inelegant and inappropriate title at the top - the P.S. Waverley is referred to as a ship, but never as a boat. Ian McCrorie's Clyde Pleasure Steamers uses ship or steamer throughout, with the sole exception (at a quick glance) of "The 'teetotal' boat" Ivanhoe" (1880), and even this he refers to in the text as a ship or as a steamer. 
As it would also simplify typing links (paddle steamer Waverley instead of paddle steamer Waverley) I propose moving the page accordingly, and will do so in the next few days. Please let me know if this raises any problems, - dave souza 07:23, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The old saw about boats fitting in ships but not ships in boats suggests "ship" rather than "boat". Any of PS Waverley, paddle steamer Waverley, Waverley (paddle steamer), or Waverley (ship) seems fine to me. I've been pondering rules for civilian ship article titling for a while, not ready to write something down yet though. Stan 12:49, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the advice - page moved to paddle steamer Waverley, linked pages working ok. On reflection afterwards I can see the advantage of PS, TS, SS, RMS, MV etc. for a standard naming scheme, but paddle steamer seemed right.- dave souza 20:13, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paddle steamer Waverley 

message: Since many ships with the same names are also the same types of ships (i.e., all Whipples are destroyers), to ensure they are properly sorted, I suggest that we use the pipe trick and number each ship. So the first Whipple would be Category:U.S. Navy destroyers|Whipple 1. The second Whipple would be Whipple 2. This works even if the names jump ship type, when they are of the same era. Unless anyone objects, I'll add this standard to the Project page.
:That's certainly workable. Another trick is to add leading zeros, since lexigographic sort on DD-069 and DD-217 does what you want, when just DD-69 would not. Stan 05:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Proper sorting

message: HI I was wondering the best way to name ship pages. Some ships have several pages for themselves because they changed name. This seems rather.... silly really. If a ship spent say, 3 years in a  particular navy, and with a particular name, why have a whole page just for that? all the stuff on that page is going to be repeated on the previous name and future name pages for that ship, and users will have to click through 3 pages to read the whole history of the ship, and they'll end up reading parts of it 3 times (maybe even with discrepencies). I don't see the point. If ship name 1 was renamed to ship name 2, put it on page ship name 1 under its original country, and link all mentions of the ship under any name to that. that page will have the whole history of the ship. no repetition necessary :).
Is there an actual reason for doing it the current way? It's not like users won't realise that the ship has changed names.
SpookyMulder 12:07, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If anybody's interested, I put in my 2c on the subject at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships). Stan 14:05, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renamed/reflagged ships 

message: As a new contributor I have a few queries and requests. 
*What category do the WWII MARAD vessels (Liberty ships, Victory ships, Tankers, etc) fall under?
*What Ensigns, Jacks, Pennants, and Other Vexillologs would the War Shipping Administration ships use?
*On a similar subject how about the Category for the US Navy Armed Guard and the Britishs DEMs
*Where would the WWII Merchant Marine medals go?. Some have the same names as military decorations.
*I have hardcopy of a great number of the WWII era house flags for various shipping companies, but no talent for producing digital images from them. Any suggestions?
*I have put up two pages on Liberty ships, SS John W. Brown and SS Henry Bacon. I would appreciate any comments on style, layout etc before continuing with my notes on about 200 more Libertys.
Thanks Oldfarm 04:09, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to add my info on the ships built under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. The vessels include American, British and other WWII allies. The ship were built between 1936 and 1952. Can you suggest a concise Category? Oldfarm 02:17, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Any US-flagged ship, whether merchant or naval uses the same jack. British-flagged merchant ships would use the red ensign. David Newton 18:04, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Merchant Ships

message: ;Is there a prefix for Italian Navy ships? E.g. INS Whatever?
;—wwoods 20:52, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen "RN" used for ships of the Kingdom of Italy, e.g. RN Dante Alighieri, Italy's first dreadnought. Presumably RN stands for something like "Regia Nautica"?. -- Arwel 21:19, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italian Navy 

message: I wrote some notes on DANFS conversions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/DANFS conversions. Please comment. Gdr 14:46, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)
: I like it. Nice job. Can you include some suggestions for other sources though? I find myself Googling and have no idea as to the veracity of the sources I discover. Jinian 11:47, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[DANFS]] 

message: ;[copied from the subpage's talk-page]
;In the standard infobox, 

{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="margin-left:5px"
|align="center" colspan="2"|[[Image:IIH.png|300px|INSERT CAPTION HERE]]<br>Insert caption here
|-
 . . .
|-
!align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|General Characteristics
!align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|[[Image:IIH.png|44px|INSERT ENSIGN HERE]]
|-
 . . . 

;the < align="center" > is unnecessary, because the initial < ! > makes them captions, which are automatically centered. But what---if anything---does the < no-repeat scroll top left; > do? I've tried taking it out, without apparent effect (in my browser).
;Why is the ensign-placeholder sized at 44 pixels, when the header strip is only 30?
;—wwoods 17:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  table markup arcana 

message: Well, I'm giving the UK's new FOIA a test run. It's extremely difficult to get hold of reliable information about exact dates of when ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary changed status. There is, so far as I am aware, no British publically accessible equivalent of the Naval Vessel Register, and there is certainly no UK equivalent of DANFS. So, a few minutes ago I sent the following FOIA request to the Ministry of Defence.
"For all Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships currently in commission I would like the following information:
# The date when the ship was ordered
# The date when the ship was laid down
# The date when the ship was launched
# The date when the ship was commissioned into RFA service
# For vessels that were not newly built for RFA service, the date when they were purchased for RFA service
# For vessels that were not newly built for RFA service the name of the previous owner of the ship"
It'll be interesting how they handle this. They can't claim any exemptions about sensitivity of material which removes one significant potential road block. With that information available it should considerable help the accuracy of our articles about the RFA vessels currently in commission. David Newton 23:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've received a reply from the Defence Logistics Organisation asking whether the format they were proposing to send the information in is alright. I should receive it early next week. David Newton 22:12, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  FOIA Request 

message: I've noticed that some ships have been labeled as stubs, but don't meet the traditional definition. Three basic types emerge (1) Some of the articles are missing all but the most basic of information (launch, commissioning, decommission, class type) and, although longer than a paragraph, seem to rate the category "stub". (2) Others, like USS Yorktown (CG-48), were marked as stubs when they clearly had blocks of information, but also clearly missing years of history. (3) Still other ships are marked as stubs while they (the ships themselves) are under construction. 
#2 seems odd and not fully justified and #3 looks blatantly wrong. If the purpose of labelling a ship's article a stub is to encourage editors to work to expand it, I'd prefer that we focus on those in the first category. After all, how much can you say about a ship that hasn't even been launched? Jinian 14:15, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A ship's article stubiness 

message: I've started to upload versions of certain flags in the Wikipedia that do not have copyright problems attached to them and have clear source information. One of those flags is a PNG version of the British Red Ensign. When I was clearing out links to the GIF version I came across a distinct problem in the standard table. If anyone has any clue what causes the system to this User:David_Newton/Sandbox#Flag_and_Ensign_Experiments when the flag is rendered with identical code inside and outside of a table I would greatly appreciate some insight. David Newton 21:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please disregard. I fouled up with the code for the SVG. I'd forgotten to make areas explicitly white and I left them with no colour. That's fine on a white background but does tend to show up on a blue background rather! David Newton 21:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh?! What's going on with that ensign? 

message: There are a number of ensigns and jacks which are linked to in the ensigns table that are a problem from the point of view of copyright. They either do not have source information, or they are fair use images that should not be used if at all possible. I'm compiling a list of the ensigns/jacks concerned and what is wrong with them. We can then go through and fix what is wrong.
Images Still Extant As Problems
* :Image:Argentinajacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Canada naval jack.png - no licence information
* :Image:Colombiaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Colombian Naval Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
* :Image:Ecuadorian Naval Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
* :Image:Ecuadorensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Elsalvadorensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Kmensign.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
* :Image:Kaiserliche Kriegsflagge.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
* :Image:Guatemalaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Hondurasensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Ie-jack.gif - clained PD but no source information
* :Image:Regia Marina Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no licence information but probably public domain
* :Image:Marina Militare Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no licence information but probably public domain
* :Image:Mexicojacksmall.png - no source or licence information
* :Image:Nicaraguaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Perujacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:SA Navy Flag.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Scn-ensign.png - no source or licence information
* :Image:RSN Ensign.gif - from World Flag Database, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia
* :Image:Thaiensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap, and copyrighted image in much larger format uploaded at start of January 2006.
* :Image:Armymajor.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap
* :Image:Dtomjack large.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source or licence information
* :Image:Ukraine-ensign.png  - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source or licence information
* :Image:Uruguayjacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
* :Image:Venezuelaensignsmall.png - claimed PD but no source information
Images Deleted and Superseded
* :Image:Ranensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done. Since deleted as a redundant image.
* :Image:Chilejacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Chineseensign.gif - no licence or source information since speedy deleted by an admin
* :Image:Confederate Naval Ensign.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, source does not have copyright information about image since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject.
* :Image:Kdmpennant.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Freefrenchensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Fgnjack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles
* :Image:Reichskriegsflagge.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Indian jack.png - not clear what licence flag it is from is licensed under - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Japaneseensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Rnznensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done Since deleted as a redundant image.
* :Image:Netherlands jack.png - no licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Rujack.png - no licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Ruensign.png - no licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Soviet Navy Jack.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Supennant.png - no source or licence information - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Rfaensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:Rmasensign.png - fair use claimed but should be replaced asap - since speedy deleted by an admin and made redundant by replacement image uploaded.
* :Image:rnensign.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done
* :Image:Usnjack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles - done
Images Deleted Without Replacement
* :Image:Argentina navy flag.png - from Flags of the World, copyrighted incompatible with Wikipedia since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject
* :Image:Canada aux jack.png - no licence information since speedy deleted by an admin outside the wikiproject
Images Superseded Which Need Purging From Articles
* :Image:Braziljacksmall.png - claimed PD but no source information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles
* :Image:Frajack.png - no source or licence information link in table replaced with file with licensing and source information needs to be purged from other articles
Images With Problems Sorted Out
* :Image:Kkkensign.png - no licence or source information - since made clear that a Wikipedia user created the material.
* :Image:Csnjack.png - claimed PD based on false premise that all images of national flags cannot be copyrighted, no source information since made clear that User:The Epopt created the image and released it into the public domain.
As you can see there is a significant problem with the ensigns and jacks in the table. I am guilty of some of this as I uploaded some of the ones where fair use is claimed. However, I have been working over the past few days to get rid of some of the images like that. So far I've dealt with the British, Australian and New Zealand ensigns. I've also uploaded properly licensed and sourced versions of the RAF ensign, British blue and red ensigns. I've also covered some of the Australian and New Zealand flags that were problematic. David Newton 00:22, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Malo and I have changed all pages using :Image:Usnjack.png except a couple of user_pages. —wwoods 00:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ensigns and Jacks With Copyright Problems 

message: Jimmy Wales has decreed that
:All images which are for non-commercial only use and by permission only are not acceptable for Wikipedia and will be deleted. 
As you can see at :Category:Images used with permission, this decree mainly affects articles about ships of the Royal Navy which use a lot of images from http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/ with permission (see Template:Copyrighted-navyphotos).
Is there anything we can do? I note that the template says "This image is copyrighted by the maintainer of the Web site http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/ [i.e. David Page] and used with permission" but in most cases that's not true; David Page merely scanned the photos or uploaded them from other contributors as described at . In most cases the true copyright holder is unknown and probably unknowable. Gdr 17:41, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
:I'm curious: what is the status now on the use of navyphotos images? Could fair use be used?  SoLando 04:45, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures from navyphotos 

message: In a followup on a recent edit to war graves, User:Mark.murphy pointed me the current list of UK Maritine War Graves at http://www.mod.uk/consultations/maritime_graves/controlled_sites.htm
This looks like the basis of an article that might interest peolple here, but I would have thought there should be a wider, international list of ship wrecks as war graves. -- Solipsist 22:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Maritine War Graves

message: I received the following on my talk page:
:About measures in the Sven Foyn article
:One thing is "kW" for horsepower, another is "km/h" for knots. This is an article about a person that lived and died a hundred years ago, and the measures you use were not used at that time. When it comes to "km/h" at sea, its still not used. Ulflarsen 23:22, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are metric measures not permitted? 

message: Not surprisingly, some random editors have started changing the jack on USN ships from the 18th century to the First Navy Jack. We need some consistency on this. Should every ship that ever served in the United States Navy have the current (whatever that may be) jack in the ship table? Or should each ship have the jack that she actually flew? 
Personally, I vote for the jacks reflecting what the ship actually flew. The first Boston never flew the DTOM jack, so why should it be identified that way?
Ultimately, though, consensus on this is more important, so we can make the decision once. I'm flexible if the rest of the project wants to use the current jack (and then we should use a template, because the DTOM jack is anticipated to be temporary only). Jinian 12:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to drop a though here, I'd like to say that there are instances where the choice of the flag reflects actual information. For instance, the Redoutable wears the Blue-White-Red flag of the Republic and the Empire, but the Soleil Royal would wear the white fleur-de-lys flag of the Monarchy. This is necessary for some other countries than the USA, and to make the whole thing consistant, might be generalised to the whole encyclopedia. Rama 14:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have a question regarding the use of the USN jacks: which jack should we use for ships in the mothball fleet? Technically, US Reserve fleet ships are still in the war on terrorism, but they haven't actually fought. Thoughts on this from anyone? TomStar81 00:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using new jack for old ships 

message: The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.--Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement drive

message: I've been working a longtime on ship articles as a personal project and officially added my name to the Wikiproject name just now.  I had a quick question though regarding a copyright issue I encountered.  as noted in the template below...if a sailor in the US Navy took an photograph while he was on duty, it is considered a work of the US Government and considered in the public domain correct?  What if that sailor marks it as copyrighted? --ScottyBoy900Q 04:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: On duty, yes, because while on duty one is merely an agent of the government. Off duty, the sailor would presumably own the copyright, just as if the sailor had written a novel in his/her spare time. I suppose in some cases we (and the Navy, for that matter), have to take the sailor's word about on/off status, unless the photo were of a dateable event and you had access to the duty logs. :-) Stan 17:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: More suitable defaults might be the following, unless the person doing the uploading knows that the work (which I interpret to mean the original photograph) really was taken by a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy during the course of official duties. That's not true of all photographs at NARA or the Naval Historical Center; some come originally from private collections; some come from other branches of the military. I suggest it's safer to assert what you know based on your own source rather than what you guess based on your source's apparent source. Of the tags available today, I think these two come closest. (P.S. Why does the first of these tags contain a different image than the same tag in Wikipedia Commons?) -- Mccomb 13:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These templates are a good option in many cases. Commons is a separate project, so any consistency has to be achieved by personal effort on somebody's part. (The dream is that someday all PD images end up over there, so no need for these templates in en:, but that's a ways off.) Stan 18:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image copyright 

message: I've been retooling the infobars for the United States Navy's battleship classes, and hit a snag with the Nevada class battleships: Should they be classified as battleships, or should they be classified as super dreadnoughts? There is an entry on the battleship page for super dreadnoughts, so its not a huge difference, but I am trying to get this factually right. TomStar81 22:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Classification

message: Ok...here's a different copyright question.  There is a very nice gentleman who has been emailing me who is a little upset some of the images off of his website were used on wikipedia.  I actually uploaded the images myself, so that is why he has contacted me.  The problem here is that the images are public doman and are available through the US Naval Historical Center (NHC).  This gentleman is the one who actually scanned the images in at the Naval Hist. Center for use on his site (http://www.destroyerhistory.org).  He is claiming that the images that are on his site, even thoguh he obtained them through the Public Domain at the NHC, are actually not able to be used here because he considers them to be his personal work. In his words: 
:"Yes, that image and most other images on my site exist in various forms at the Naval Historical Center or the National Archives, where anyone can go and scan them, but as I am the one who has done it at my own expense, I regard the IMAGES as mine, to give away if I wish but not to have taken from me."
So as we have been e-mailing each other, I invited (and highly reccommended) him to visit the Ships WikiProject site to comment here directly.  Is his argument valid that even though the images on his site are in the Public Domain and marked on his own site as taken from government records...because he scanned them though they are considered his personal work?  I was under the impression that the actual photographer/artist was the only one who could claim ownership of the image (and in this case the artist/owner happens to be an agent of the US Navy)--ScottyBoy900Q 21:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: His argument is absurd.  A slavish copy (which scanning certainly is) does not take a work from the public domain and give its copyright to an individual.  (He would retain the copyright to, for example, a photograph of an artfully arranged pile of public domain images.)  While we would like to be friendly, the bottom line is that the image is in the public domain, and is free for our use. If I scan, OCR, and print out the complete works of Shakespeare, does that give me the right to prevent anyone else from ever printing Shakespeare's works? ➥the Epopt 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you, but I can see why he is upset about it.  He has been very nice in his e-mails, but he is just upset that he spent so much time actually going to the NHC to scan the pictures for his website, and I simply uploaded it here without going through the hassle.  --ScottyBoy900Q 01:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless the scanner has done any creative modifications to the images he can't claim copyright. Direct scans don't qualify as such. What I gathered, the scanner isn't claiming copyright on the whole pictures, just the scans. This is a bit tricky though, because under some circumstances, like taking a photo of the Mona Lisa, you can claim copyright on that particular photo. I would advice trying to settle this by asking for forgiveness, since it seems that the scanner might have given permission to use the scans if asked at first. --Laisak 01:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, he actually said he would have given permission.  The reason I did not ask was simply because the image tag on his website simply credited the photo to the Navy Historical Center and mentioned nothing about asking for permission to use images already in the Public Domain.  That's it. --ScottyBoy900Q 01:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out Wikipedia:Copyright issues and Wikipedia talk:Copyrights if you can find a previous case similar to this. Although in my opinion he has no legal case, it would really be a shame if this scanner would get the impression of Wikipedia users as "picture robbers". If a friendly settlement is achieved you could even try to persuade him to become a contributor here. --Laisak 02:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Earlier today I noticed a savvy German site that had scans of PD material, with the thumbnail looking normal, but the full-size image blazoned with the website URL across it. Kind of a sneaky way to ensure that no one else wants to use the images you scanned in... We should be nice and mention the person in the images we pick up from his website, add a little thank-you for doing the physical scanning work. A reply to him could mention that, and point out WP's Alexa ranking, server capacity, etc, which make it a better and more visible choice as image home than anything most individuals can cobble together. Stan 05:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Looks good, thanks! We're always happy to credit people who perform the labors, and if the link gets you a few extra hits, well that's just fine by me. Stan 05:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different Image Copyright Question 

message: I'm overly confused about the Pansarskepp type of ships. There is so many names to call them, Swedish: Pansarskepp, Finnish: Panssarilaiva, Dutch: pantserschip, German: Panzerschiff (Pocket battleship), but what are they called in english? I've seen "coastal defence ship", "coastal battleship", "coastal cruiser" and variations of those. So what is the correct english name? I'm trying to figure out what to call the Sverige class cruiser and Ilmarinen (ship). --Laisak 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, from what I figured out is that the generic translation would be "armoured ship", but the thing is these ships are very different from each other. Anyone think there should be an article armoured ship where all these different kinds of ships would be illustrated? --Laisak 18:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ship classification of Pansarskepp 

message: One user made some drastic renaming on the ship categories without consulting Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. Please check out what's happening and comment on if the changes should remain. --Laisak 01:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some action at [[Wikipedia:Categories for deletion]] 

message: I was looking over the USS Missouri page and noticed that it called the ship she instead of it. I know calling ships "she" is common practice, but not for encyclopedic sources. Has there been any consensus about this? MechBrowman 01:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, I've used "she" consistently where possible, with exceptions such as "it" when talking about a wreck or hulk. An unscientific test suggests Encarta uses "it", whilst Britannica uses "it" and "she" interchangeably in the same article. Shimgray | talk | 21:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When writing the RMS Titanic article, it sounded so much better when "she" was removed from the article. It just sounds to familiar for what Wikipedia style encourages. However, I might have gained this view because of the passion many resources and TItanic enthusists have for the Titanic. Its almost fannish by calling the Titanic "she", and it seems awkward with other ships also. MechBrowman 23:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a rather long discussion on Missouris discussion page about using "she" and "it" with regard to ships. You may want to check it out. PS: I was the one who wrote the entire Missouri article using "she", just in case you were curious ;) TomStar81 20:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Calling ships she

message: The categories for the naval ships are a mess. We have Country Navy ships, Ships of the Country Navy, Naval ships of Country and Country naval ships. Why not one style? And then, we have "Battleships of Country Navy" and "Country Navy battleships". 
Apparently, someone User:Joshbaumgartner went straight to CfD with these and different votes went in different directions. Can we reach a consensus here and then go to CfD to straighten them out? I don't have a preference, but would like to see consistency. Jinian 16:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually Joshbaumgartner skipped the whole CfD process. It was User:TexasAndroid who put them there to try to verify the changes by Josh, but in the end it all went sour. I personally support the Naval ships of Fooland format since the parent category is :Category:Naval ships and it follows the format of :Category:Ships by country which is Ships of Fooland. There should be no exceptions on Royal Navies. I think they make the whole thing very confusing. --Laisak 14:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I take full credit for not doing CfDs earlier, not a mistake I've continued since User:TexasAndroid brought it up to me.  Generally Ships of foo has become accepted through CfD, although there have been some that have not passed for a variety of reasons.  Generally Ships of foo is accepted, while when categorizing by the proper name of a navy (or other operator), Proper Navy Name ships has been the result.  Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) did not have a clear country categorization scheme for ships, but this has since been addressed by CfD, and it has been added to the Misc. of country category.  This is the same format that covers military equipment. Joshbaumgartner 19:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization 

message: I feel that there ought to be a Wikiproject for cruise lines; Wikiproject Ships seems to be more-or-less an appropriate parent project for this, even though it set out to be primarily about navies. Anyone interested?  —  Rickyrab | Talk 03:44, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject Cruise Lines 

message: I noticed a new category of page, the Signpost article.
Already, USS Merrimack has been labeled as a signpost article. As usual, I don't care as long as we're consistent. Right now, I'm daunted by the idea of reclassing all of the ship index articles as signposts vice disambig - although I suppose someone could always create a bot. Jinian 14:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the definition of "signposts", ship disambiggers don't quality, because all the ships at "USS Foobar" are called that. I've had it in the back of my mind for a long time to create a ship-specific subcategory  of disambiguations with a special template, note the subcats of :Category:Disambiguation to see others doing this already. Stan 20:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: FYI, I have listed :Category:Signpost articles (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (signpost articles)) on Categories for deletion. Thanks/wangi 21:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Please Gdr, assume good faith. Everyone else my reply to Gdr's question is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Please don't make a mess of articles in the name of MoS:DP. Thanks/wangi 18:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Index articles; disambiguation or signpost? 

message: Some of you might have noticed that some of the ships that contained the code for that table with optional rows that I wrote earlier this year were displaying things rather oddly earlier today. That is because I have radically altered and simplified the code for the table. Someone has managed to implement a decent IF syntax in the MediaWiki template language so including optional rows in a template is now much easier than it was earlier this year. I have re-written the table code to take advantage of this fact and I have spent last evening and this morning fixing the ship tables that refer to the code.
The basic situation with the appearance and functionality of the code is the same. Optional rows are still optional and compulsory rows will still appear all the time. The difference is that previously there were explicit variables to turn each optional row on and off and now all that needs to happen to have an optional row not appear in a table is to leave it blank. If you leave a compulsory row blank the table will default to a value of Unknown for text and the IIH.png image for image portions. The only explicit variables that are now needed are to set the spelling between draft and draught, depending on whether the ship is British or another nationality. Leaving that blank will default to US spelling and putting anything in it will go to British spelling. I have also got rid of all the references to Individual ship variables since it is now possible to put a template in for common features that the whole class shares and then add information unique to each ship directly after that.
I'll put up a formal tutorial in how to use the table soon, but it is a lot more intuitive than the old version. David Newton 13:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now posted a tutorial of hown to use the new version to the talk page of the template. The template can be found at Template:Ship table. David Newton 15:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement on my table code 

message: Hi there!  I'm working on some Wikipedia:backlogged categories and ran across these with various cleanup tags.  I hope the experts might here have a look at these, and once you're satisfied they conform to your Project style and quality, remove the cleanup tags.  Thanks!  — Catherine\talk 06:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Some ship cleanup

message: As one of the three pillars of the era/type/country categorization for ships, we have some relatively well defined eras (WWI, WWII, etc.) but there remains a problem with the most recent period.  The Cold War era wraps up around 1990, which leaves a lot of ships in the period between then and now, with many categorized as modern as a solution.  However, it has been pointed out that modern isn't a very good name for an era, and I agree.  Is there a better way to categorize these ships?  It is akward to have them without categorizations while all other vessels do.  I don't know that modern doesn't work, but I would like to have a little better solution.  Joshbaumgartner 21:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization by era (modern) 

message: Is a "battlewagon" the same thing as a "battleship"? TomStar81 20:35, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've only ever seen it used as a slang term for battleship, FWIW. Shimgray | talk | 22:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that helps to explain why I have been having trouble with this one passage. It keeps refering to "battlewagons", which I thought were armed helicopters. This makes much more sense. Thanks! TomStar81 00:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen it as off-hand slang for both battleships and tanks, helicopters is a new one to me.  It is I suppose a pretty direct translation of the German Kampfwagen, which is used as more or less equivalent to combat vehicle (i.e. Panzerkampfwagen = tank, or armored combat vehicle). Joshbaumgartner 17:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Words