Talk:Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships

message: Does anyone know how to get updates to DANFS?  Some of the ship histories are quite complete, but others not so, especially when compared to those of Wiki.
I served on the USS Mullany DD528 during her last combat cruise in 1968, yet DANFS only takes her history to 1965.  I filled in the Wiki history of that cruise, as well as details of her transfer to the Taiwan Navy as the Chiang Yang, and her subsequent sinking as a feeding ground for fish.  I do not expect DANFS to go beyond her striking from the U.S. inventory, but I would like some history up to that date.
J.D. Schultz, MM2, 1965-71--W8IMP 06:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe this article explains about the revision history of DANFS.  There is a link to the NHC's DANFS editorial policy in that atricle, too, which should lead you to an e-mail address for submitting corrections and additions.  Note that they are looking for documentation for non obvious corrections, similar to wikipedia's verifiability criteria.  BTW, try this link/template: . --J Clear 15:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  DANFS updates 

message: Is DANFS considered a work of the government, and covered by ? John Vandenberg (chat) 00:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes; the Naval Historical Center is a branch of the US Navy. Maralia (talk) 03:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  copyright 

message: Can someone please update the website shown in the Infobox as I cannot see on the edit page where to do this: http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs should be http://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs.html Davidships (talk) 22:46, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  DANFS website 

message: In the section on "Reference use" states that:
:The Dictionary limits itself largely to basic descriptions and brief operational notes, and includes almost no analysis or historical context.
This statement is incorrect. The DANFS provides extremely detailed notes about the operation of at least some of the ships, provides analysis, historical context and editorializes. For example, here's just one paragraph from the USS Yorktown (CV-5), which is pretty much a wholesale borrowing from the DANF article on that ship:
:The critique of the operation revealed that carrier operations — a part of the scenarios for the annual exercises since the entry of USS Langley (CV-1) into the war games in 1925 — had achieved a new peak of efficiency. Despite the inexperience of Yorktown and Enterprise — comparative newcomers to the Fleet — both carriers made significant contributions to the success of the problem. The planners had studied the employment of carriers and their embarked air groups in connection with convoy escort, antisubmarine defense, and various attack measures against surface ships and shore installations. In short, they worked to develop the tactics that would be used when war actually came.
Other examples in that same article include such non-encyclopledic and fanciful language as:
:"The early news from the Pacific was bleak" and "disaster struck" and "five days later when American fighting men in Hawaii were rudely awakened to find their country at war."
If the following is not historical context, nothing else is:
:With the retention of the Fleet in Hawaiian waters after the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI, Yorktown operated in the Pacific off the west coast of the United States and in Hawaiian waters until the following spring, when the success of German U-boats preying upon British shipping in the Atlantic required a shift of American naval strength. Thus, to reinforce the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, the Navy transferred a substantial force from the Pacific including Yorktown, Battleship Division Three (the New Mexico-class battleships), three light cruisers, and 12 accompanying destroyers.
This statement dismisses the worth of the DANF and its creative value and therefore minimizes that the DANF is "often quoted verbatim in other works (including in some cases Wikipedia articles)." The fact that a work is in the public domain means that wholesale incorporation does not constitute copyright infringement; it is not however a license to plagiarize.  Ileanadu (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what the attribution template is for.  is used in over 9,000 articles to attribute PD-USN text per WP:FREECOPYING.  --Dual Freq (talk) 00:19, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article dismissive of the value of the DANF and thus of plagiarism from that work