Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)
Shouldn't a page be created, listing the standard prefixes? Or at least a listing in an abbreviations page. - Olivier
adjectives precede nouns so we should state that such and such is a Big Ship Class rather than a Big Class Ship Lir 01:01 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
- You're misparsing; try (((Los Angeles) class) submarine). --Brion 01:17 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
How about Los Angeles (submarine class)Lir 22:26 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
- How about we use the standard that has been in effect for hundreds of years? --the Epopt, who served for many years on Ohio-class submarines
What is the proper punctuation for a ship's name? Is it HMS something or HMS something? -- Zoe
- Should be HMS something, though too often people don't bother. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) -- Someone else 03:16 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)
- Since we have an article titled RMS Titanic, should I punctuate it RMS Titanic? -- Zoe
- I think properly it would be RMS Titanic or RMS Titanic: i.e., [[RMS Titanic|RMS <i>Titanic</i>]] or [[RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic'']] . --- Someone else 03:28 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)
Someone else is right: "HMS" or "USS" or whatever prefix is not part of the name of the ship, it simply indicates ownership. The name should be italicized, the prefix left in roman type. Calling something "Royal Mail Ship Titanic ("RMS Titanic" for short) is exactly analogous to calling something "Homer's Odyssey" and should be typeset the same way. --the Epopt
A truly minor issue about ship naming -- Is there a technical reason for a hyphen between the hull type and hull number for US naval ships -- that is not standard US naval usage as shown in the US naval register http://www.nvr.navy.mil ClaudeMuncey
(moved from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions
While updating USS Maine I noticed that several US ships called Maine were on the same page. This isn't that big of a deal right now but in the future these ships need to be disambiguated from each other. So the question is, how do we disambiguate? I would suggest the most natural way to disambiguate would be to use hull numbers in page titles for those ships and have USS Maine be a disambiguation page. Of course all the links to that page would also have to be corrected. Alternatively, USS Maine can be where the most famous ship by that name resides and a disambiguation block can be at top. I know this wouldn't work for all ship's for all nations, or even all US ships, but it would be a natural way to disambiguate most US Navy ships and others that have hull numbers. What does everyone else think? --mav
- Why do you think that "in the future these ships need to be disambiguated from each other"? What's wrong with the page as it is today? --the Epopt
As I said there is nothing wrong with the page yet. But as more and more text is placed in the article it is going to become increasingly difficult for people to find the ship they really want if that ship isn't the first one presented. These are all different ships meaning that each is it's own subject and should at some time in the future each have their own pages. USS Enterprise is probably a much better candidate for breaking up sooner rather than later. My only question was whether or not we should use hull numbers in the form [USS {ship name} ({hull#)]] for the names of the new pages. For example: USS Enterprise (CV-6). --mav
- Hull classification symbols would work fine where they are used, but most countries and all early USSs don't use them. How would you disambiguate, e.g., the second and third Enterprise schooners? And for a real disambiguation treat, take a look at HMS Enterprise -- or HMS Antelope. --the Epopt
- There's always the ugly trick used for battles, namely to add a date in parens. As far as I know, there are no ships of the same country and the same name launched in the same year. For ships with uncertain dates, a "(1550s)" or even "(1400s)" will suffice to identify uniquely.
- Those nice detailed multi-ship-generation articles will need to come apart too - disconcerting to link from Jutland and see a description of a 17th-century ship come up on the screen, I'm sure an unsuspecting reader will be mystified. Also, you'd have to read all the dates for the ships to figure out which one must have been meant. Stan Shebs 19:13 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
- Well, never let it be said that I'm an arrogant, inflexible pedant. (Of course it's true. I just don't want it said.) Adding the dates is ugly, but it would work, and until the developers decide to allow markup inside links, we need to pipe-alias every ship link anyway. Writing [[HMS Enterprise (1705)|HMS ''Enterprise'', 24]] is not significantly worse than what we're doing now. However, take a look at the third HMS Enterprise, 8 (1743) and the sixth USS Enterprise (WWI). As soon as we split the big articles up, someone is going to want to know why those little stubs can't be combined into a regular-sized article. --the Epopt
- That's easy: They are different subjects. --mav 21:19 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
- In practice, I would just separate out the biggest articles as needed (usually modern ships, since we always seem to have more factoids about them :-) ). There seems to be little reader advantage in having n 2-sentence articles for obscure ships when you're going to need the "HMS Foo" article anyway for disambiguation. This also has the advantage of being the lowest-energy approach. :-) Stan Shebs 22:01 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
- It was horribly traumatic ;->, but I split the second-largest ship article, USS Thresher, into two unequal parts. Please review and comment, noting that SS-200 still gets the 30k warning. Also please take a look at HMS Astute and related pages -- they are my first attempt to write new articles under the proposed system.
So for disambiguation purposes (when needed) have we standarized on using hull classification symbols when available and launch dates when not available? --mav
- Good. That was my choice as well. :) --mav
User:MyRedDice contradicted the rule I proposed about parenthetical disambiguation -- I favor using German battleship Bismarck, while he favors Bismarck (battleship). Given our diametrically opposite viewpoints, I've deleted both versions of the "rule," so that we can discuss it here before we get dogmatic on in the article itself.
I like the natural phraseology. It's easy to write "The German battleship Bismarck was sunk" -- any newbie can do it. Using parentheses requires knowledge of esoteric Wikisyntax, to wit, the "pipe trick."
- I'm not saying that German battleship Bismarck is better or worse - just that the arguments you gave for it didn't (to me) make sense, because of the pipe trick. Or, equally, if you're going to mention the disadvantage, you should also mention the workaround and link to how to edit a page. Question is, is this the best place to debate natural versus bracketed disambiguation? Martin
By the way, can we make an exception for Japanese ships? The title like Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi seems silly because there is no Akagi but AC. -- Taku 01:26 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)