Talk:List of German U-boats in World War II

Any reason not to delete?

This table seems like a fairly indiscriminate collection of information. Can anyone explain why this article shouldn't be deleted? Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:23, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Scope creep: Are you suggesting this article should have even more content? This is already the third largest article on Wikipedia. There must be a simpler presentation for this information because it's far too large to be useful and doesn't make sense as a table when it should be a timeline. It hasn't been meaningfully updated since 2015 and I don't see why it would be now. If this is going to go anywhere, surely it needs to be started over. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:56, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Onetwothreeip: I think the article is fairly well designed and has the set of fields that I would use if I created it. It is certainly too large for one article, it should be split into quarters. It is static information and once it is completed, that is it and I think it is complete. The date of fate field seems to have entries for the whole table, which would indicate it is complete. So there is not that much that needs done apart from splitting it up and giving the article a new name as the current name is wrong. It should be List of German U-boat World War II action. Hope that helps. scope_creep^Talk 23:32, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Where would be the best place to split it? Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:58, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Onetwothreeip: What do you think of yearly and keeping all the entries up to 1939 in this article? That would keep only 64 entries in this article, which give a mixture from 1935 to 1939, with the rest split into years, with appropriate links in this article? Surprisingly they were building them right up until the end war which I never knew, even though by May 1943 they were becoming less and less effective. Onetwothreeip do you want me to do the split, or do you fancy doing it yourself? scope_creep^Talk 09:25, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

It cant be yearly. The dates are out of sync for some reason. It has to be series number. It seems to be the only consistent number. Leave the first 100 in the article, and 100's there after, the last series, 4 digits series. To reduce the number of articles, you could make it 100-200, 300-400 and so on, which makes 200 in page, which is fairly small size. scope_creep^Talk 09:40, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Please note that U-boats were not constructed in numerical order - the sequential numbers were allocated at the time of ordering, therefore any breaking of the list by u-boat number will ruin the possibility (it doesn't appear to be enabled at present) of sorting by year of initial operation. All in all I think this list serves little purpose Lyndaship (talk) 09:48, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Lyndaship: What would you suggest? Do you think it is worth deleting it? scope_creep^Talk 15:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I've very undecided, hence I didn't remove the prod nor support its deletion. I've very dubious about the use of this sort of list but if someone has taken a lot of time to create it and maybe someone will find it useful so why delete? My doubt about this sort of list is that there are always errors at the outset both in completeness and accuracy in the information given and this is further compounded as new information comes to light and the individual ships article is updated (wrecks found with damage or in a place which is incompatible with the previously accepted fate) but the information on the list is not resulting in wikipedia showing wrong information (which to my mind is worse than no information). So if it went to AfD I would have to read the arguments before deciding Lyndaship (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I just would like to know where I can split this article in half. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, the weight of ships being damaged that were attacked by these German vessels doesn't make sense. Is there a reason this can't be removed? Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:39, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: The weight of ships is how the losses were counted by the Allies. The year of inital operation need to be added to the list, then it will be split on that. I'll do bit by bit over the next few months. I think that second field is the initial of operation, but i'll check over the next couple of weeks. scope_creep^Talk 11:43, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Just to clarify GRT is not a measure of weight but of volume Lyndaship (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@Lyndaship:, @Onetwothreeip: I never knew! All these years I thought it was the other one. Magic. scope_creep^Talk 18:22, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Its a common misconception, even now it seems strange to me that a volumetric space is called a ton Lyndaship (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I can understand how weight or volume can be measured for ships that were sunk, but how can they be measured for ships that were only damaged? Is that the weight/volume of the entire ship? As for the splitting, I am willing to right now split the list in half, if only I know where to do that. Otherwise I'm not sure how to split it further. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• I think it should be deleted. The entries are not individually cited so it's unclear whether the information is factual or not. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:12, 16 February 2019 (UTC)