User talk:TomTheHand/Archive 13

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List of German battleships

I posed a question relating to the Gneisenau class on the talk page, and I'd like your thoughts, please. Thanks. Parsecboy 17:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

ASSessment

Ooops, thanks for catching [1] my dumb ASSessment mistake. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Haha, no problem. I was just doing stuff like making sure all the featured and good articles have importance ratings, and making sure NA-class stuff had an NA-importance and vice-versa. TomTheHand 02:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

SSC

excuse the 'it is' comment, i was in the middle of typing " it is road legal, it was tested as fully road legal, for the UK site pistonheads " but I hit return a little too early. I didnt want you to think i was being arrogant/rude.Sennen goroshi 16:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

knots and nautical miles

Tom, I'm not sure whether you consider this matter closed, but it's certainly gone quiet. You will have noticed the changes I made to knot (speed) and to nautical mile. Until you give me the nod I will leave the SHIPS articles as they are in this regard, but unless you ask me not to I plan to tackle some aircraft articles. [I have made a start with Boeing 747 :)]. Thunderbird2 21:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I wish the discussion could have reached a definite conclusion, but my last post to the topic was to say that I'm alright with using nmi if everyone else is. I've used it a couple of times already, though I've also used nm because I often copy and paste from old edits I've made. I'm going to try to use nmi more in the future. Please continue to edit ship articles if you want and use nmi. TomTheHand 21:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My edits on aircraft pages have sparked this discussion. Just thought you may be interested :) Thunderbird2 16:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In Reference to Whitest Kids U' Know: The Skits

I checked the site you refered to, however, if you'll check again, I believe you'll notice that the track info matches the atricle Whitest Kids U' Know (album), and not the afore mentioned "Skits". I believe the Skits article is an inaccurate double of the Album article. Also, the Album article is the one linked on the Whitest Kids U'Know. I'm still a little unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Wikidom. Should I instead purpose the two be merged? I appreciate any help on this matter.

---Leodmacleod - 10:23 24-09-07 (UTC)

A merge would be a better idea, or a regular "Articles for Deletion" discussion, which is the usual way of deciding whether or not an article should be deleted. Articles are only immediately deleted for a very specific set of reasons. On the site, I was referring to this page, which is the set of tracks referred to in Whitest Kids U' Know: The Skits. TomTheHand 22:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Stumped by a template

Could you take a look at {{WikiProject Ships}} for me? I tried to shift it from Category:WikiProject Ships to Category:WikiProject Ships templates by updating the specified line in {{WikiProject Ships/doc}}, however it is not working as expected. While the banner template looks like it is now a member of Category:WikiProject Ships templates, it is actually showing up as a member of the parent Category:WikiProject Ships. --Kralizec! (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I can't figure it out either :-/ TomTheHand 02:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

CNS Almirante Lynch (1913)

Hi Tom, hope you are keeping well. I've been moving a few Chilean ships about, in that they were being disambiguated by their type (e.g. CNS Almirante Lynch (destroyer)) rather than year of launch (since the pennant number is not known). The user seems to have got the wrong end of the stick, and has moved this from CNS Almirante Lynch (1912) to CNS Almirante Lynch (1913), thinking that we disambigute by year of commissioning. I've dropped a note correcting him on this, but could you move the page back over the redirect? Thanks, --Benea 12:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Just FYI, moving over a redirect is trivial. If the creation of the redirect is the only thing in the page's history, it works the same way as any other move. However, after you commented on Mel's talk page, he copied and pasted the content from CNS Almirante Lynch (1913) to CNS Almirante Lynch (1912) and made CNS Almirante Lynch (1913) a redirect, thus making it necessary for an admin to fix the mess and make sure the page histories were in the proper places :-P TomTheHand 13:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I wondered that too. The user who has made the changes from 'Chilean battleship such-and-such' to 'CNS such-and-such' has done so with the explanation 'To standardize CNS denomination in current use by Chilean Navy)'. The Chilean Navy is called the 'Armada de Chile', so I can't really see why they would be using the prefix 'Chilean Navy Ship', and as you say, there really isn't any evidence so far for it. It seems more likely that this user is trying to work in a chilean specific version of HMS/USS in good faith, but it does go against our conventions. Benea 18:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The prefix CNS is not real. Saludos --190.44.8.241 19:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC) (Carrilano from es.wikipedia)

Thank you! We'll change the articles back soon. TomTheHand 20:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Several of these articles were apparently moved back to their "fake" CNS names on 12/10. I have re-re-moved them back to their WP:NC-SHIP-compliant names. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

good character

Your apology in the RFCU which showed that a user was unrelated is a very kind note! Most people don't have the courtesy to do that. After all, a RFCU may be possibly interpreted as "I think you're a thief and a bum". Archtransit 15:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the compliment. I have been involved with blocking Copperchair and his sockpuppets for some time now, but he is getting harder to find each time. This is my first false accusation and I feel guilty about it. I had a good track record in the past and will try to be more sure in the future before launching an RFCU. TomTheHand 16:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Happy Birthday, secret agent man

What is this deceit? We had an hour-long conversation yesterday and you never let on that it was your birthday? I had to go to the lengths of accidentally clicking on your User page history instead of discussion to discover this willfully withheld fact!

Hope you had a good day, in spite of my snarking :) Maralia 15:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and the real reason I was coming here: in {{DANFS}}, could you add a space between the "old" content and the "new" sentence? Thanks! Maralia 15:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, sorry about that ;-) My birthday was actually on Sunday. As far as the template goes, there's already a space between the first sentence and the second, but the combination of italicized and non-italicized text makes it look really small. The space is inside the "if" statement, because I only wanted a space to appear if you supplied a link. Adding more spaces won't help the issue, because Wikipedia trims extras. I could use a pair of non-breaking spaces to force some extra room, but... they'd be non-breaking, which isn't a big deal but isn't actually desirable. What do you think? TomTheHand 15:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally wrong. There's no space in there. Give me a few minutes to figure this out. TomTheHand 15:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, got it. And figured out how to insert extra spaces that aren't non-breaking. Err, are breaking. Check it out now. TomTheHand 15:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Speedy speedy! Looks good, thanks. Maralia 15:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62)

Tom: Would you put on your admin hat and look at Special:Contributions/TheTruthDude and especially the edits to the page titled above? The user is a single-purpose account insistent on adding disturbing gossip to the ship's page and has taken to task an IP user who reverted it. I did not go to AIV as full warnings have not been given, but I'm not sure they're needed for a block given the nature of the edits made. Thanks. Kablammo 18:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've left a note and I'll keep an eye on the situation. TomTheHand 18:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Now fully protected. And thanks for the help on SS Christopher Columbus. Kablammo 17:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, some proselytizing on that article last night caused me to dig through its history; 'disturbing' is right. I pointed User:Neil at it this morning and he's cleaned up spurious edits and blocked the users/IPs involved. Maralia 18:08, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Woops

Didn't know we couldn't do redirects to user pages. Thanks for the info. ShinraiTS4 20:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Date links

Thanks Tom, but someone told me the exact opposite a couple of weeks ago - that all dates should be linked throughout articles. I haven't done that, but I do link all first occurences of a particular date, month and year.

I may have made a few errors in my recent spate of wikilinking tho, because quite frankly it's a rather labour intensive job and I had a lot of articles to get through. I figured it wouldn't matter a whole lot if I accidently made a couple of repeat links. I will probably be doing more cleanup on these articles eventually anyhow, so even if no-one else fixes it, I probably will. I'm a perfectionist ya know :)

Since you've brought up the question though, I am now a bit confused as to the prevailing guideline on this. Can you point me to the appropriate page? Because what you're saying is the exact opposite of what I was told, so I'd like to find out who is right. Regards, Gatoclass 17:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: Okay I've checked the guidelines and the date link guideline says there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a year) should be abandoned, although most Wikipedians disfavour that habit currently.

Since there is no consensus, it is really up to individual preference whether or not one links to year dates. I don't think there's any harm linking to years the first time the year occurs. However, the guideline also says one shouldn't link to months, so I might avoid doing that from now on. Also I'm not sure if I was linking more than once to years as I was previously told was the right thing to do, but if I did I will avoid doing so from now on. Thanks for the heads up. Gatoclass 18:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

In my post on your talk page, I provided you with a link to the relevant section of the Manual of Style for Dates and Numbers, which deals specifically and in detail with the date issue and says that years should only be linked if it really helps the reader to understand the topic. The guideline that you read is rarely updated, especially by comparison with the MoS for Dates and Numbers, and is out of date. Whoever told you that all years should be linked is absolutely incorrect, though all month + day and all month + day + year combinations should be linked (even if they appear more than once) so that they format properly. Please definitely don't link to months; it doesn't help someone's understanding of HMS Smiter (D55) to be able to go read about November. TomTheHand 18:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

doesn't help someone's understanding of HMS Smiter (D55) to be able to go read about November.

Look, I totally agree with you about that in principle, in fact I have always been totally mystified as to the reasons for date linking at all. When I first began to use Wikipedia, it took me quite a while to figure out the date wikilinks I was clicking on provided no information whatsoever on the topic in hand, and I found it quite irritating.

However, date wikilinks are a standard feature on Wiki and the question then is one of consistency. I see no reason why month + date + year strings should be wikilinked but standalone years should not be. It simply doesn't make any sense. The guideline gives qualified support for year wikilinking (your assertion that it is "out of date" notwithstanding) so it's a matter of user preference whether or not years are wikilinked, and I prefer to link them for the sake of consistency.

Also, as it happens, while I think wikilinks for individual dates are perfectly useless, year wikilinks are actually quite useful because they give you an overview of events that occurred around the immediate event in question, through which that event can be contextualized. So I think there's a very good reason for including them, particularly in articles relating to war. I have actually found year wikilinks on a number of occasions to be extremely useful, so I intend to continue linking them.

However, as I said I will no longer be wikilinking standalone months and I will no longer be repeat linking years. It was actually an admin who told me all dates throughout an article should be wikilinked, so I assumed that was correct and didn't check the guidelines first, which is what I usually do. That was obviously was mistake, and unfortunately it means I will now have to go back through a substantial number of recently wikified articles to remove the excess links. Gatoclass 06:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

In your preferences, there's a tab for "Date and time" where you can choose one of four date formats. Month + day and month + day + year combinations which are wikilinked will be automatically displayed in the format of your choice. That's why all month + day and month + day + year combos should be linked. It has nothing to do with letting people read about October 27; it's so that I can see "October 27" and someone in Europe can see "27 October".

Per the guideline, if a link to a year really helps a reader understand a topic, it should be linked, so please continue to link years when there's a good reason to do so. However, linking every year on principle is against linking guidelines. Feel free to discuss it with the folks at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). TomTheHand 14:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so that's why they are linked! Thanks for the info, that had me completely mystified. But I must say that if day + month or day + month + year must all be linked, then it would only seem sensible to wikilink all the standalone year links as well for consistency. So we're sort of back to where we started :) Gatoclass 15:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Depth

It looks like depth of hold in a man-o-war (or in a merchant ship) and moulded depth (depth) are different figures. [2] (under Depth, Moulded). Two template fields may be needed. Regards, Kablammo 14:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't actually able to find the specific form of "depth" that I had seen for warships, so I'm just going to add "depth" and people can specify something more specific in the text field. TomTheHand 18:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. I'm sorry about the delay. I've had a very, very disorganized week. TomTheHand 21:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Ship Career

Hello,

Do you think that it would be possible to have a field "namesake" in Template:Infobox Ship Career like in Template:Infobox Ship ?

Cheers ! Rama 13:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that template isn't categorized for WPSHIPS - Tom, can you add that? I don't want to mess with a multiple-part template. Thanks. Maralia 14:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added the namesake field. Let me ponder on the categorization issue for a bit, because it seems to me that I really ought to do something along the lines of the /doc subpages that so many other templates use these days, and I should incorporate the categories into that. TomTheHand 21:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Category Ships by Navy

Hi Tom, I notice you've taken an interest in ship categories before, in this discussion you started last year.

I've just noticed over the last couple of days what appears to be major problems with ship categorization, with not only a lot of duplication between Category:Ships by navy and Category:Naval ships by country, (under the "Ships by country" cat) but also a lot of gaps. Essentially, these two cats are trying to list the same thing, and the result is that there are now essentially two separate "universes" whereby some users are contributing ships to one universe and some are contributing to the other.

Basically, I'm thinking that the whole "Ships by navy" master category should go, it's not only duplicating the subcat Category:Naval ships by country but it's also a pretty awful mess with all kinds of nonstandard miscellaneous listings within itself. I started a discussion on Wikiproject ships which you can find here if you'd like to participate. Gatoclass 04:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's WikiProject Military History, not WikiProject Ships, which may be a better place for the discussion. Anyway, I agree with you completely, but enough people don't that nothing will get done. Believe me, I've tried. If you put anything up on CFD, let me know and I'll vote to merge, but that's about all I can offer you. Dual categorization is a long-standing compromise. TomTheHand 10:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. Naturally, for a major change like this, I want to try and organize some support for it first, there's no point in getting halfway through the job and then finding someone objects. So I think some sort of consensus would be helpful first. Any chance you could point me to earlier discussions you've had on this topic where you tried and failed? I'd like to read what the previous objections have been and so on. Gatoclass 12:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to dig them up. Give me a few hours. Sorry I'm not very enthusiastic, but I'm kind of disheartened about the whole thing. You do have my support. TomTheHand 12:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_29#Category:Cruisers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive03#Rationalizing_ship_categories
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Problems_with_Ships_by_Country
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Royal_Navy_battlecruisers
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Royal_Navy_destroyers_to_Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_Kingdom
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_States_Navy_to_Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_17#Category:Chilean_Navy_ships_to_Category:Naval_ships_of_Chile
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_17#Category:United_States_Navy_aircraft_carriers_to_Category:Aircraft_carriers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Category_merges.2Frenames.2Fdeletions
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Further_discussion_on_categorization_of_Category:Ships_by_country
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Naming_navy_categories
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Proposal_for_ship_categorization
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive_11#Category_confusion
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Maritime_warfare_task_force#Which_set_of_categories.3F

Well, at least no-one can accuse you of not trying :)

Thanks for taking the trouble, I will work my through those a little later. Gatoclass 14:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Those are by no means all cases when I've argued passionately for the abolition of navy categories ;-) They're just a bunch of times the topic has come up, from lengthy discussions to CFD debates to short little incidents when people say "Why are there both country and navy cats?" and I say "Because we can't make up our minds!"

I don't think the pro-navy category crowd ever really wants to get into a debate about it, because they don't want country categories removed, they just don't want people to delete the navy ones. They've tended to just briefly say where they stand and then vote in CFDs, and there's more than enough people strongly against deleting navy categories to make any CFD close as "no consensus". TomTheHand 21:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I read through those, but I found it rather hard to figure out exactly what the objections were. And in fact I didn't see that much in the way of objections.

It looks to me as though you did make some progress but then got sick of trying at a certain point, which is understandable. But maybe it's time to try again? Wiki is constantly evolving, experience is gained and consensus changes, so perhaps there will be less resistance now.

One minor point I noted as I went is that I very much disagree with the "Unique" label for classes with only one ship or ex-class ships, because "unique" is a totally misleading label that leads one to the assumption there is something special about these ships. I think "Miscellaneous class" would be a much more suitable term for such vessels. Gatoclass 02:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, essentially, I proposed the merger and we discussed it a little. Several people were for it, so I posted some merges on CFD, and they got slapped down hard. Then I tried to discuss it with the people who opposed it, and there was no real back-and-forth, just flat-out opposition to touching the navy cats. Honestly, I imagine you're going to run into the same thing. Note that there really aren't any people arguing with you on your post at MILHIST. However, if you try to propose a merge on CFD, I guarantee people will come out of the woodwork to oppose.

I didn't and don't especially like the term "unique", but "miscellaneous class" makes no sense, because it implies that they have a class, which they don't. "Unique" is short and sweet, while "Ships that are not a member of a class" is rather long-winded :-) I wouldn't be opposed to a change if you can come up with something better, but I strongly prefer "unique ships" to "miscellaneous class". TomTheHand 03:23, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd argue that a ship with no class is a miscellaneous class ship. That's how such ships are listed at Navsource and similar sites, I see no reason why we can't do the same here. But as I said, that's a minor issue.

As for the Navy thing, I'm now thinking that maybe it would be better just to get all the missing categories into the "Ships by country" category first. Maybe then we can open a debate about what to do with the Navy cat. Because my chief concern is that users have a complete tree that is viable, at the moment we have two trees that are both only half finished and that I think is the main problem. Gatoclass 06:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the 'unique' cat name - I do not interpret it to mean 'special' but rather the only one. This is consistent with the first meaning given on wiktionary, as well as the French and Latin from which it is derived. Maralia 14:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think filling out the Ships by Country category is an awesome idea. I myself am kinda-sorta still working on that project, but the thing is, as time has passed I've found more and more things to do to each article I touch. I used to spend about five seconds on each article, adding categories. Now I spend five to ten minutes making assorted fixes, and my attention span isn't long enough to keep that up for an extended period. I should probably switch back to straight categorization for a while, just to get a bunch of stuff done, and go back to detail work later.

WP:SHIPS has a categorization guideline: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Categorization Here are some important points:

• These days, we prefer to put a country (or navy) category on the class category, if possible. Therefore, Category:Submarines of the United States belongs on Category:Gato class submarines, and not on USS Gato (SS-212). If you find a country or navy category on the class cat, and also on the individual ship article, feel free to remove it from the ship article.
• However! If a ship was sold to another navy (like USS Barb (SS-220) was sold to Italy), the country cat (Category:Submarines of Italy) needs to go on the individual ship article, and not on the class category.

TomTheHand 14:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think they were part of the rules you yourself worked out, weren't they? Actually, that's partly why I decided that eliminating the "ships by navy" cat is perhaps not so urgent. I was initially very concerned that, for example, every US Destroyer was going to end up with a "Destroyers of the United States Navy" cat alongside a "Destroyers of the United States" tagged alongside it, which can only bamboozle users. I think it's a little less glaring a problem when those categories occur one step higher in the tree. Also since ships are basically only being categorized by class, it makes duplicating them in different trees a lot easier.

I know what you mean about having trouble finding the time. As time goes on I too find more and more things I want to do - there must be fifty things on my "must do" list already, and quite frankly I've found myself suffering burnout over the last day or two having spent a lot of time recently getting the Bayfield class attack transports up to speed. So I am probably not going to be doing a lot myself over the next few days. But I think from this point I will start at least incorporating a cat class addition or two into my Wiki routine, because the incompleteness of the "by country" and "by navy" trees means that neither are very useful right now. Gatoclass 00:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've played a big part in organizing our categorization guidelines. They've been adjusted quite a bit over time. For example, we used to but country cats on every single ship article no matter what.

Guess what's on my to-do list right now? The Gato class ;-). I was initally working through Category:Submarine classes alphabetically, but I hit the Balao class and wound up deciding that the best thing to do is cover all the fleet boats first and then go back to the other classes alphabetically. The fleet boat articles are kind of poorly sourced and a lot of them have completely incorrect information in their infoboxes, so I'm pasting in new boxes and tweaking them for each ship. It takes a lot of time. TomTheHand 13:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's an almost total coincidence that I have a nick which just happens to coincide with the topic I'm currently editing, but that's a rather long story :)

Since you've been working with cats for a while, perhaps you can help me with a problem I've recently encountered? I've got a class of ships which were built during WWII but one of which only entered service after the war. Would it be wrong to include this class under the "World War II naval ships of the United States" category? I'm thinking I should tag the ships individually and not just drop the entire class into the WWII parent cat, but what do you think? Is there an established procedure for handling such situations? Gatoclass 13:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't put era categories on any class categories, because of the issue where the range of service won't be the same. Era cats are for articles only. Even if all ships entered service in WWII, some of them served in Korea while some didn't, some were retired in 1946 while others had significant Cold War service, etc. TomTheHand 13:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, seems that this guideline isn't well known, because there are already a stack of class subcats in the "World War II naval ships of the United States" category (I'm afraid I may have put some of them there myself). I'm not sure I agree with the guideline, but I can see it might have advantages. It's certainly going to make my current job of duplicating the US seaplane tenders from the "Ships by navy" to the "Ships by country" master cat easier though, because I had a go at doing this earlier today and I couldn't believe how many unforeseen complications I ran into! Gatoclass 14:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The ones I've actually been able to touch look pretty good (carriers, battleships, destroyers, and submarines). I'll probably work on frigates next. I'm not sure how to make the guideline better known; I post a link to it when I can, and under the "ship class categories" guideline I explicitly state that era categories shouldn't be put on them. TomTheHand 14:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)