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Capitalisation (yet again)

Latest comment: 4 years ago118 comments13 people in discussion

Once again, we have a crusade to strip all capitalisation from article titles. In this case it's the RN / RAF small motor boat types:

[1]

So far the A has been reverted (undiscussed, naturally), but from past experience I expect the others will follow inevitably at any moment. For all of these, they're clear examples where the RN / RAF capitalised the parent term as a specific service type, far more than "motorised launches", "high-speed launches" etc. We should follow that, per our usual rules for capitalisation where there is such a distinct and recognised group.

See the past discussions at:

Andy Dingley (talk) 17:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I think "crusade" is a bit of an exaggeration here. Looking at the B article, an editor capitalised the name yesterday then reverted themselves. You then restored the capitalisation. On the A article, you capitalised the article name with the claim that you were restoring an earlier capitalisation; another editor reverted your move on the basis that it was the original title, so couldn't be "restored" to a non-existent name. It looks to me like a misunderstanding. I would advise a simple discussion with the editors involved prior to escalating the matter. Escalating the situation will often entrench existing view points when a few calm words will nip most problems in the bud. From Hill To Shore (talk) 17:57, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
If anything, it seems like a crusade by Andy to capitalize anything that the Royal Navy has ever listed capped in a table. The Fairmile A motor launch and Fairmile B motor launch articles were stable for a long time at lower case, if I'm reading their histories correctly. Why the sudden capitaizing campaign here? Dicklyon (talk) 18:24, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
And your (only) edit to the Niagara Cantilever Bridge article came less than ten minutes after Andy edited it - no one around here is stupid, Dicklyon, so do us a favor and cut the crap. "Even if the individual edits themselves are not disruptive per se, "following another user around", if done to cause distress, or if accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions." Parsecboy (talk) 13:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Adding that missing comma was in no way likely to cause distress; it was not tendentious or personal or disruptive in any way, and certainly not controversial. It was not a correction of any error of Andy's except that he didn't notice it when he moved that footnote. So you're saying it's a problem that I noticed and fixed it? Dicklyon (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps a better question to ask is whether I should be annoyed or disappointed that you apparently think I'm stupid enough to buy that load of bullshit. We both know what you're doing. Parsecboy (talk) 21:56, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
I didn't say I didn't notice it via his contribs; nobody would buy that claim, I agree. But what are you accusing me of? Dicklyon (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Hounding him, obviously. Try reading the green text I posted above and then square your behavior with it. Parsecboy (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
That's exactly what I was squaring with when I wrote "Adding that missing comma was in no way likely to cause distress; it was not tendentious or personal or disruptive in any way, and certainly not controversial. It was not a correction of any error of Andy's except that he didn't notice it when he moved that footnote." What part of that do you disagree with? Dicklyon (talk) 00:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Dicklyon, what you are doing is the equivalent of holding your finger half an inch in front of someone's face saying "I'm not touching you!" I would be beyond ashamed to be acting so childishly. Parsecboy (talk) 01:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
No one appears to be covering themselves with glory in this conversation. I would advise liberal application of WP:TROUT and a break from the conversation for a few hours or days. Wikipedia will still be here after everyone has cooled off. From Hill To Shore (talk) 01:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The OP appears to be far from an accurate representation of the "facts". The A-D articles have all been long-term stable as lc titles. The B article is as noted by From Hill To Shore. For the A and C articles, the OP claims the move to UC is to reinstate the caps. The D article was only capped last year after a long life at lc. There appears to be something terribly wrong with the whole premise of the OP and much that follows. Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 04:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I had not looked at the C and D articles, but after you pointed these out, I went and undid the recent undiscussed capitalizations there; OP Andy just did the C today. Dicklyon (talk) 05:10, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • We don't work from inertia, but from sourcing. Sourcing abounds to support the official RN title for these classes as being capitalised. Admittedly some sources also use the uncapitalised form too, but the problem here has been the cherry-picking to use only the uncapitalised form, because that fits with an evident bias from a particular editor (look at their editing history across all topics, for some years!). When sources have been used specifically to support HSL or ML, they're simply reverted or even mis-used to support this same opinion. The end result is just a matter of who is most willing to edit-war the most and that is not how we should operate. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
    Per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, capitalisation of an article title requires empirical evidence that the title is consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources. Given that it is you making these changes to cap, the onus falls to you by virtue of the guidelines to show why the titles should be capped, more so that this is a change to the status qou. WP:SSF touches upon the "independence" of RN sources in this matter. Relying on only RN sources can equally be construed as cherry-picking. Even then, I see no "evidence" of the "sourcing" to which you refer. Casting WP:ASPERSIONS does not make a case: this is not how we work. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I concur with Cinderella157 and DickLyon. This over-capitalizing is yet another WP:Specialized-style fallacy. We have guidelines for a reason, and there's nothing special about this case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • And yet those stubborn little sources just refuse to play ball:
  1. "High Speed Launch 102". Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust.
  2. "High Speed Launch 102". National Historic Ships UK.
  3. "Rescue Motor Launch RML 497 - WWII Rescue Vessel Safely Arrives At New Home". Forces Network.
  4. "Harbour Defence Motor Launch 1837". HMS Medusa Trust.
  5. "Rescue Motor Launch 497 - Wartime Motor Launch given new lease of life". Royal Navy.
  6. "Motor Launch of the Fairmile B class". U-boat.net.
Andy Dingley (talk) 00:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Let's look at what those sources support:
  1. "High Speed Launch 102". Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust. This sentence: "High Speed Launch (HSL) 102, commissioned in 1936, is the only 100 class high speed, air/sea rescue launch to survive." suggests that they may think of "High Speed Launch 102" as the proper name of a craft (or maybe they just capped High Speed Launch for defining the acronym HSL, which is something we don't do). And the generic descriptor they use is "high speed, air/sea rescue launch".
  2. "High Speed Launch 102". National Historic Ships UK. This one uses "High Speed Launch" in a table entry, not in a sentence; perhaps they're treating it as a proper name.
  3. "Rescue Motor Launch RML 497 - WWII Rescue Vessel Safely Arrives At New Home". Forces Network. Treats "Rescue Motor Launch 497" as the proper name of a vessel. No other use of "launch".
  4. "Harbour Defence Motor Launch 1837". HMS Medusa Trust. In which "is a Harbour Defence Motor Launch" suggests they treat that term as a proper name.
  5. "Rescue Motor Launch 497 - Wartime Motor Launch given new lease of life". Royal Navy. Treats "Rescue Motor Launch 497" as a proper name; also "around 650 launches" as generic.
  6. "Motor Launch of the Fairmile B class". U-boat.net. Has "motor launches ML 121, ML 130, ..." indicating generic use of "motor launch".
So, yes, treatment is mixed, as already stipulated. Most capped uses that you found are in the names of specific vessels, not types. Dicklyon (talk) 02:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Stepping back from all the detailed arguments: what is the purpose of capitalisation? I had always assumed that (in this context) it denoted a particular class of vessel – i.e. one where someone had established a particular specification, defined a precise role, or otherwise created an identifiable category. So "High Speed Launch" denotes (in my understanding of ordinary English) a launch of high speed that meets a certain set of parameters – whether those are "used by the Royal Navy/RAF for named purposes", "built to specification X", or whatever. Whereas "high speed launch" is just a launch that goes fast – so this could be the tender to a millionaire's yacht, a power-boat enthusiast's latest toy, etc. - as well as a "High Speed Launch". Any absolute use of a capitalisation rule removes this distinction.
This also explains why a source could possibly use capitalisation in one situation and not in another, because there may be 2 different meanings intended.
I note that WP:SSF is simply an essay on the subject, so whilst something to take into account, it provides no over-riding principle. I also find its arguments to be a little strained: I think Wikipedia would look somewhat unauthoritative to an encyclopedia user who finds that we use one capitalisation convention, when specialist sources use another. What is the point of using an WP:RS if Wikipedia output then decides to go its own way?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:27, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 
Fairmile B Motor Launch
 
RN motor boat (on the port stern davit)
ThoughtIdRetired makes a good point - the purpose of capitalization in this case is to differentiate a specific type of small, fast boats with specific, definable characteristics, from the general concept of a small, fast boat. A friend of mine who lives just outside NYC resides in an Empire State building - you know, a building in the Empire State. Capitalization matters. Parsecboy (talk) 13:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. This is what I tried to bring up at Talk:Motor_Launch#Two_articles_on_motor_launch?, but let's work on it here more centrally instead. If we're really trying to convey an important distinction by mere capitalization difference, we should probably try to find sources that make it clear what that distinction is, and be more clear about it in our terminology. So far, I'm not seeing it in the sources that Andy has put forward. At the same time, he continues to create over-capitalized articles and sections with no such possible rationale, possibly just to poke me with more caps to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 16:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • " possibly just to poke me with more caps to fix" Your sense of self-importance is remarkable. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
    When you started with this attack on Friday, perhaps I took it too personally. I also couldn't think of any other plausible explanation for the caps at Lobe On Receive Only. But you're right, I shouldn't take it as about me. You also accused me at the start of this section of "a crusade to strip all capitalisation from article titles", after you started on an aggressive over-capitalization campaign. Can you blame me for trying to block that? Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • But the only editing I ever see you do is a crusade to remove capitalisation from wherever you find it, across any subject, no matter how little you know of that subject. It's that simple: you do this, you do it with no foundation, you do it to prioritise a styling essay over our fundamentals on sourcing, and you don't do anything else. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
    You can look at my user page and my contribs if you want to see what else I do. It's true that a lot of it is style gnoming (case fixes, comma fixes, dash fixes, etc.). Dicklyon (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Nah, there's only one thing "stubborn" and "refus[ing] to play ball" here, and it's a particular "my way or the highway" editor. There's yet another obvious fallacy at work here: "I can find some sources that capitalise, ergo WP must capitalise." If the sources (all sources, not just specialized/official ones) aren't consistently capitalizing with near-uniformity, then WP will not either. First rule of MOS:CAPS. Besides, we've already found official navy sources that don't capitalize them (see, e.g., this by Shem1805. So the entire "But it's official!" line of so-called reasoning is just bankrupt. All that said, continuing to argue about this in the wikiproject is an utter waste of time. Like most specialist entrenchments, the preponderance of editors participating in this topical project have topically circumscribed style preferences from a specialized writing circle which other editors (and more importantly, the vast majority of our readers) are not likely to agree is how to write an general-audience encyclopedia. So, this really needs to be addressed via WP:RM, and without WP:CANVASSING for a wikiproject bloc vote. Let the community as a whole review it and come to a consensus decision. The entire reason we have RM as a centralized process is to thwart the ability of wikiprojects and other little clusters of editors to force unencyclopedic titles on everyone one. Trying to arrive at a result on the wikiproject page is virtually guaranteed to be a WP:FALSECONSENSUS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Motor Launch

Back to the question of whether there's a proper name Motor Launch distinct from the generic motor launch, and if so, how should we distinguish them. Does anyone want to comment here, or at Talk:Motor_Launch#Two_articles_on_motor_launch?? I'm not at all sure what to do here. If there's a proper name of a type in there, where are the supporting sources for that? Dicklyon (talk) 05:34, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  • "the question of whether there's a proper name Motor Launch distinct from the generic motor launch,"
There is no such question. The answer is obviously yes. Motor Launch should be a set index (or a very simple article) and we can link to the articles for Fairmile A Motor Launch et al for the details of each class. The HSLs shouldn't be in that article (except maybe as a See also) because they're fundamentally different craft and don't have the same offensive purpose. The earlier CMB and HDML classes could be, because they're much more similar in purpose, even if earlier, smaller and slower.
So when Epipelagic added the Whaleback HSL back in 2007, that must have been a classification error. Where can we find the definitions of these classes? The articles remain mostly unsourced. Dicklyon (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Motor launch already redirects to launch (boat) and is fine there. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:03, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Where are we having this discussion? Is it here or at Talk:Motor_Launch#Two_articles_on_motor_launch??. If it is here, then the other discussion should be closed, with a note directing it here. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 04:14, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm flexible. Looks like it has moved here since I got nothing there after early Jan. 5. I'll close with a link to here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
See comment above (saved in same edit as this one). Trying to decide this issue in a bastion of "our topic is magically special" over-capitalization is a waste of time, and the site-wide, topically neutral WP:RM process exists for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • To me the caps look like an example of commercial boosterism. Fine for the company name (and the "A" or "B", by convention), but that doesn't mean other publications have to go along with the company's advertising pitch. Tony (talk) 04:40, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
But the company didn't choose the name. The naming convention (and capitalisation) dates from at least twenty years earlier, by the navy, when the WWI boats were named as "CMBs" and then later "HDMLs". This in a navy which was already happy with numerous "picket boats" (uncapitalised), "motor whalers" etc, because those weren't specific classes, to a specific design. But the capitalised classes were. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:31, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://convoycu49-1944.com/files/RED_LIST_Part_II_MINOR_WAR_VESSELS_ABROAD_-_13_December_1944_-_May_10_2019_Binder.pdf

High Speed Launch

In this revert, Andy accuses me of "a serious breach of NPOV", whatever that means, in changing High Speed Launch to a lower-case link to high-speed launch (an article I created). The context is in the boat "BPB 63 ft High Speed Launch", or the type "63 ft BPB high-speed launch" as it appears in this source. I'm not finding any rational basis for treatment of the type as a proper name here. What sources am I missing that Andy is relying on? The ones he presented above don't really go there. Dicklyon (talk) 00:59, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd already reverted that comment, when I realised that your change was made some days earlier than your last change. I still disagree with it, but it's not that you were doing it in the middle of an ongoing discussion, as I'd thought.
You didn't revert that edit summary, but yes I saw that you reverted a separate comment about it elsewhere. Dicklyon (talk) 21:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
Your book is hyphenating the term, because it's clearly using it as an adjectival phrase (as is the more common use, outside the RN too). However that doesn't stop it existing as the specific and capitalised name, for a specific class of boats, which is attested from sources already here such as the RN themselves, the RN's historical preservation teams, and the National Historic Fleet register. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:35, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I understand the hyphenation for the adjective form, but that doesn't suggest that the noun form be capped. How do your sources present these? Can you show some quotes? Any available online or to purchase? Dicklyon (talk) 21:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
Note that the sources at the article you did the revert on do not support capitalization of the various boat types. They use things like "pocket torpedo boat" and "high-speed motor torpedo boat". The one with "manned motor torpedo boat flotillas" also notes that "Originally designed as Motor Gun Boats (M.G.B.'s), they were redesigned Motor Torpedo Boats." in reference to the 70' SCOTT - PAINE TYPE G-TYPE. So here they're capping for something, but not telling us why. If you can find us sources that clarify what the capped phrases mean, we can consider them. But if they're really just the peculiar specialized style of the RN, it's not clear that will have much to say for us, in light the MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Motor Torpedo Boat

Along the same lines, are there any sources in support of a proper name interpretation for Motor Torpedo Boat? I know we've talked about this before, but I can't find any sources supporting the capitalization. In books, we find caps in the context of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron, Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons, Motor Torpedo Boat Training, but lowercase in all other contexts. That is, the caps are always as part of some longer proper name or title. If there's a class of uses where Motor Torpedo Boat is properly capped as the name of a class, I'm not finding it. Anyone? Dicklyon (talk) 02:16, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, the Motor Torpedo Boat lead "Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy ..." is not the way we usually make leads. The article should be about the boats, not about the name. This seems to be a strained way to invoke a specialized style right into the lead sentence to justify the caps. Bad idea. That came in from PBS in this edit in 2005 with summary "removed information which appears on the torpedo boat page, so this becomes Royal Navy specific". If being RN specific is supposed to justify caps, where are the sources that make that clear? Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I haven't given much thought to this issue, but given that we don't capitalize type names like "cruiser" or "battleship", why would we want to capitalize them for much smaller vessels, like motor launches? It looks inconsistent and incongruous to me. Gatoclass (talk) 05:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Somewhat reluctantly (because my instinct is to capitalise), I offer the books by Peter Scott (Battle of the Narrow Seas) and Peter Dickens (Night Action : MTB Flotilla at War Bantam Books (1974) ISBN 0-553-14764-1). Both served in Coastal Forces. Scott uses a confusing mix of capitalised and non-capitalised forms - but one could conclude that when he was talking about a class of vessel he capitalised and when he did not, he was using the term generically. In Dicken's book, you find the introduction (written by the director of the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust) saying "In 1939 the Motor Gunboats and Motor Torpedo Boats available for.....", whilst the author does not capitalise motor torpedo boat, but the indexer (publisher?) does. Analysing both works, however, presumes that the English language capability of each author matched their other abilities. Looking at Mediterranean MTBs at War (Reynolds and Cooper), you find: "Until this time the Admiralty had retained the First World War name of ′Coastal Motor Boat′ for these craft, but in January 1936 they announced that they were to be designated ′Motor Torpedo Boats′." Thereafter this book uses the abbreviation "MTB" or just the word "boat".
Looking at Gatoclass's comment - a partial answer is to consider aircraft: one writes "fighter aircraft" or "bomber", but also "Spitfire" or "Lancaster". "Spitfire" includes variants of this aircraft that were very different, but they still had the same name. Is there a tendency for Wikipedia editors to be over-keen on consistency - when in reality the world is not like that? I am not advocating anything as irritating as T. E. Lawrence's delight in upsetting the editor of Seven Pillars of Wisdom who complained about different Anglicisations of the same Arabic place names (because that really is confusing) - but some flexibility should be acceptable – especially if that is what is found in sources. As a firm principle, I think we should consider the encyclopedia user who is referring to Wikipedia to help make sense of a book, newspaper article, or whatever. Rigid consistency in Wikipedia may actually make that encyclopedia usage less easy if the non-Wikipedia world has no consistency.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Again, with the caveat that I haven't taken a thorough look at this yet, it seems to me that this capitalization is introducing quite a bit of confusion. For the Motor Torpedo Boat article, for example, the phrase is capitalized per the (apparent) RN usage, but the article itself covers MTBs or their equivalents for several navies, not just the RN. So that suggests to me that for that article at least, the phrase should be decapitalized. And then, we have Motor Launch, for the RN type only, but then motor launch as a redirect to Launch (boat). So that too strikes me as confusing - it would probably make more sense to have Motor Launch (Royal Navy) (large or small "L") to properly disambiguate the term. But certainly I think we should be avoiding capitalization wherever possible, because it's consistent not only with wider wikipedia practice, but also as I pointed out earlier, with other type names of naval vessels. Gatoclass (talk) 12:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

That "redesignated" that ThougtIdRetired found makes a lot more sense than the "redesigned" at the Canadian site, which is probably just an error. I don't doubt that the RN used capitalized designations. But that's not making them proper names, in the eyes of our MOS, unless general sources agree and employ that interpretation, which they mostly don't. Dicklyon (talk) 19:28, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

In this discussion overall, there appears to be some "confusion" as to the distinction between a class and a type. As Gatoclass points out, we don't capitalise ship types such as destroyer, so why should we start now. Type 23 frigate refers to the class but we might rewrite this as the Type 23 class of frigate. Fairmile A motor launch might be rewritten as Fairmile A class of motor launch. A class are built to a common design. The article on the MTB deals with more than one design, as does "high speed launch" and "motor launch". They are articles on a type. Types of vessels (particularly these) would not be considered a "proper name", a priori because they are descriptive of their role or purpose. The example of aircraft is a bit of a redherring. Firstly, the names "Spitfire" and "Lancaster" are not descriptive of what they are and secondly, while there are several variants of each, they are built to the same "basic" design - not unlike a sub-class. If we are to capitalise any of the matters being discussed, then we must satisfy the criteria of the guidelines (MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS). I am not seeing evidence being proffered that convincingly meets the criteria. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 03:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that for now a downcasing RM on Motor Torpedo Boat would let us coalesce on these ideas. The Motor Launch case is more complicated, as there are two articles already. The High-speed launch is already lowercase, where I created it. There are other over-capped classes, but I haven't studied them enough yet to make a proposal that I'd be confident in. So let's start with this one, and separately find a better way to disambiguate the motor launches. Dicklyon (talk) 03:48, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
OK, doing RM now: Talk:Motor Torpedo Boat#Requested move 12 January 2020. Comments welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
That requested move discussion closed with a consensus to move. I've taken a whack at copy editing, esp the lead, to make it more about motor torpedo boats generally, as opposed to about the term used by the RN. Please review at Motor torpedo boat. Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

LCAC

This is another one I can't figure out. As Andy points out we have an article Landing Craft Air Cushion (with missing comma); I find we also have Air cushioned landing craft. Purportedly, the former is a specific type of the latter. From looking at the articles and their sources, however, that's not so clear. Many sources mix the terms around, often in lowercase, and use the acronym whether or not it's the current specific product. If we really are wanting to distinguish the specific one made by Textron Marine and Land Systems, couldn't the article title be more precise, rather than just looking like a case variation? Or if that's really the only LCAC, shouldn't the articles be merged? And what about the SSC/LCAC-100? Which article should its discussion be part of? This needs more looking into. Opinions and ideas are welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

In this case, I suspect that commonuse would back having the article at the abbreviation, as (at least for the US vessels that have that designation) LCAC would be far more common than Landing Craft Air Cushion or Landing Craft, Air Cushion. Air cushioned landing craft should be a general article covering all hovercraft amphibious vessels, while LCAC should cover the US ships with that designation.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:02, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Sources

I got copies of Dog Boats at War: Royal Navy D Class MTBs and MGBs, 1939–1945 and Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946, and don't find much that helps clarify why one would capitalize these boat types. The former caps "Dog Boats" throughout, indicating a propensity to cap subjects of interest, but seldom mentions any of the boat names or classes in question, preferring to stick to initialisms like MTB and MGB without ever even defining them – but they do have a table of acronyms in which they cap everything, so that doesn't help. Otherwise, no use of "motor gun boat" or "motor torpedo boat", capped or not, but several "motor launch", lowercase, in sentences including "Fairmile 'B' motor launch". In the Conway's, it's clearly lowercase: "The classifications MTB (motor torpedo-boats), MGB (motor gunboats), and MA/SB (motor anti-submarine boats) eventually merged into one, referred to as MTB." Seems to pretty clearly contradict some of the proper-name claims. Other source observations are welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps worth restating my observation on sources (above) "...presumes that the English language capability of each author matched their other abilities." If a professional writer or a historian of this part of naval warfare is using/not using capitalisation I think this has more relevance than a work that relies more on the technical/historical knowledge of the writer. So, in short, you need a judgement on the degree of authority of the source.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
So true. Which is why I keep asking for what sources support the caps. You have some? Dicklyon (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
[4] Coastal Forces Heritage Trust: caps throughout.
Mediterranean MTBs at War (Reynolds and Cooper): caps, then just "boat"
The London Gazette (WW2 years searched only): inconsistent on "High Speed Launch"/"high speed launch" and "Motor Torpedo Boat"/"motor torpedo boat" (in that both appear)
More inconsistency in Peter Scott's book the Battle of the Narrow Seas
[5] The Times newspaper: caps
Donald, William. Stand by for Action (memoirs of a regular Royal Navy Commander who was in action throughout WW2) caps when describing the class of British Navy boat, no caps when explaining what an E-boat is (so talking generically)
Probably could keep going like this.....ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:31, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps we can keep going then.
In your first link, "the Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs), Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) and Motor Launches (MLs) could be found..." (mostly capping for defining acronyms). But also "...very heavily guarded by Destroyers, Torpedo Boats, armed Trawlers, E boats and Raumboote, Motor Minesweeping and Patrol Boats (R boats)..." and "These Brave class were equipped to operate as either Motor Gunboats or Motor Torpedo Boats...". With all this capping, it's hard to see any consistent pattern of caps relating to special classes of boat.
In your second link, I can see "first lieutenant of a Motor Torpedo Boat", before the paywall grays it out; is there more there?
In Mediterranean MTBs at War: Short MTB Flotilla Operations, 1939-1945, I can't see anything online. Do they just use the caps in the context of defining the acronyms?
What's your opinion on the relative quality of the various sources? Are you thinking there's anything approaching consistent capitalization in certain uses of the terms? Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Coastal Forces Heritage Trust - agreed, there is a lot of capitalisation generally
London Gazette - the feature here is inconsistency, but (without doing a precise count) I would guess it is 25% caps for Motor Torpedo Boat/motor torpedo boat and 50% caps for High Speed Launch/high speed launch.
Mediterranean MTBs - there is just an initial use of capitalised Motor Torpedo Boat and then the book uses "boat" or "MTB" throughout, without the long form.
In terms of quality, Mediterranean MTBs appears to be a definitive well-researched book written by 2 authors who served on these boats in WW2 in the Med. The memoirs "Stand by for Action" is well written, both for readability and use of English, but I guess memoirs are always a step back from being a WP:RS versus a more independent source. The Times speaks for itself on quality, but I have not researched other uses of the term, just looked up someone with an obituary who I knew served in MTBs (could look up Peter Scott, but out of time now). Peter Scott served in MTBs and had a relatively senior position in Coastal Forces by the end of WW2 and has written a good amount of books on other subjects - so probably OK on use of English.
Trying to take an independent, scientific view of sources, and going against my instincts to use capitalisation to increase clarity for the reader, it does appear more common to see uncapitalised "motor torpedo boat". Some of this occurs when the writer is differentiating between generic boats of this type and the RN boats (as mentioned for Donald, immediately above), but most appears to be just the style of the writer. Overall uncapitalised usage appears to be more common, but caps are definitely used by some.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 10:30, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I completely agree on all that. Thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the Dog Boats at War book does use the terms in question, in the Introduction (page IX) at least: "...the story of the Fairmile 'D' class motor torpedo boats and motor gunboats, often known as 'Dog Boats'." So, lowercase except for "Dog Boats". Dicklyon (talk) 05:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Just for the record, there is a Wikipedia article on Dog boat, in that this gives a redirect to Fairmile D motor torpedo boat, another article which is a bit short, as well as short on citations. Overall, these Coastal Forces articles could do with a lot of work, both in content and organisation (perhaps merging some articles). But need to find a wider range of sources, and I have a backlog of other Wikipedia "targets".ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Royal Navy sources

I kind of took it on faith that the RN capped these things until I heard from Shem at the MTB requested move. Wondering, I did a search of their site, and another. Quite a few lowercase as in "motor torpedo boat MTB 102" and "Fairmile D motor torpedo boat" and "a motor gun boat being built". Some capped, too, mostly just in the context of defining the acronym. So, not consistent, like other non-RN sources, but I see no reason to conclude that the RN sees these as proper names of classes. Is there anything that says they do? Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I've weighed in on over-capitalisation at the discussion at Talk:Motor_Torpedo_Boat#Requested_move_12_January_2020 with an RN perspective. As I said there, I'm a senior officer and currently commanding an HM warship. As it happens, I'm also a linguist, an amateur grammarian and a former member of the "directing staff" (ie instructor) at the Advanced Command and Staff Course. This does make me well qualified to comment.
In short, it would be entirely wrong to capitalise a general term like "motor torpedo boat" or "motor launch" in the Royal Navy, but don't take my word for it - read the MOD guidance at the DCDC Writers Handbook. I'll save you the effort and extract the relevant bits on capitalisation for you:
  • Overusing capital letters. In the MOD, we have grown into a habit of overusing capital letters. CAPITAL LETTERS can seem threatening and are more difficult to read than lower-case text. This is because your eye is not able to easily see the different shapes of the letters that make up the word and therefore has to work harder to read each letter individually. You should, therefore, only use capitals when it is grammatically correct to do so. (p.11)
  • The term should not be capitalised to emphasise the acronym or abbreviation as it used to be done in the past, so joint operations area (JOA) is correct, not Joint Operations Area (JOA). (p.33)
Or go to WriteRight!, the RAF's guide to writing good English (and widely referenced in the MOD). It will say the same thing in different words. The latest (2019) edition of JSP 101 doesn't seem to be available on the Internet, but I've read it at work, and I can assure you that it says the same as WriteRight! and the DCDC Writers Handbook - capital letters are not to be used except when grammatically necessary.
I'd like to take this moment to say something about style and sources. Sources are for facts; style guides are for style. We have our style guide at WP:MOS. The reason for this is that good sources are written by experts - but experts are not grammarians. Royal Navy writers may have no idea of either correct English usage or the extant Royal Navy guidance on the use of capitals, and are thus bound to litter their work with errors. We are not bound to repeat them. Furthermore, sources may be old, and we are not required to freeze our writing style when writing about older subjects (nobody expects articles on Shakespeare to be written in Elizabethan English). Thus, it does not matter whether a writer, Royal Navy or not, used capitals when discussing a motor torpedo boat 50 years ago - our style guide says clearly that we should not.
Finally, I think there's a massive storm in a teacup here - the obvious, MOS-driven, modern plain English, widely attested style is to use lower case for "motor launch", "motor torpedo boat", "motor gunboat" and all the other ship types, just as we do for frigates, battleships and the rest. The UK MOD and the Royal Navy use the same style, as does Chicago and every other style guide I've ever seen. Frankly, it's becoming embarrassing that we even have to discuss it! Shem (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Andy's over-capitalization of Motor Launch

Andy Dingley has just gone and capitalized Motor Launch in about 40 articles that had it lowercase, and at the same time over-capped these words in links to Fairmile B motor launch and such. Both of these are counter-productive changes, since lowercase was in conformance with guidelines, but he says that's better than my quick fix of changing the linked redirect at motor launch to point to the intended article at Motor Launch. Obviously, a full fix would need a better title for Motor Launch, since we've found no support in sources for the idea that capitalizing it is the way to define the class of motor launches that that articles is intended to be about.

So, we need to decide. Ideas for the best title for Motor Launch are solicited. If it's really about the RN and RAF variety only, then maybe Motor launch (British boat) or Motor launch (Royal Navy boat) or something like that. Or maybe just put it at motor launch and let it be more general. In any case, I'll start an RM discussion soon, but it can make more sense if it is informed by more opinions from other project members. Dicklyon (talk) 17:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

It's OK, you can thank me later. Just fixing the issue that you raised here, pointing out nearly all the inbound links were for RN 70 foot coastal vessels, not speedboats, and that their target should be Motor Launch.
I don't think I'll be thanking you. That's now 40 more articles where Motor Launch needs to be fixed to motor launch. Dicklyon (talk) 02:20, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
As far as I could see, they're all correct now. If you do a bulk trollback of them (as you have done before), then that goes straight to ANI. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Got it. If I undo your mass change against what seems like the consensus here, then I'm in trouble. I sure didn't enjoy the last several times you complained at ANI. So let's work it out. Dicklyon (talk) 18:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Oh, and will you please (as has already been requested repeatedly) stop WP:HOUNDING me to every article I go near, no matter how obscure: 75 mm Gun M2/M3/M6, Midland Railway 115 Classjust so that you can find a capitalisation to remove. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
The case fix at Midland Railway 115 Class was to change "steam" to "Steam" and fill in the rest of the ref; not a lowercasing. The other one was mostly about the repeated word "gun gun" in the lead sentence, but yes I took to some case fixing there, too, as I did on some other 75 mm guns. Did any of my edits interact with yours or offend or impede you in any way? Dicklyon (talk) 02:18, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't object to your changes there (although why do you insist on "115 Class" rather than "115 class"?) Nor can I support the "75mm Gun" over "75mm gun". But (as was pointed out to you previously on this page, by another editor) you're still WP:HOUNDing me. Now you're pullng the "If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" card. WP:HOUND is pretty clear on that: I should not have to feel that you are permanently on my shoulder, just waiting for any little slip-up which you can use; whether I make that slip-up or not. Those are two pretty obscure articles, well away from your regular editing areas, so please don't tell me that "I wasn't following you" because that's unbelievable. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't see that I expressed any opinion as to whether class should be capped there; probably not. I'm not going around looking to downcase things just because you edited the article before me. But I do need to look at your contribs to see what you've done in relation to the many places where we have active interactions going on, and if I notice and fix a few odd things in the process, that's not hounding. You already know I'm looking and discussions to work out the case issues will continue. Your action to make the fix harder by extending your preferred over-capitalization across 40 articles that I pointed out had it right is not helping. More like you're hounding me. Dicklyon (talk) 18:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No objection to Motor Launch (Royal Navy) with a clearer disambiguation than the case alone. But the clear difference remains: motor launches are little things, often with outboard motors, Motor Launches are 70-ish footers, seagoing and a specifically RN designation (albeit leaking out into Oz and Canada). Andy Dingley (talk) 23:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Under no circumstances (that I can see here) should this be capped. I concede that capping practice for names of equipment and vehicles does have a grey area: we see this with some (but not all) NASA items, where the equipment was custom-built for their specific needs, and sometimes one-off usage. Tony (talk) 00:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Oh, he's already got to Apollo: [7] Andy Dingley (talk) 00:56, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
There are still a few inappropriate caps in Nasa-related things, but mostly it's under control. Unlike the boats. Dicklyon (talk) 02:18, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, "control". This isn't about accuracy or sourcing, it's about you having control. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Just read the changes on Apollo. Wow. HamOnt (talk) 05:15, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
This is getting ridiculous. Now its Canadian Fairmile type B. The T in type. If you read the official history The Naval Service of Canada Type B is capitalized. I understand where you are coming from and agree with you on minimizing capitalization. But you are going overboard. Pun intended. I'm new to this and I'm trying to add to remembering Canada's military history the best way I know how, but you're definitely making it less enjoyable than I thought it would be. I can see in other talks that others are accusing you of hounding other people and following their work. I get where you are coming from. If this continues, I'll just take my work elsewhere. HamOnt (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
So how many proper names do these boats have? Fairmile B Motor Launch, Fairmile Type B, what else? I realize that many editors find enjoyment in capitalizing things dear to them, and I don't mean to criticize you for that. But it's not how we do it at WP, where a significant proportion of sources use lowercase. I hope you will stay and contribute; pay no attention to Andy (whose comment here was before I was involved in any of this, and before he took on an over-capitalization campaign, that I am resisting). Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Colledge and Warlow, "Ships of the Royal Navy" (ISBN 978-1-935149-07-1) use, "Fairmile 'A' type," "Fairmile 'B' type" and "Fairmile 'D' type." There is only one mention of C and they use, "Fairmile 'C' Type," however, as this is in the same paragraph as the other types, I think it could be considered a typographical error. This is just one source but indicates a lack of consistency in name usage, let alone capitalisation. From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:13, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
This is really simple: just follow MOS:CAPS. Unless something (in exact particular) is capitalized (in mid-sentence, not just in title-case headings) with near-total uniformity in reliable sources (including general-audience ones like newspapers, not just specialist-to-specialist writing or "official" primary sources), do not capitalize it on Wikipedia. We've been over this thousands of times already, across every topic area, and the answer is the same, again and again and again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Ok. Looking at MOS:MILTERMS Fairmile Type B or Fairmile Motor Launch would fall under Unofficial but well-known names should also be capitalized (the Green Berets, the Guard). Anyone disagree?HamOnt (talk) 04:05, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Hard to imagine that "Fairmile Type B" or "Fairmile Motor Launch" would be considered in the same class of well-known as the Green Berets or the Guard. Dicklyon (talk) 04:45, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure you got the point. Unofficial but well-known names should also be capitalized. Looks like this issue is settled then. HamOnt (talk) 04:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Check out Coastal Forces of the Royal Canadian Navy and tell me what you think. HamOnt (talk) 06:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Looks pretty good. I'm not sure I would have downcased Coastal Forces in a lots of those cases, but maybe. What are the proper names of the British and Canadian Coastal Forces? Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
MOS:MILTERMS is not an exception to the general advice of MOS:CAPS, with MILTERMS stating: The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper name, as indicated by consistent capitalization in sources, it should be capitalized. MILTERMS states: However, the words for types of military unit (army, navy, fleet, company, etc.) do not require capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name. The same might be said of equipment etc (as here) but determination of what is captalised defers to consistent capitalization in sources - not just those sources where it is capitalised. The example of the Green Berets is an unofficial but well known name. This still requires consistent capitalization in sources. However, the whole justification for capitalisation of ML so far is that it is an official name. Is this an about-turn? The arguement that it is an official name does not negate the requirement of consistent capitalization in sources (not just official sources). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 06:30, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Lists of ship launches

Latest comment: 4 years ago26 comments9 people in discussion

Is there a reason why all the lists of ship launches in year x lists seem have different formats - see 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919 for example - some wildly different formats (and that's ignoring the flip-flopping date formats, near-absent referencing and the crazy flag overload). Can there be some consistency?Nigel Ish (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I suppose that these lists can be useful but as you say there is only modest consistency in approach. Does anyone recall whether there was discussion about the content and format when first started, or when turned into tables around 2009 - or when a new template was introduced last year (eg for 1913 list in this format {{ship builder|UK|1913|Brown}}) - it's quite clever, but where is the essential documentation that makes it possible to use or add to? I expected to find it on Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Tools. Don't mind about the flags (at least for the yards), though there is a surprisingly early appearance of the Nazi Germany flag in 1913.
This sort of project needs a buy-in from here, and a serious number of editors prepared to populate it. Again taking 1913, the list contains 40 vessels, while the Category:1913 ships has about six times that number. Davidships (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
I think we should just get rid of them in favor of categories (Category:Ships by decade) which do the same job. Over at the Anime and Manga wikiproject we had a similar thing with "xxxx (year) in Anime". The lists were underpopulated so I combined all the titles released before 1939 into an article. This might be feasible with the earliest ship launches rather than having them by year. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) The problem with relying on categorisation is that you only capture ships with articles. Ships that are not notable enough, or don't have enough sourced material, to support their own article can be included within a broader list article.
On a completely different tangent, has this project given any consideration to how Wikidata could help populate lists? Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by nationality/United Kingdom shows some of the capabilities of bot-populated lists from Wikidata. I doubt that we would ever get to the point of trusting bot-operated Wikidata to work directly in article space, but we could populate a similar list in project space. Editors could then manually copy new table code from the auto-list to the corresponding list in article space. To get the most benefit from this though we would have to decide on a consistent format for the list articles and work with the Wikidata project to match parameters to table fields. This would still involve a lot of work but it harnesses the contribution from editors of other Wikis who are populating wikidata for their own ship articles. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
The Nazi Germany flag is an error caused by the template in use. The list is non-standard and should be reverted to the standard format, per my comments below. Mjroots (talk) 19:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
One of the earliest lists we have is the List of ship launches in 1666. This is in the format that has been the standard format for many years on Wikipedia, and any lists deviating from this should be made compliant. Mjroots (talk) 18:37, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
We both know that consenses can change, and that practices once widely used become dated. If you want an example then look at Wikipedia:Article Incubator. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:19, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
On the other side of this we have one sole example on a "list" of ships launched in the 1620s (List of ship launches in the 1620s). Can you tell me how this is helpful and not redundant to the category or the same information provided in the ship's article? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:24, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
As I mentioned above. Using categories only will lose all list entries that don't have articles. Every red link entry on the 1666 page (51 by my count) is a piece of sourced data that will be lost to the project. Picking a minimally populated list as evidence that nothing will be lost is a bit of a weak argument. From Hill To Shore (talk) 03:40, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
@Knowledgekid87: - that 1620s list is easily expandable. A quick search of the Threedecks website returns 336 ships for the decade. Not all of these results will produce an entry, as the launch year is not known for all vessels. Some are listed by their first year of recording. That said, it should be possible to produce separate lists for all years of that decade. Mjroots (talk) 10:00, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes its possible, I am just tired of seeing overlapping information. As it is we have lists of ships built during World War I, World War II, and so on... We could easily combine the information on some examples to ease the workload and present a nice list of "Ships launched by (decade)". We also do have WP:NOTEVERYTHING to think about, what are the sources used describing an addition? In one case I saw a link to Navypedia. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
As members of this project are probably aware, I'm working on the shipwreck lists atm. My next big project will be ship launches. I've made a start already as sometimes the Gale News Vault goes down and I can't work on shipwrecks then. Have gone back as far as 1665 as that is when the London Gazette was first published, and got as far as the 1690s. There are plenty of sources out there to build these lists with. Mjroots (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
The Marine Engineer and Naval Architect (of which several years worth of archives are on the Internet Archive) is a useful source for launches in the late 19th/early 20th centuries (particularly for UK shipbuilders), with a list of ship launches and trial trips being a regular feature of the journal.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:53, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
Completion and citations are much more important issues for these lists than what format is used. That said, consistency and the ability of users to easily contribute items to these lists is important because it helps with completeness. To that end I created Template:Ship builder to help users add information and get a consistent presentation, much in the same vein as Template:Sclass-, etc. List of ship launches in 1913 presents pretty clean and concise as a format. Entries can be added directly or using Template:Ship event row and get the same results. From Hill To Shore (talk · contribs) makes an excellent point about Wikidata, as ideally it would be much better than relying on hand-built lists on every wiki. The trick is to have a structure which brings in the baseline data from Wikidata while also supporting the ability to layer in data added at the WP level. If the only way to add an item to a list is to go to Wikidata and add it there, that may be fine for those of us familiar with WD, but it will reduce the number of users who are able to contribute. There also may be decisions made at WD which are at odds with WP, and so WP data needs to be able to overlay the imported Wikidata info. I also think there are some users which will not welcome their hard work making manual entries being overridden by a machine-compiled list from WD, even if that data is accurate and comprehensive. However, fundamentally, I believe that completeness and accuracy will be best served by incorporating Wikidata info as much as possible. Josh (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Joshbaumgartner can you please ensure that {{Ship builder}} / {{Ship event row}} always displays the correct flag, otherwise there is no point in having it . See the 1913 list where a Nazi Germany flag is displayed instead of the German Empire flag. I cannot get it to display the correct flag not matter what is tried. Mjroots (talk) 15:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Mjroots No template change was necessary, simply citing the correct builder (Danzig, not Konigsberg) fixed the issue. Remember that {{Ship builder}} is a helper template and as with all templates, its output is only going to be as good as the input; if you need a builder that is not listed in the template or are for whatever reason not getting the desired output, you can always just make the entry directly in the table. If you have a builder you would like added and are not comfortable adding it yourself, or have any other issue, feel free to ping me and I can do so. Josh (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
@Joshbaumgartner: Danzig and Königsberg are not the same place. Which brings us the the question of a ship built in Königsberg in 1913 - what would the template display? Nazi Germany? It is important that the template can handle places which are in different countries now to what they were in the past. Also, can it handle ships built in the Hanseatic Cities when they were independent city states before the creation of the German Empire in 1871? Mjroots (talk) 19:57, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Mjroots Danzig and Königsberg are certainly not the same place, not sure what your point is though. A ship built in Königsberg in 1913 should certainly not show the Nazi flag as that wasn't in use in 1913, again seems pretty straight-forward. And I am not sure why the template could not handle Hanseatic Cities or any other political entity throughout history. Do you have an example that is not behaving correctly? Josh (talk) 20:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
My problem with using WD for ship data is that sources often disagree on ship characteristics, especially for ships of more obscure navies, and I don't think that they're best suited to decide which ones are likely to be the most accurate.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:25, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Wikidata does not aspire to represent one truth. If sources disagree, that can be modeled as well. --Izno (talk) 01:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm glad to hear it, but a couple years ago, Andrew Lih and I discussed the issue and he wasn't sure that contradictory sources could be handled. But that was then and maybe things have advanced since then.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:00, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Nope, since sources were initially deployed and even before you were able to represent multiple contradictory facts. --Izno (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, though there are mechanisms to identify 'best answers' based on various factors, though this is likewise fraught. I think this continues to point to the need for WP to be able to bring in a baseline list from WD, but overlay our own data, including the ability to supress certain results, modify other results, and add our own entries in a way that the final product is one list presented to the user in a seamless manner. Josh (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
My immediate problem with using List of ship launches in 1913 as an example is that it includes the phrase In cases where no official launching ceremony was held, the date built or completed may be used instead . Launching and completion are of course two very different things Lyndaship (talk) 08:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Many of the lists have that. I sympathise with the intent, but it leaves readers not knowing whether it is a launch date or not. Better would be something like Where no launch date is known, the date built (B) or completed (C) may be used instead, and indicated accordingly. Davidships (talk) 20:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Indeed, and I agree wholeheartedly that any case other than an official launch should be noted as such in the notes column. Enhancing the introduction to the list to clarify this is a good idea. Josh (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Armament AMC Carmania

Latest comment: 4 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion

The text about RMS Carmania (1905) states that this ship was equipped with QF 4.7-inch Mk V naval guns. There is a link for it also, but it says, that this canon was not in use by the Royal Navy, only by the coastal defence. Were these weapons not QF 4.7-inch Mk I – IV naval guns?--Andreas (talk) 22:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

You may want to read the next sentence in that Mk V article you linked. :) From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for answering to the qustion. Sure I did, but it's not clear to me either. Canons from Japan were not at hand at the beginning of the war I think. Or were some other Mk V's present at Liverpool at that time? On one hand Massie writes that the British canons were 20 years old and had only a range of 9000 yards, on the other hand the German claim, that the British fired some salvos after their guns were already out of reach (12200 m). So I can't decide it for sure. --Andreas (talk) 23:37, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
That looks more like an issue of clarifying dates. The RMS Carmania text currently says, "Following the outbreak of World War I, Carmania was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, equipped with eight 4.7-inch guns, and put under the command of Captain Noel Grant." It does not state when after the declaration that occurred; it may have been in 1914 or it may have been in 1918. This website says the V* was in use from 1915, so that is probably the earliest date that the Carmania was armed with these guns, unless there is a source that shows she was armed at an earlier date. The website also gives a slightly longer range, but that is partially an action of elevation - a ship can fire with the motion of the sea to increase elevation of the gun, although the aim is less certain. The guns could have been 20 years old but it may be that it was just the design that was old; they were already obsolete at the time of installation. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:09, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Carmania was the ship, that fought with Cap Trafalgar on 14 September 1914 near the island of Trindade. So I'm convinced her guns were not of Japanese production. Since the action was fought mainly at lower distance, 7600 m down to 1500 m, the rate of fire was more interesting. Mk I-IV had a rate of fire with 5-6 shots per minute, Mk V 8-10. --Andreas (talk) 06:32, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Carmania was converted very early so I agree that Mk V guns were unlikely at that time. Osborne, Spong and Grover say that her guns had a max range of 9,300 yards, which fits the older guns far better than the more modern one.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
I also think they were from the early type. There is a footnote in the text two sentences later and it refers to this book: Simpson, Colin (1977). The Ship that Hunted Itself. Penguin Books. I do not have it, but when there is no mention about Mark V, than the Carmania text has to be changed. For me there remains the question, why these weapons had a range of 9000 yds (9300 yds), when officially rated with 10.000-12.000 yards. Were the guns of such a bad shape? --Andreas (talk) 14:23, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Osborne, etc., mention that the early AMCs had very crappy fire-control, so that may be the reason. Alternatively, it could have been that the guns were installed on old mounts with limited elevation.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Copied above discussion to Talk:RMS Carmania (1905) Davidships (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed: Charles H. Marshall (ship) and SS Charles H. Marshall

Latest comment: 4 years ago24 comments10 people in discussion

Hello ship experts! I believe at least one of (and possibly both of) the articles Charles H. Marshall (ship) and SS Charles H. Marshall needs renaming: both are about ships named Charles H. Marshall. The former was launched in 1869, the latter in 1944. I'm not sure if both could be prefixed with "SS", and WP:SHIPNAME did not provide enough guidance, so I leave the most appropriate disambiguation to your competent hands. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 22:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I have boldly moved the two articles to SS Charles H. Marshall (year launched). -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:17, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I think the first one should be SV (sailing vessel) as I can't see any evidence that it was a steam ship (SS). From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:37, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
The 1869 vessel was a fully-rigged ship, in technical terms the only ship of the two. "SV" if you must to comply with WP's arcane ways, but Charles H. Marshall (ship) is more accurate, unless you want Ship Charles H. Marshall (1869). The 1944 vessel is correctly described as "SS" (= screw ship). Basically things were correct as they were, now they are mixed up! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
There is no arcane way re "SV". It should not be there unless that is how most reliable sources refer to her. She is correctly placed at Charles H. Marshall (ship), as I see it. Cannot find a third vessel of that name, so a pair of hatnotes is all that is needed (ship name list if 3+). Davidships (talk) 11:42, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Ad Orientem - as you are an admin, would you revert your move please? Davidships (talk) 12:00, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I've reverted it, though you didn't actually need to be an admin to do it - you only need the delete button if the redirect has been edited more than once. Parsecboy (talk) 12:48, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Ack... Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:51, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I had tried via "Undo" but was frightened off by the big red notice. Found the right way now with SS Charles H. Marshall (1944).Davidships (talk) 17:32, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I thought we got over this "ship only refers to full-rigged ship" issue years ago? If someone asked me, I'd make Charles H. Marshall (ship) a disambiguation/ship index/ship list/whatever page that would link to Charles H. Marshall (1869 ship) and Charles H. Marshall (1944 ship) (at least as redirect to SS Charles H. Marshall). However, present practice is fine, I guess. Tupsumato (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Tupsumato - Davidships is correct. When used as a disambiguator, "ship" refers to a full-rigged ship. Thus "Charles H. Marshall (ship)" as opposed to "Charles H. Marshall (barque)", "Charles H. Marshall (snow)", "Charles H. Marshall (barquentine)" etc. Adding a year of build as a further disambiguator is acceptable. For steamships, disambiguation is generally by year of launch. Mjroots (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
We discussed this back in 2017. I still think we shouldn't reserve the very name of our WikiProject for a specific type of sailing ship. Tupsumato (talk) 03:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
As Mjroots says - When used as a disambiguator. The problem doesn't really arise in the context of prose where it can be made clear where "ship" is being used as a historical technical description of a certain rig, and where in the general sense that has been in use since long before full-rigged ships. It is unfortunate for us that in English (unlike most other languages) we have used the same noun, but I guess we are where we are. Davidships (talk) 11:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
My point was that I don't want to restrict the use of "ship" as disambiguator only to full-rigged ships; it should be "most generic ship type" when one is needed in disambiguation. After all, it's also used to disambiguate WP:SHIPS from other WikiProjects. Tupsumato (talk) 14:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I can see the merits of and problems with both viewpoints. My main concern though is that we currently have no consistency in how we dab articles. I just looked at the Category:1890 ships, we have dabs such as sternwheeler, schooner, ferryboat, steamship, barque, schooner barge and steam schooner. Then we have some dabbed ships which are steamships. And what is the correct dab for a sailing ship (presumably fully rigged but I am not sure just what constitutes fully rigged) which has an auxiliary engine? Lyndaship (talk) 15:53, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
@Lyndaship: The main means of propulsion, not the auxilliary. See here for diagrams of sail plans and names. A ship, fully-rigged ship (UK), full-rig ship (US) or ship-rigged has at least three masts all of which carry square sails. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
If we really need a generic disambiguator, then "vessel" works. Mjroots (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

That's what the ColRegs use: "1 (a) These Rules shall apply to all vessels upon the high seas and in all waters connected therewith navigable by seagoing vessels." Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

On the other hand, we are writing an encyclopedia for everyone and not international convention for maritime professionals. In both Merriam-Webster and Cambridge, the primary definition of the word "ship" is a large seagoing vessel whereas, interestingly, in Merriam-Webster the primary definition for "vessel" is not a ship, but a container for holding something. The Wikipedia article ship starts with a generic definition before going into the historical definition from the age of sail. We also use the word "ship" happily in categories such as Category:2019 ships. Yeah, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS probably applies here, but restricting such a generic and commonly-used word based on historical usage is, at least in my opinion, against common sense. To quote User:Davidships from 2017, "I have long believed that the alleged restriction of "ship" to full-rigged sailing ships is a triumph of the arcane over common usage". Tupsumato (talk) 06:14, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
I would definitely be opposed to anything that tries to restrict usage of the word, "ship," to ones with sails only. I've been reading about ships all my life and I have only encountered the restrictive definition this week on the current talk page. Even in historical sources, I've never encountered the restrictive distinction, so it sounds like a niche view point. Use of "vessel" is also not very good as a disambiguator. If we had a ship called Elizabeth and we disambiguate it with Elizabeth (Vessel), I think it could easily be confused with an Elizabethan vessel (a jar or container from the Elizabethan era). From Hill To Shore (talk) 07:52, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
My disambiguation principle is pretty much the following:
Ship disambiguation tree
No disambiguation needed (civilian ships only)Foo
Select your route (and stick to it)"Prefix route""Bracket route""Naval route" (start here)
Disambiguate from non-ship article of the same name (most common)<prefix> FooFoo (ship)Foo (<type>)<nationality> <type> Foo
Disambiguate from other ships with the same name by launch year<prefix> Foo (<year>)Foo (<year> ship)(disambiguate by type)Foo (<year> <type>)<nationality> <type> Foo (<year or pennant number>)
Tupsumato (talk) 08:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
It's a period article, so why not Charles H. Marshall (packet) or if you must, Charles H. Marshall (packet ship, 1869). The date of launch is a differentiator. Otherwise use of the word 'ship' here is careless thing; even though it makes sense on Commons as a filing thing. Broichmore (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Apologies for slow reply. Yes, Tupsumato, that chart seems to set the status quo. The whole dab problem for merchant ships in particular is unneccesarily complicated by two issues:
I included the prefix path because it is widely used even though I personally dislike their use with non-ambiguous names (unless the ship is best-known with a prefix). As for "packet", I had to look that up. Tupsumato (talk) 11:09, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

USS Vanadis (AKA-49) move to USS Thor problems.

Latest comment: 4 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

This ship had a very brief history as Vanadis and long history as Thor. Both names are unique in USN so no disambiguation needed. Simple move of existing "USS Vanadis (AKA-49)" page blocked by redirect "USS Thor" page. My attempt to free that name by moving the redirect just made another redirect (Thor (ARC-4)) with the blocking page remaining. Apparently moves when redirects are plentiful require deletion of page by administrators. Someone with that ability able to clean that up? Anyone know of a way to do this without admin level? It is not unknown to see a redirect that is actually a better name than the article's name. Palmeira (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

  Done - moved to USS Thor. Palmeira, would you make the necessary adjustments to the article please? Mjroots (talk) 21:12, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. Will do. 71.178.17.34 (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Canadian Ensign vs Canadian Government Ensign

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a discussion at Template talk:Country data Canada#Battle of the St. Lawrence about whether the Canadian Government Ensign should be used to represent Canadian warships and the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II or if the White Ensign should remain. Llammakey (talk) 12:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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