Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)

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view · edit Frequently asked questions Q:US Navy ships prior to commissioning should be prefixed PCU and not USS! A:While this would be militarily correct, WP:NC-SHIP requires using USS to designate the ship as belonging to the United States. Separating ships by nationality is important for Wikipedia to avoid confusion with other Navies of the world. Q:US Navy ship names are supposed to be written in ALL CAPS! A:For purposes of adhering to the WP:MOS we use USS Lower Case and not USS UPPER CASE.

Is "QENS" an accepted ship prefix for ships of the

It is according to Jane's Fighting Ships 2015–2016 (p. 662).Nigel Ish (talk) 21:17, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the thread at the top about the use of definite articles, but gained no clarity from it at all and I found little in the conventions guideline that clarified matters either. What is the general advice on whether to use a definite article or not, given that in BrEng is is more common to use "the" in good English than to avoid it. Is there a standing consensus or guideline on whether to use or avoid, or is it left more open than that? Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's a consensus and that's why the naming convention has adopted the "not needed, but not technically wrong either" approach. Sometimes it may sound okay ("It's the Enterprise"), but in most cases it feels unnecessary and even excessive in a Wikipedia article. Personally I only use it if there are words between the article and the ship's name (e.g. "...unlike the diesel-electric icebreaker Viktor Chernomyrdin..." or "...unlike Viktor Chernomyrdin..." but not "..unlike the Viktor Chernomyrdin.."). Tupsumato (talk) 17:19, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's more or less it - use it if you want, or don't. FWIW, I follow the same practice Tupsumato describes. Parsecboy (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent - thank you both. That seems a sensible path to follow, so I'll follow suit. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 17:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One other minor point to make: when I refer to a ship class, I'd use the definite article, so for example, "...the Sachsen class" since in this case, "class" is the noun and the ship name is just an adjective. Parsecboy (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've been editing

Any comments, or objections to me moving this back to Zeewijk? TSP (talk) 11:32, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@

MOS:NAT (for ships, which is this context), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) – and in particular Make a link from the first mention of each ship in an article, even if Wikipedia does not yet have an article about that ship – in combination with template:ship used to do that, without readers ending up getting confused by ending up on a non-ship page that happens to get added before the ship page. Betterkeks (talk) 12:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

Thanks

MOS:NAT

has any bearing - that's about italicisation in article text, it tells you not to italicise disambiguation terms if they are present, but doesn't bear on whether they are present in text, let alone in article titles.

You can still, if you like, use

general policies

on article titles being concise, natural and recognisable.

I am a bit curious about that line in

WP:REDLINK

says In general, a red link should remain in an article if there is a reasonable expectation that the article in question will eventually be created. Is it really our expectation that every ship should eventually have an article?

But in any case, you can always link to a more precise term that is then redirected to the actual page; that doesn't conflict with the general Wikipedia principle of putting the page itself at the most natural and concise title, and only using disambiguations when there is an actual clash. TSP (talk) 17:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re red links: my approach is to make my own assessment of "reasonable expectation", albeit cursory, before linking or not-linking; existence ≠ notability, per

WP:GNG. -Davidships (talk) 12:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

Presently the section about ship classes seems to give guidance about how to refer to different ship classes. Could we discuss and, if we agree on something, add more guidance how to choose title for articles about ship classes that may be referred to with more than one name and/or which do not have a well-established class name?

For example, Soviet/Russian ship classes may be referred to by their

I'd also like to include a line about ship classes with no well-established and widely-adopted class name or any other way to refer to them. While the convention is to refer to the class by the lead ship, I'm not sure if Wikipedia should be the one to coin class names. In the past, enthusiastic editors had a tendency to do this for cruise ships and ferries...

The reason why I'm bringing this up is that I wasn't sure which would be the correct convention to follow with

Agree with all of the above proposals. The wording could be along the lines of

A ship class may be named for a member of the class (usually the first or lead ship) or the class may be named for an attribute common to all of the ships of the class. They can also be referred to by their project name and/or type designation. When the class is named for a member of the class, the class name is italicized. When the class is named for a common theme, attribute, project number of type, the class name is not italicized:

And then examples of Type and Project added to the list. Llammakey (talk) 13:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with the proposed text in general, I was specifically looking for guidance how to select the article title: not how ship classes are named in general, but how they should be named in Wikipedia. Should the English-language Wikipedia give priority to original Soviet/Russian/Chinese "Project" or "Type" number and/or class name over one "given" by NATO or western literary sources, or the other way around? Should there be different convention for naval vessels and civilian ships? Old and new ships (e.g. there's well-established class name for

WP:MILHIST)? What do we do with ships that do not have established class name but that are sometimes given one by ship enthusiasts? Tupsumato (talk) 13:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

That's not proper grammar. How come people have such a hard time convincing others to use the correct pronouns for trans people, but ships automatically get "she"? Thus, I want to start a discussion about defaulting to "it", as a ship is an object, not a woman. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, we've already had multiple discussions on the issue and no clear consensus has arisen to use "it" rather than "she"--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"We"? Who's "we"? If it's only people in WikiProject Military (or Ships or whatever), then of course that's gonna be the result. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Last time this issue was discussed in

WP:MOS was in March 2022; see list of archived discussions since 2004. Personally I wouldn't mind having this discussion again but I doubt there would be clear consensus this time either. Tupsumato (talk) 07:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply

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