User talk:Stunteltje/Naming of ships

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ship naming conventions

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Hi, at Commons:State Library of Queensland/Subjects we are building a mapping between a library's subject headings and our categories. For ships, we have used '<ship> (ship)'. I see Category:Cooma (ship) has been deleted as a duplicate of your Category:Cooma (ship, 1907). Should all ships be disambiguated by the year? John Vandenberg (chat) 02:29, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My intention was to do so, because a lot of ships have the same name. I categorised more than 3000 ships by name on Commons myself and found out that some ships were numbered without any system. On the Dutch version of Wikipedia we have the Rotterdam (IV), Rotterdam (V) and Rotterdam (VI). Examples on Commons:

That is the reason why I categorise every newly found ship in a category according this system. (I started this only a few weeks ago). I wondered how to make this a naming convention, no idea. But I found it so logical, that people will follow it automatically. --Stunteltje (talk) 08:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems sensible to do this, but I also have no idea about naming conventions on Commons. I've raised this at Commons_talk:State_Library_of_Queensland/Subjects#ships. --John Vandenberg (chat) 08:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ship naming conventions/policy

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A discussion on my OP started with:

Hi, at Commons:State Library of Queensland/Subjects we are building a mapping between a library's subject headings and our categories. For ships, we have used '<ship> (ship)'. I see Category:Cooma (ship) has been deleted as a duplicate of your Category:Cooma (ship, 1907). Should all ships be disambiguated by the year? John Vandenberg (chat) 02:29, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My answer was: My intention was to do so, because a lot of ships have the same name. I categorised more than 3000 ships by name on Commons myself and found out that some ships were numbered without any system. On the Dutch version of Wikipedia we have the Rotterdam (IV), Rotterdam (V) and Rotterdam (VI). Examples on Commons:

That is the reason why I categorise every newly found ship in a category according this system. (I started this only a few weeks ago). I wondered how to make this a naming convention, no idea. But I found it so logical, that people will follow it automatically. --Stunteltje (talk) 08:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

and it came back with:

It seems sensible to do this, but I also have no idea about naming conventions on Commons. I've raised this at Commons_talk:State_Library_of_Queensland/Subjects#ships. --John Vandenberg (chat) 08:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So I assume it is good to start a discussion on this, as it can clarify how to succeed. See in this case how the inland passenger ship, completed in 1969, without any problem can be categorised by name, no conflict with naming the sea-going ships. Perhaps it solves the problem with MS and SS in the name of ships too. --Stunteltje (talk) 09:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy if we could loose the MS/SS as it seems to confuse a lot of people who think it is part of the name. BoH (talk) 09:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy with the proposal of Stunteltje. Maybe you can update the very old Commons:Category scheme ships accordingly and make a link to it in the top level ship/boat categories. --Foroa (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree also, I have had this same confusion on the dutch Wikipedia as lots of media use M/S and S/S. The danish Wikipedia does that as well, by using M/F and H/F etc. By making a consensus on commons, it would be easier to draw the line further to the wikipedia's in other languages.
By making it like [[name (ship,19..)]] will be easy to understand for everyone. Perhaps that this also can be done in other categories (Cars, Trucks, etc.).--Rodejong (talk) 02:27, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be opposed to this, given the multiple languages on the Commons. Ed [talk] [en:majestic titan] 08:06, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I support the general idea. It's much easier if one can just type the name of the ship and needn't guess prefixes.
The QLD upload might be a bit different as there are hundreds of ships we currently only know the names of. For these, we might have to add the year at a second step. --  Docu  at 08:03, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, in the German Wikipedia [1], there has long been a consensus that the many prefixes (SS, DS, MS, MV) are not part of ship's name. They are left out and used the ship's name with parenthesis additions to year and / or launching. This is especially true for civilian ships. In the military area, there are special rules. -- Biberbaer (talk) 06:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would be pleased to see, that Commons standardise all the uncontrolled growth and rename all to the system "Category:Shipname (ship, year)". But what will be done with the data content within the renamed categories? Should all the pictures also be renamed? That sounds like a lot of work to do.--Manuel Heinemann (talk) 11:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I do in the renaming proces by Cat-a lot is, adding the new category to the old, copy the content of the old one in the new category, add as much categories and interlinks as found, process the Cat-a-lot, and category redirect the old category. I assume not much info is lost and in the process we create a useful new category of ships by year built. That one can be added in a lot of categories by year. It just takes a lot of work and time. But in the Netherlands we have an expression: "Köln and Aken are not built in one day". What to do with the categories for Naval ships?. In my view no problem to rename exact the way as for the civilian ships but adding extra a new category for the pennant numbers and hull classification symbols. Have a look at the Category:Tall ships by TS number. So adding a Category:Naval ships by hull classification symbol or even pennant number, if you like, will solve a lot of categorising problems. Another service for a US ship and the way she is categorised these days you cannot find her anymore on Commons --Stunteltje (talk) 11:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion prefixes are just a pain in ... even in english it is not clear, if a SS is a Steamship or Sailingship, not to mention national abreviations or even by the ship-owner invented prefixes. Some might have sense like RMS for example, but anyway, all double, triple or whatsoever many names need a disambiguation-page. Prefering the shipsname (ship, year), in seldom cases the shipsname (ship, yearfrom-yearto)-solution --CeGe (talk) 00:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think we also have to standardise the way we show the named categories for the same ship. The best way is via the IMO number, but this doesn't work for ships before a certain date. Adding LR (Lloyds Register) numbers could have solved this, but unfortunately LR numbers of old ships are not easy to find. --Stunteltje (talk) 11:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a clear growing de facto standard and consensus amongst several wikipedias for a simple ship naming standard; the ship category name should be as far as possible language independent and contain:
  • the name as painted on the ship, so that all people can categorise it properly
  • the fact that it is a ship, without knowing anything about ship types (most ship names could concern a book, a film, person, song, band, ...)
  • the year of completion if possible, the year of launch as ship otherwise, names tend to be reused often as can be seen in Category:ships by name (Contains yet only a couple of % of the roughly 500000 ship names).
  • no additional prefixes/postfixes such as MS, SS, USS, ... which are pretty much language dependent and not painted on the ship
  • in the exceptional cases (1 case so far) where two ships have the same name and build year, it is further disambiguated with the city of building. --Foroa (talk) 06:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your de facto standard is true only when a ship name needs disambiguation. Otherwise, they don't bother. And neither should we. There is no need for disambiguation at Costa Fortuna (ship, 2003), Radiance of the Seas (ship, 2001), Norwegian Dawn (ship, 2002), etc. and disambiguation in cases like that will just confuse people. Even worse, the original categories are being deleted and leaving dozens of broken cross-wiki leaks at numerous Wikipedias. Wknight94 talk 12:23, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Can you describe how interlinks are lost when in the renaming proces the interlinks are transferred from old to new category? I myself don't see the mentioned confusing. See e.g. Category:Passenger ships of the United Kingdom. What do I miss? Except that the Mauretania and Titanic still have their old category. --Stunteltje (talk) 16:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am referring to incoming links. w:Costa Fortuna, w:MS Radiance of the Seas, and w:Norwegian Dawn all have Commons links which now go to category redirects that I created. All three were either deleted or tagged for deletion and I saved them. These were the first three I checked but I assume many many others are in the same situation. And the same probably goes for other language Wikipedias too. Wknight94 talk 16:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are correct with the first series of renaming. User:Foroa attended me to the problem, as I added "badname" to the old categories. From there I used "category redirect" to solve this problem. Not sure what happened with the series with "move" of the category. Red something about programming issues, but I do not understand the language of programming in Commons. --Stunteltje (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Support I support user:Stunteltje proposal of category names and dropping prefixes. --Jarekt (talk) 14:57, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Oppose adding (ship, year) in the cases where such disambiguation is unnecessary.  Support removal of prefixes and  Support disambiguating when necessary. Wknight94 talk 16:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Support for Stunteltje's proposal. We need consistency in category naming. BR, ––Apalsola t • c 20:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Support for shipsname (ship, year) --NeverDoING (talk) 12:49, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment So if we need to disambiguate everything and we need to be consistent, then we should move George Washington to George Washington (person, 1732), correct? Wknight94 talk 13:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if this George Washington is one of the other 25 persons with this name, who all ought to have an article in a certain Wikipedia, and can be a bird, Greek goddess, expression, machine, place, animal, mountain, music tempo, profession, celestial body, and so on. Hope you see the point. A natural person can't, a shipsname can. Besides, what is bad on the idea? Lot of extra work, yes, and at this moment there is no known need for. What is the problem if people think it is a good idea? Makes it finding an image less easy or just easier? --Stunteltje (talk) 15:54, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Basically {c|George Washington (person, 1732)} would be correct if you have several ones. COM:CAT states: The category name would be enough to guess the subject. While in the US and Western world, George Washington is evident, it is not necessarily true in Asia and Africa. Conversaly, "Cao Cao", "Abu Zikry", "Väinö Vuori", " Dev Patel", "Bong Joon-ho", "Hafez", "Souphanouvong", "Kārlis Zāle", "Olia Tira", "Abd el-Krim", "Ho Chi Minh" or "Islam Karimov" might be very evident in their country, it is not necessarily evident on our side. Basically, disambiguation is dropped mainly for places and persons, but I am pretty much convinced that for persons, it will (partly) come back one day, although it starts creeping in already (writers, politicians, artists, sports people with the same name).
Concerning ships, we have only a few thousand ships, so 1 or 2 % of the overall pack, while they are growing very quickly. On the other hand, most ships has simple names that are reused very often for ships, books, songs, bands and movies, so we better take a good start instead of having continuously problems with mix-ups and rename procedures. Anyway, if we do it now or tomorrow, wikipedias start to understand the need of name harmonisation, so one day, they will force us to do so too. --Foroa (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I added "Category move discussed at [[:Commons talk:Naming categories]]" to the ships in Category:Requested moves (all). --Stunteltje (talk) 06:35, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Support, but only for civilian vessels. For military ships, like the ones showcased at File:Fleet 5 nations.jpg, I would suggest keeping the already standardised format of "Prefix Name (Registry)", and would not support any migration to this new format. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My idea was to leave out the prefixes and keep the pennant numbers with the names. We have here the same system as fishing ships. Very big numbers painted on the hull and a small nameplates on the ship. The problem is, that the function of the ship is given in the prefixes. Give her another job and you have to rename her. Have a look at Category:United States Coast Guard vessels --Stunteltje (talk) 07:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way: We have reached 10.000 ships by name categories today. --Stunteltje (talk) 08:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finding ships by name

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Hi Stunteltje,

If I understand that correctly, at some point, Category:Ships by IMO number was meant to be a secondary scheme, allowing to find ships by that criterion. The primary way was meant to be the name of the ship. Thus, I'd add the shipyard to the category/ies by name rather than the one of the IMO number. --  Docu  at 06:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right in the fact that the IMO category was created to be a tool to group images of certain ships. Renaming the categories bij date an investigation is needed to find the date of completion. In many cases even the shipyard is found. Adding the shipyard category to the "category by shipname" gives a problem for some people with the conventions here, if also the category: "Ships built in" is given. I found a number of categories: "Ships built in" a certain country removed, when a category: "Ships built at" a certain shipyard was added. I myself tried to escape by adding the shipyard categories to the IMO categories and leave the country categories at the categories by shipname. I saw other users already used the IMO and ENI numbers in the shipyard categories. It has an advantage that only one description (by number) at the Shipyard is given, the coupling is in the IMO/ENI category. This is a try, but it can work. Another suggestion? --Stunteltje (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think there may be two or three separate issues:
  1. where to add the category for the shipyard
  2. where to add the category for the country a ship was built
  3. and possibly, how to make better use of descriptions in "IMO nnnnnnn"-categories
For (1), personally, I'd stick with the initial solution: add them to <ship name> categories. I'm aware that there is at least one user who seems to like adding them to IMO categories. For (2), I suppose they could go either on the category for the shipyard or the ships themselves. For (3), I think we should try to find a way to systematically link the IMO category in any subcategory by ship name. There is a template for this somewhere, but I don't particularly like its layout. We might even want to transclude the IMO number category description into ship by name categories (there are few downsides to this though). I made an ugly sample at Category:Al-Zahraa (ship). Any solution could probably be implemented by bot.
BTW, I got some thanks for you in my name at User_talk:Docu#Category:Fishing boats of Taiwan. --  Docu  at 05:58, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
IMO info Information about Svitzer Freja may be found at IMO xxxxxxx.
A ship can change name and flag state through time, but the IMO number remains the same through the hull's entire lifetime. As a result, it can be useful to identify a ship by using the IMO number.


Yeah, that one. If it's done be bot, I suppose the work is about the same. In any case, we should add something the category descriptions. It's somewhat lost if nothing is there. --  Docu  at 11:29, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to simplify {{IMOcat}} a bit, shall we use it that way? e.g. {{IMOcat|5164174}}? We could still change it to {{IMO}} if preferred --  Docu  at 09:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very nice, I prefer your IMOcat. Is it possible to make an identical one with a barge in it for ENI numbers? --Stunteltje (talk) 12:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. I could edit File:IMOinfo.svg to replace the text "IMO" with "ENI", but you'd need someone else to replace the ship with a barge. I made bot work request for {{IMOcat}} at Commons:Bots/Work_requests#IMOcat_template. --  Docu  at 13:22, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ship category renames

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Has there been some sort of discussion about all these ship category renames you and Category-bot/Docu are doing? I find several of them to be silly and are breaking convention with every other Wikipedia. The proper method/venue for contested category moves is either {{Move}} or COM:CFD. Thank you. Wknight94 talk 19:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There has been a discussion on several places, starting a few month ago. Clear ones are found e.g. at User:Foroa and User:Docu. The reason was that we categorise thousands of ships and found a number of ships with the same name and even the same ships with different prefixes. Besides that, also a lot of different conventions on different Wikipedia's. The French, German and others use the year of completion of ships in category names, the English the year of launching. Another problem were the prefixes. SS, DS, M/V, French ship and so on. So the feeling was that the best way of working was to follow the convention that Commons is not following a convention of a certain Wikipedia, but to make images of a ship to find as easy as possible. That means: by name, without prefixes, and by year of completion. If the last one is not found, the year of launching. Even then we have double categories and if necessary we add the place of built. (Found only once untill now). Renaming the ships gives the possibility to check the country of built and add the year of built by category. Were add as much as possible links to the Wikipedias by language. So it might look silly to you, it has a reason and as far as I can see it works. Sometimes we find many ships with the same name, but grouped in year of sequence, in Category:Ships by name. Much easier to find for not in shipping experienced users.
Using method/venue for contested category moves is either {{Move}} or COM:CFD, but - as far as I know - it gives extra work and I was not sure the history goes with the category. So for that reason I myself used Cat-a-lot, together with category rename. If that is a problem and it solves the finding of the history of renamed categories too, I definately will use the "move" command. --Stunteltje (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Stunteltje, you might want to add that the convention was proposed at Commons_talk:Naming_categories first and met consensus. --  Docu  at 06:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. We even discussed it earlier on the WikiProject Ships on the English Wikipedia. I assume not the naming is a problem, but the way how the categories have to be renamed without losing the history. I did it so far via Cat-a-lot and category redirect. --Stunteltje (talk) 06:23, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Are you referring to w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 24#Ships naming on Commons? That's not a discussion, that's a notice. I hadn't noticed the discussion at Commons talk:Naming categories#Ship naming conventions/policy so I will comment further there. Thank you. Wknight94 talk 12:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Danke aus Cuxhaven

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Moin Stunteltje, einfach mal ein großen Dankeschön aus Cuxhaven für Deine unermüdliche Arbeit, Schiffe richtig zu kategorisieren, vielen Dank dafür und weiterhin immer eine handbreit Wasser unter den Kiel. Tschüß -- Ra Boe watt?? 07:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nachtrag in der deutschen WP gäb es dafür von mir einen Gummibärchen, und so sieht es aus ;) da ich Deine de Seite gefunden habe. ;) Tschüß -- Ra Boe watt?? 07:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion please

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Is this category rename suggestion consistent with the newer conventions for names you have taken a lead in developing?

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: yes. --Stunteltje (talk) 05:53, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ship categorization

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  1. I planed to organize the Category:Tankers as the Category:Cargo ships. There will be only unifying categories, and there will be no category for individual ships. What do you think about this?
  2. Since there are a large number of coastal tankers, I suggest to move the Category:Coastal motor vessels to Category:Ships by type, and remove it from the Category:General cargo ships, and all the ships from Category:Coastal motor vessels to move to Category:General cargo ships by bot. Could your bot do this?--Mike1979 Russia (talk) 04:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1. For me no problem, but I think it is better to discuss this at the discussion page of the category. I myself don't have much information on types of the tankers, as you found out already, unless I investigate in the details. For me work to do when the bulk of ships is brought under name-categories. You are doing a great job there.
2. I agree in your conclusion that there are a lot of coastal tankers. Category:Coastal motor vessels is now a Category:Ships by function. So to find out is, what the role of "coastal" is here. As far as I can see no other difference with other ships than the use. Not sure about the regulations for these ships, as certificates. (I am familiar with barge certificates, not for sea-going ships.) So I assume that it is the function and not the type that counts, as the difference in that case is not the construction, but the use. But again: it has to be discussed at the discussion page of the category. The bot is of user:Docu, regret I am not able to write software in Wikipedia. --Stunteltje (talk) 06:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. Main idea is to delete Category:Coastal motor vessels from Category:General cargo ships because some of them isn't general cargo. And OK, Category:Coastal motor vessels can be in Category:Ships by function, not in Category:Ships by type.--Mike1979 Russia (talk) 07:25, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, coastal ships can be tankers and this is the consequence. --Stunteltje (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ships by year of completion I changed your Category:JS Haruyuki (DD-128). The reason is that the "Ships built in" date for ships on Commons differs from other Wikipedia's. Here on Commons we use the date by completion, for naval ships is that the date of first commissioning. --Stunteltje (Overleg) 09:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC) 

   I am quite embarrassed. Almost all the U.S./Royal Navy's ships are currently categoriezed in their date of launches. For example, nobody dares to change Category:USS Enterprise (CVN-65) into "built in 1961", nor Category:HMS Invincible (R05) into "built in 1980". How should I interprete these discrepancies? --トトト (Overleg) 14:12, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

   Ships categorising is difficult, as worldwide Wikipedia's differ in the date of start. Some Wikipedia's use the date of launching of ships, some the date of completion of ships. Have a look at the digfference in e.g. French, German, English and Dutch Wikipedia. On Commons, as it is a worldwide working database, it is important and accepted to use just one system for any item. One has to make a choise. The date of completion can be found on the certificates of the ships, on contracts and publications in the media, even for old ships, not described in full on the internet. In that case the date of completion is the best choise if we want to find start dates. Unfortunately naval shiplovers here on Commons want to continue the system of their local Wikipedia for their naval ships. As the content of USS naval ships is the biggest of naval ships on Commons, you'll find the English Wikipedia system here on a lot of USS naval ships. That's why. But have a look at the en:Category:HMS Dreadnought (1875) and de:Category:HMS Dreadnought (1879), same ship. Here on Commons we have more than 15.000 ships in Category:Ships by name, in just one system: without any prefix and by date of completion. Without prefixes, as each language has its own prefix system. The only exeptions are a lot of naval ships. Sometimes it is impossible to avoid prefixes, as ships are just numbered and during a vast period only the pennant number is painted on the ship. E.g. Category:LST-325 (ship, 1943). Please realise that Commons is just a database for images and it is important to find these images. It is not a Wikipedia. --Stunteltje (Overleg) 15:17, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Military ships

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Hi,

Just noticed this... Leaving aside the POV I feel, and I know a significant body of users feel, that for military ships we should use the military prefix (when it exists), I have real concern with the exact categories you are creating.

Military ship names are the plain name, and do not include the pennant number. For example, the "name" of the ship described at w:USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is "Enterprise". Its not "CVN-65 Enterprise". Including the pennant in such a manner is less consistent with the standard for civilian shipping, and creates something that never existed in the first place. Furthermore pennant numbers can change without any alterations to the ship or its ownership (the Enterprise was reclassified from CVAN to CVN).

In the case of certain ships, such as some LSTs and submarines, they never received a "name" as such, but are known by the pennant number in the absence of anything better, so the pennant is the de facto name.

While I'd strongly prefer that military ship cats are not adapted into the commercial structure, if that's done I'd like to see it done properly (please put appropriate redirects/disambiguations in place so people searching for ships by using the most common form of their name (ie prefixes) can find them). It would be better to drop the pennants entirely than to fit them awkwardly in like that.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First of all I agree in the fact that the naming of categories has to be consistent. As mentioned, the problem is the changing of the prefixes for militay ships. Ships can be found via the name painted on the ship. You don't have to be an expert to find the ship that way. In Commons no problem when a ship is renamed, the ship gets a new category for images with her new name. Ships built after 1948 or so have in many cases an IMO number, so the connection for all images of those ships is via the IMO number.
Military ships in fact don't differ from commercial ships, when someone wants to write an article, available images of the ship can be found in many cases in Commons. I am not happy with the fact that military ships up till now cannot always be directly found in a category by the indication painted on the ship. Experts know excactly all possibilities, but we don't have a database for experts, but for everybody who wants to write an article on a certain Wikipedia. So in my opinion also for military ships the category-name has to be the indication (pennant number in many cases, I learned Russian ships have no real pennant number), painted on the ship, followed by her name and the year of completion or first commissioning.
Unfortunately there is no such IMO number system for military ships, as far as I know. So when the number on the hull is changed - we don't have a coupling mechanism.
I strongly feel that we have to leave ou the prefixes, as long as they are not painted on the ships. My problem is, that we don't have consensus reached about leaving them out completely for all USS ships. You yourself gave a good reason not to use them in a category name, they can differ from time to time. No problem at all to do it in a certain Wikipedia, but not in Commons. Ships of the Royal Dutch Navy are always known here as "Hare majesteit's" followed by the name. Not a way the Dutch naval ships should be categorised in Commons. We also had "French ship" categories. Category names have to be language independant as much as possible. Even for ships of English speaking countries. But sometimes I categorise in line with the rest of a category, although I don't agree with the system used. This is what happend here :=((
For the LSTs we have two other problems. (1) In the fifties a lot of them got a name, not all. I choose to mention these names in the LST categories, according the mentioned system. (2) Many of them have painted US with a pennant number on the hull and not LST. I categorised LST, but after all for these ships US was better and more in line. We can alway recategorise. --Stunteltje (talk) 20:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The pennant number may be painted on the ship, but its not the name. The ship's name is also painted on the ship and/or put on a nameplate - typically in the same sort of places as it is on commercial shipping (such as the stern). Its not as prominent as the number on the side of the hull, but that number is there to serve as a quick recognition marker. This image shows the ship's name clearly enough - and that sign is similar in proportion to the name on most cargo ships.
The most prominent marking on the ship may not be the ship's name on commercial ships as well as military ones. Consider File:HMS Richmond.jpg and File:Normandie edited.jpg. The most prominent markings on those ships are "F239" and "Brittany Ferries", but the two ships are "HMS Richmond" and "Normandie" to their owners.
Its problematic that the IMO system doesn't extend to military hulls, but that's not the end of the world. The Titanic didn't have a IMO number, or the Santa Maria, or... IMO number is one valuable sort mechanism, but its not the only one.
The category scheme can allow search-by-pennant number easily enough. To use the Enterprise example - it could be in categories with names like "ships with pennant number 65", "US Navy ships with hull classification code CVN" and "US Navy ships with hull classification code CVAN". The pennant information doesn't need to be in the category name to allow non-experts to use the categories.These categories allow for appropriate searching by people who are unfamiliar with the ships. Remember also, if the only thing a person knows about a photo of a ship is that it has "65" on its side, they cannot ID it from that alone, but need further information.
Including the pennant name in the category name, not in parentheses to disambiguate, but as part of the name itself is unnatural. Removing prefixes has pros and cons, but adding something else is just plain wrong: No-one refers to this ship as "J181 Tamworth", so we shouldn't either.
Including the pennant also has the major drawback that many military ships have their designation changed while remaining in service with the same country. Their name is much more stable, and is only likely to change if the ship is sold to a new country. Using exactly the same system as for commercial shipping, or to use an alternative system based on prefix and pennant, are viable as category schemes. But not <pennant> <name>.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To use the Tamworth example - the following forms would be OK to me: "Tamworth (ship, 1942)" (with or without a HMAS prefix), "Tamworth (J181) (ship,1942)" (with or without a HMAS prefix) or "HMAS Tamworth (J181)". The middle one is awkward but makes it clear that the J181 is not part of its name.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:21, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the community will accept the second option indeed. The only problem is that people can't find the ship directly in a category with the indication that is painted on the hull in big letters and numbers in the first option, as by "J181 Tamworth (ship, 1942)". But I agree that for military ships Category:Ships by pennant number is a workable solution for that problem. We can always mention that in the header of the name category. Your first option has the enormous advantage that we don't have problems to think about prefixes and pennants anymore, just by name and year of completion or first commissioning also for military ships is the very best solution, in my opinion. Having seen the discussion before, I hope that the community will agree. --Stunteltje (talk) 06:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can tolerate that option, but I don't really like it without the prefix for the English-language navies. The objection to the number being in the category name is its not part of the name in any way shape or form; the category header can and should include such info of course. I think we should ensure we use commissioning dates too - otherwise we will have cases where WP says "1923" and Commons says "1925" for the same ship.
With regards to the prefix: In the English-speaking navies, the prefix is a formal part of the name. Furthermore, the ship is referred to with the same prefix in other languages (see these Argentine, Dutch and German stories for instance), the prefix for these does not change with the language of the speaker. The "USS" or "HMS" may not be painted on the side, but its how you correctly refer to the ship in multiple languages, not just English. Therefore Commons ought to use this form too (ie with the English prefix), even though its not physically on the ship's hull, for the English-language navies.
This behaviour is peculiar to the English-speaking navies. The Dutch prefix "Hr. Ms." is used in Dutch, but Dutch ships are often referred to as HMNLS in English. English-language sources use FS for French ships and FGS for German ships, to fit them into the English pattern, even though the French and Germans do not use any prefixes for their own ships. That suggests, to me, without prefixes for the non-English-speaking navies is fine.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We are not talking about naming ships in a Wikipedia, but about categorising ships in Commons. It has to be language independant and that leaves prefixes out. There is a difference between Wikipedia's and Commons. Commons is the database for images and NOT a Wikipedia. In the Category:Ships by name it is possible to find any ship by name, as long as there is a name in the category, just using the | tool. Categories of military ships - if one has to categorise an image - can be found by name and in many cases also by pennant number. By the way: do we have images of HRM ships where the name is carved with prefixes in the nameplates? --Stunteltje (talk) 11:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My point is this ship is known as "HMS Daring" in English. It is known as "HMS Daring" in French, and German, and Dutch and Spanish and... That is language-independent - as all languages include it! The fact HMS is short for an English phrase (Her Majesty's Ship") isn't relevant, non-English language sources use it without translating, just as they don't translate the rest of the name. What's on the side of the ship is beside the point too - the name of the ship is "HMS Daring" , and therefore its category name should include that phrase too. Category names ultimately reflect the name of the subject, not some code we make up for convenience. (You can use sort keys to sort that as "Daring").--Nilfanion (talk) 12:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We already had that discussion. See Commons_talk:Naming_categories --Stunteltje (talk) 12:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And that discussion hardly reached consensus with regards to the particular issue of military ships. "<pennant> <name>" format is significantly worse than the "<prefix> <name>" format for HMS and USS - ships with those prefixes are known as "<prefix> <name>" in most languages, much more commonly than they are known as "<name>", and they are hardly ever referred to as "<pennant> <name>". Keeping the prefixes for these actually is an aid to people looking for them, not a hindrance. Remember these prefixes (unlike ones like SS and MV) are not language dependent. Its OK to have exceptions to rules (as long as its clear just what they are) one size fits nobody is worse than no policy.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is better to discuss this on a wider forum, because I think we don't differ much in the intension to improve the way of finding images. I was already prepairing a wider discussion in my sandbox Ships about categorising ships. When we leave out all prefixes, pennant numbers and hull classification codes and stick to just names it will give a lot of work but will improve clarity of naming categories of ships. Thought to present this discussion in the already opened discussion about category ships by name around the moment we reach 20.000 ships by name, but I see now it is wiser to do it earlier and try to finalise that discussion. --Stunteltje (talk) 07:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Narrowboats

Please immediately cease renaming categories about British narrowboats to names using "ship". Narrowboats are not ships. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC) 

   Naming conventions are to use "ship". Exceptions are for "tugboat" and "submarine", but all else use "ship" in the category title. Carl Lindberg (Overleg) 20:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

   No, they are not. See also Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Steam narrowboat President. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

   In general, we do name categories that way. Per Category:Ships:

       2. The general format for category titles is "<name of ship> (ship, <year>)". <year> is the year the ship was completed, see Category:Ships by year built for further information.
       3. "<name of ship> (ship, <year>)" is a naming convention rather than a disambiguation rule. "(ship, <year>)" is added even if there is no other category named "<name of ship>". The "<name of ship>" may already mean ship.
       4.Submarines use "<name> (submarine, <year>)" and tugs/towboats use "<name> (tugboat, <year>)". All other types are identified by category:Ships by type.

   If your argument is that narrowboats do not show up under Category:Ships but rather Category:Boats then OK I guess, maybe it's not ironclad, but for named ships that is almost always the format we use, and the majority of Category:Narrowboats by name follows that format. It's far from an abnormal edit. Carl Lindberg (Overleg) 20:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

           As Carl Lindberg says, the naming convention is that almost all categories for watercraft use ship. The only exceptions I can remember right now are tugboats, submarines and maybe drilling rigs. So undoing that renaming goes against the naming convention as it is for now.

           I don't remember having renamed any other categories for narrowboats, but it's possible that I may have. I created a few today, following the standard convention. In the past I have also created a few and then used the Canal & River Trust number (from CanalPlanAC) instead of the building year, because the building year wasn't available. (Random example: Category:Rudyard (ship, 67253)‎.) I admit that that isn't ideal, though. Blue Elf (Overleg) 21:22, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

   Naming guidelines say to just use "<name> (ship)" and then add the ship cat to Category:Ship categories with missing year when we don't know the build year. There are many of those under narrowboats, too. Certainly document the Canal & River Trust number in the text, but not sure those belong as part of the category name. Granted, that approach does get harder when there is a naming collision with a different ship. Carl Lindberg (Overleg) 21:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

   Despite what you say, I haven't been involved in the majority of the categories for narrowboats in Category:Narrowboats by name. But there are some more narrowboats that I would like to categorize. Would it be okay to do that for now, and then take the discussion about the naming of these categories later? Blue Elf (Overleg) 16:24, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Zie Category:Ships by name bovenaan. Hoyw to create a category for a ship.

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