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Abbreviation for nautical miles

I usually abbreviate nautical miles as nm, because I feel that it most accurately reflects real usage. For example, navy.mil has 10,700 hits for nm and 1030 for nmi. I acknowledge that nm is the SI symbol for nanometre, but I consider it essentially impossible for someone to be confused because of the massive difference in scale. Thunderbird2 is currently working through articles fixing up units, and one of this fixes is replacing nm with nmi. I was wondering what you guys thought about this, and also wondering if our project should have an official abbreviation for nautical mile that we should strive to use in all articles. TomTheHand 19:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well there seems not to be an internationally agreed standard for it, though whilst nmi is used, I would say that nm is far more common. To avoid any possibility of confusion, we could make sure all instances are correctly linked, ie nm. Martocticvs 20:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I usually strive to link the first usage of nm in an article. I think that's a really good idea. TomTheHand 21:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I posted the below comment on Thunderbird2's talk page, but I'd like to continue the discussion here on WP:SHIPS so that others can participate.

Hi! I noticed that you're changing the nm abbreviation for nautical miles to nmi whenever you see it. I asked WP:SHIPS what they thought about it here, but didn't get much of a response. I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to stop making this change, because nm is by far the most common abbreviation for nautical miles. It is essentially impossible to read a range in nautical miles and confuse it for nanometers, because they differ by a dozen orders of magnitude. In addition, I always link my first use of nm to the article for nautical mile and I provide metric conversions following all nautical mile figures. TomTheHand 14:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tom. Thanks for your interest, and for pointing out the brief project discussion in the Ship Project. I was wondering when someone would notice. There are a number of reasons why I disagree with you on this.

1. I don't accept that nm is the most common abbreviation. If you tell me it is common in the USA I believe you. But I live and work in Europe and it is not common here, or at least not in my field of work (sonar).

2. While it may be difficult to confuse a nautical mile with a nanometre, that does not make it impossible. Just the very fact of using the same symbol for two different units is by its nature confusing. I once witnessed a demonstration of radar software that showed detection ranges in units of "nm" and asked (tongue firmly in cheek!) why it was the ranges were so short :-) The response came back straight away "Oh, that's a typo. The nm should read km". To this day I am unsure whether his screen was actually in miles or kilometres. And perhaps the demonstrator is as well.

3. I'm sure you're aware that the nautical mile is accepted for use alongside the SI system, and also that there is no internationally accepted abbreviation for the nautical mile. I believe that one day a symbol will be chosen, and when this day comes, I am certain that symbol will not be nm, because that would never be accepted by SI.

So, where does that leave us? My suggestion is that we both temporarily refrain from changes in either direction and try to find a rational solution to our difference. I know WP is keen on consensus, and you have tried that path already, with little success. Personally I prefer to find a solution that you and I are both comfortable with, as no one else seems to even care. Can we agree on that? Thunderbird2 15:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I definitely won't try to revert your changes; you've got nothing to worry about in that respect. You bring up some good points that I'd like to respond to.

I'm not sure how we can really achieve consensus on which usage is most common. I usually do some Googling to figure this sort of stuff out, but it's difficult to be sure about that method, especially when you're dealing with a symbol that is used for several different units. Google shows 836,000 hits for pages that use both nm and knots, and 96,400 hits for nmi and knots. Similar searches restricted to Navy.mil return 1020 hits and 163 hits, respectively. Searches of mod.uk give 54 results and 0 results, respectively. Searching gov.au gives 940 and 17 hits. Gc.ca shows 2510 hits and 88 hits.

I do still think it's impossible to confuse nautical miles and nanometers. In your example, the person who responded to you didn't think for an instant that the display was showing nanometers, and if he didn't know that nm is a nautical mile then he probably would've been just as confused by nmi. Moreover, as I said, I always link to nautical mile and provide metric conversions; I think doing this eliminates the possibility of confusion.

You bring up a good point about an eventual internationally accepted abbreviation of nautical mile, but even if a standard abbreviation is chosen, it will not necessarily be the most common, and I believe we should use the abbreviation that is most used by the people who use the unit.

I think the biggest issue we need to discuss is which abbreviation is most commonly used. I acknowledge that nm has some problems, but I think that if it's by far the most common abbreviation then it doesn't matter that you could confuse it with nanometers. On the other hand, if it isn't clear that it's used far more often then it would be best to use a less ambiguous abbreviation. Do you think the Google searches above are valid? They seem to show that the largest English-speaking navies use nm far more than nmi. I didn't attempt to check usage among non-English-speaking organizations, as I don't think their usage is relevant to English Misplaced Pages. TomTheHand 18:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen mi used as an abbreviation for miles. In the UK m is used for miles as well as for meters. nm is intutive for nautical miles - nmi isn't logical as an abbreviation and would make me reach for the book of 3 letter acronyms. Viv Hamilton 18:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. We get by here with dealing with m being used for both miles and meters, and are used to inferring which is appropriate from the context. And that is with two measures of distance that are much more likely to be confused than nautical miles and nanometers. Furthermore, the context is in most cases going to be clear, and nanometers aren't as well known as meters is to miles. Benea 18:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The symbol used for the mile by the United States Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology is mi. So fortunately there is no ambiguity there with the metre. Returning to the nautical mile, Tom is right in saying that whatever abbreviation is adopted, it should be linked to the nautical mile page on first use. I agree also that only English language usage is relevant. When I am in doubt myself about the correct definition of a unit, or the correct abbreviation for it, I always turn for guidance to Rowlett's Dictionary of Units, an excellent and unbiased repository for all things unitary. Rowlett lists 4 abbreviations: nmi, naut mi, n mile and NM. I also did some googling myself and discovered that the two most popular choices seem to be NM and (despite Rowlett) nm. On balance, my vote goes to NM. Thunderbird2 19:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's possible to Google based on capitalization; I don't think so, which is too bad. I guess we just have to rely on actually looking at search hits. Surfing through the results of the searches listed above, I do see some use of NM, but the majority of those uses seem to be pages which are in all caps, like this one. Lowercase nm seems to be way more common than uppercase NM. TomTheHand 21:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, here are some upper case ones USAF Intelligence Targeting Guide Forsythe et al 2004 Barhydt et al 2002. I don't think you can discount these, and I'm sure I'd find more if I kept looking. More importantly than that, I trust Rowlett on this more than I trust Google. Thunderbird2 22:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I won't deny that some sources use NM, but the majority use nm. How many uses of "nm" did you pass by to find those? I don't actually feel like we can trust Rowlett here, as it doesn't list nm in spite of it being an undeniably common abbreviation. If your list of abbreviations doesn't include nm, it's simply incomplete; it's used very often. Moreover, we're not "trusting Google" - we're trusting the largest English-speaking navies in the world, and Google's just giving us a list of all the spots those navies have used nm/NM on their web pages. If you really need me to, I can go through two or three pages of Google hits (or more if necessary) and tally up how many capitalize the abbreviation, but I feel like the difference is evident already; do you need me to do the tally? TomTheHand 22:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The ratio was about 2 to 1 in favour of nm, including (to my surprise) some European documents (mainly from Norway, but written in English). There's no need to "do the tally", because even if I were to be convinced that nm was in majority use (and I admit it's getting that way), I feel unable to support the use of a symbol that so flagrantly conflicts with SI. The clash would be less important if they were used in separate units systems (eg if one were exclusively metric and the other exclusively imperial). It is precisely because the nautical mile is used alongside SI that it needs a new symbol. I expect you will tell me our job is to reflect the current usage of the word, but is that always the case? What about the widespread (almost universal) use of "calorie" to mean kilocalorie? That is a case when majority use is not given precedence. Instead the conflict is spelt out explicitly, with clear guidelines for when such use might be acceptable (and also when it is not). Does that point at a possible way out for us? Thunderbird2 23:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I checked the details. There were 7 hits for nm , , the 3 already mentioned for NM, one for N mi , one for nmile and one :-( for my pre-race favourite nmi

I see your point, but I want to explain the reason I can sleep at night using "kcals" yet I protest against using anything but "nm". It's not just a matter of taking the majority usage. As you've said, "calorie" is an ambiguous unit: do they actually mean calories, or did they forget the capital C and they actually mean "kilocalories?" We're an educational resource, so we don't want to just follow average man-on-the-street's opinion here. We can take a step up from the common usage and use a scientific abbreviation to remove all ambiguity.

The thing is, there's no "step up" for nautical miles. The highest possible authorities (in my opinion) on the "right" way to abbreviate nautical miles (the navies which use them) use the ambiguous abbreviation "nm." If we abbreviate it another way, we're saying "We don't approve of how the primary users abbreviate it, so we'll arbitrarily select a different, less ambiguous abbreviation." I don't feel good about doing that.

What I'd really like at this point is a second round of input from folks like Martocticvs, Viv Hamilton, and Benea, as well as input from people who haven't spoken up yet. I don't think we're going to change each others' minds alone, so we need more opinions so that we can follow the consensus that develops. TomTheHand 19:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm still going to give it one more try (not to change your mind, but to get you doubting a little). Firstly, there is an alternative "step-up" to the navies, and that is the scientific community. The scientific literature uses nmi (or minor variants thereof) - hence my original preference for that abbreviation. Secondly, imagine someone writes an article about an optical sensor fitted to a navy frigate. The optical sensor has a wavelength of 800 nm and a range of 20 nm. This page contains a relevant real life email exchange. Think about it :-) Thunderbird2 20:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Are there sources that I could look at to convince myself that the scientific community which deals with nautical issues uses the abbreviation nmi? I understand that you work with sonar in real life, but we would need to cite sources that anyone could verify. TomTheHand 20:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are a few. If you click on "back to search query" you can edit the search criteria to see what else you can find. All from the same (acoustics journal) though - there will be some variation between publications. From a historical perspective, I found some uses of nm as well, but all pre 1965. Thunderbird2 21:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This one defines a standard nomenclature for fisheries. Thunderbird2 21:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I see, I see. In the first link, it was difficult to search for "nm" because most of the references were to nanometers; on the first page of search results, I saw one use of "NM" in an abstract but no uses of "nm" (to refer to nautical miles). I can definitely see what you're saying about nmi being perhaps the most common abbreviation in scientific journals.

WP:SHIPS, what do the rest of you think? TomTheHand 17:30, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've done a bit of research offline - sorry can't give references - this is from asking around and looking at tech manuals. nm is used on radar displays, because the constraint is that you don't want to clutter the screen and NM would 'shout', and since you know from the context what it is, all you really need is to distinguish between nm and km. Since the displays say, nm, that's what they record in the logs. In articles, they always explain the abbreviation on first use anyway, so not a problem, but, if they don't use nm (i.e. what the radar displays say), they use NMi - NMi is more intuitive in that it is obviously an abbreviation of 2 words, not three. Viv Hamilton 07:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

From a personal point of view, I would be content with NMi - after all, there is on recognised standard format so I suppose really we should settle on whatever will cause the reader the least confusion (although it would be really quite an achievement to confuse nanometres with nautical miles, but even so...) Martocticvs 14:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I admit to not having seen the NMi used, but I can see its benefits. Can either Martocticvs or Viv come up with a source for this abbreviation? By the way, do you seriously not find the following sentence confusing: "the new optical sensor has a wavelength of 800 nm and a range of 10 nm" Yes, you can work out the meaning from the context, but why make it so hard on the reader? Thunderbird2 15:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I've also never seen NMi (that particular capitalization) and I would be more comfortable with nmi, which I definitely have seen. It looks like consensus may be developing that the less ambiguous abbreviation is the way to go. I'll definitely follow that if it's what we decide. TomTheHand 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I found this discussion, listing M, mi., Mi, n. m., NM, n. mi and NMI as possibilities. The list seems endless! Thunderbird2 16:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I forgot to mention I have seen it listed as M before now - although the only place I have seen it like that is in a unit converter application, so it isn't really authoritative in any way. I think n.m. looks clunky, any form of nm/NM is open to ambiguity... re-reading Nautical mile, it seems actually that M is indeed the symbol preferred by the BIPM - but I think that is even more open to ambiguity. I have to admit that nmi/NMi is the least ambiguous of the options available. Martocticvs 17:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to make a NPOV summary of what we have learnt so far:

1. in popular use, the most common abbreviation is nm, followed by NM

2. in scientific use, the most common abbreviation is nmi, followed by NM

3. an objection is made to nm on the grounds that that symbol is reserved by SI for the nanometre. No such objection applies to NM or nmi (The objection also does not apply to nm when used outside SI)

Is that a fair summary?

I also think we should examine our objective here, which so far has not been stated explicitly. I see 3 possible objectives:

A. Agree on wording for the nautical mile article

B. Agree on standard usage for the SHIPS project

C. Agree on standard usage outside the SHIPS project

By the way, have you heard of that new missile, with a yield of 10 kt? It's designed to be launched at a speed of up to 10 kt :-) Thunderbird2 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I recently learnt that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a respected international body of scientists and engineers, has come off the fence on this. In their most recent guidelines they quote nmi as the (only) recommended abbreviation. (If the link doesn’t work, go to and select IEEE “Information for authors” kit). Thunderbird2 10:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm reminded of Misplaced Pages's use of the International Phonetic Alphabet to express the pronunciation of words. IPA is a wonderful thing, with wide acceptance among experts in pronunciation. Its drawback is that it is useless/unintelligible/annoying to readers who haven't learned it (which is most of mankind). IMHO, the best abbreviation is nm. NM is OK, too. Anybody who wants to use anything else should be required also to provide IPA pronunciation guides for all potentially unfamiliar words in the article in which he/she uses it. ;-) 11:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lou Sander (talk • contribs).

Ok, how do we resolve this? It looks like Lou Sanders and I favor nm in spite of the ambiguity, while Viv Hamilton and Thunderbird2 favor nmi/NMi. Martocticvs seemed to be in favor of nm initially, but came around to the nmi side. If we went ahead and said "let's use nmi" I wouldn't be strongly opposed any more. I do not like NMi, as I've never seen it used. Can we say "let's use nmi"? Lou, are you very strongly opposed? It's definitely in use in scientific literature, and it's even sometimes used by the big English-spreaking navies, though less often than nm. Viv, would you be alright with nmi instead of NMi? TomTheHand 14:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well if the consensus is for nmi, I'll go along with that, but as this is not a standard SI abbreviation, we should ensure that it is spelled out on first use in each article. Viv Hamilton 07:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I usually link to the nautical mile article on the first use; I consider that to be an adequate substitute to spelling out and it fits better in infoboxes. TomTheHand 12:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

request for membership

Can our article, List of world's largest wooden ships be part of your project and get a rating etc?--Filll 22:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely! I've rated it "B" class and "High" importance; if anyone disagrees, please feel free to modify. TomTheHand 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

abbreviation for knot

I am aware of three abbreviations in common use for the knot. In alphabetical order these are kn, kt and kts. Are there any others? Thunderbird2 18:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Knot (speed) is the link I think you meant! Emoscopes 18:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear! Yes you're right. Thanx Thunderbird2 18:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

nm/h (although I think I just made that one up! Emoscopes 18:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Haha, good one. I personally prefer kt, and dislike kts... if you saw someone use "kms" for kilometers, you'd replace it on sight. "kt" seems to be used most often by navies, as far as I know. TomTheHand 18:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100%. Like my old physics teacher used to say; "there are no secs in physics". (if you don't get it, the answer is only "s") Emoscopes 01:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Template colour

In Template:Infobox Class etc., there is a problem with #000080 as the choice of background colour. That is, when there is a wikilink on this colour, it is nearly impossible to read, as it uses a similar shade of dark blue. This clearly violates Misplaced Pages:Accessibility#Color, regarding contrast. I checked at Misplaced Pages:Infobox colours, but this seems to be dead for the time being. I would suggest that we either lighten up the shade of blue, or, what I find more appealing, is choose a shade of dark grey for our infoboxes etc. For me, grey is the colour of navies and warships, and would be instantly recognizable. The current choice's only relation is only that the colour is called navy!

As these templates are included on hundreds, if not 1000+ pages, I wanted to start a discussion here before I made any changes that would be so obvious. Emoscopes 23:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Why would there be any wikilinked text on the colored portion of that infobox? Maralia 00:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The parent country appears next to the flag, in a navy-coloured area. Emoscopes 00:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't there a conversion to using the MILHIST color scheme at one point? Or was that only for individual ship infoboxes, and not for class ones? Kirill 00:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Userbox

Does this project have a userbox? I looked but could not find one. --Thefrood 05:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:User ships Emoscopes 12:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

List of battleships of the Royal Navy

Bit of a debate going on at this article's talk page over what to do with it. Some users are pointing out ships they don't think should be on there, etc. I've been meaning to look at this since in my opinion it's a very long list for the casual reader. My hope would be to have the information divided up and parcelled out into smaller articles:

• A list of Frigates, sloops, etc that carried fewer than 58 guns.
• A list of ships of the line that carried more than this number.
• A list of what are considered to be battleships (at this page), with necessary overlap, i.e. for those that would consider HMS Warrior (1860) and her ilk a battleship.
• Potentially another list for the section currently titled "Great ships, carracks and galleons (–1640)"

This to me would have the advantage of being more concise in each case, more acurately label ships, and help the reader, if his interest is in Napoleonic era ships of the line rather than World War II battleships, go to where they want to be, as well as preventing loss of information, if as some want, we end up taking the frigates/sloops/etc out. Some people are disagreeing, saying that the current way is better than this proposal, so I thought I'd open it up really and see what people thought. I remember a while back we debated what defined a battleship and what made a ship of the line, and settled for the development of turret warfare as a defining feature. Are people still happy with this? Any further suggestions about how to move forward with this? Kind regards, Benea 07:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for this, I see little merit including "modern" steam battleships in with galleons or 5th rate ships. What I would suggest is that we make the current page something of an index / disambiguation page for RN battleships, with each of the separate pages a child of that. Emoscopes 12:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Request Help with Template for Navy Ensigns

I'm new to templates, and have discovered some of the following useful templates for Navy Ensigns:

• Navy:  Royal Navy
• Navy:  Kriegsmarine
• Navy:  Imperial Japanese Navy
• Navy:  France
• Navy: Template:USN 20C
• Navy:  United States Navy
• Navy:  French Navy

There appears to be a template for the Kriegsmarine but not for the Kaiserlische Marine. How do we create such a template? How does one get an authoritative list of all the possible existing "navy" templates?

Thanks in advance!

Carl Gusler 14:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is Kaiserlische:

You can find all the ensigns here: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Ships/Ensigns. Maralia 15:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Maralia. However, what you have provided is an image. What I am looking for is a template. (Please edit this page to see the difference.)

How can I tell whether there is already an existing entry in the "navy" template? If not, how can I create a new entryin the "navy" template? For example, for the page full of ensigns that you provided, how do we tell which ones already have corresponding entries in the "navy" template. The US Navy and the Royal Navy do, but I suspect that the Ghanian Navy does not.

Thanks again, Carl Gusler 17:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh - you didn't link them as templates, so I read right past your real question. {{tl|navy|German Empire}} produces it via the conventions of the template {{navy}}, which uses Category:Country data templates. The navy template doesn't require 'entries' per se - it looks in that Category for a country of that name, then checks that country's page (Template:Country data Ghana, to use your example) for a flag variant listed with the label 'navy'. I don't know of a comprehensive list; seems like you would have to go to a country data page to check for a naval flag. As far as adding a missing one: to continue with the same example, you would upload said image, then edit Template:Country data Ghana and, in the list of flags at the top, add as such:

| flag alias-naval = Naval Ensign of Ghana.svg.

I suppose we could modify Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Ships/Ensigns to actually reference the templates, where they exist, for naval ensigns. I don't know how valuable this would be, though, when it would necessarily require upkeep, and we can check the actual Country data page almost as easily. Maralia 18:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Article Request - Sovetskaya Latviya

Could some knowledgeable person(s) please see if there's enough information out there to create an article for the Soviet MV Sovetskaya Latviya (see Soviet Latvia for the details I know). Many thanks! — Zalktis 16:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I've now created a rather amateurish article for MV Sovetskaya Latviya. Please improve upon it! — Zalktis 07:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Article names for ships that were cancelled before commissioning

Ok, so let's say that a ship was cancelled before commissioning. Do we name the article "USS So-and-so" for consistency, even though the "USS" prefix isn't quite proper, or do we just call the article "So-and-so"? For example, wwoods created USS Seaman (DD-791) last September, and then renamed it to Seaman (DD-791) because she was never actually commissioned. 71Demon moved it back in January, but Pmgpgm just notified him that technically that isn't really the correct name.

In my personal opinion, if a ship is probably going to be commissioned, like USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77), it should reside at the "USS" name. No need to create an article with a name that will need to change in a couple of years. On the other hand, I'm less sure of how to deal with ships that were cancelled. Should articles like USS Wolffish (SS-434) really be called Wolffish (SS-434), with redirects from the USS names, or is that just being pedantic? TomTheHand 15:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As the subject is about something that never really transpired, you could perhaps get around this in the introductory sentence, eg.;

USS Homer Simpson (BB-76) would have been the name of a cancelled Donut-class battleship had it been commissioned.

Or is that too cumbersome?

Emoscopes 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it should still carry the prefix, e.g. as at HMS Thor and HMS Tiara, as if these ships had actually been commissioned they'd have borne those names and that prefix. With Emoscope's suggestion, the article makes it clear that we are referring to something that didn't actually happen. It's no lie to say that it would have been HMS so and so or USS such and such, otherwise we obscure which navy these ships actually would have belonged to. (Gosh, I've got opinions on everything today!) ttfn! --Benea 16:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's a much more convenient way to name the article than Cancelled British submarine Thor etc. Emoscopes 14:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Concur USS/HMS, as examples should remain with warships - commissioned or not. What's wrong with the simplest solution? The title would read:

USS Iwasalmostinthenavy (Never Commissioned)

This entirely obviates the scenario where a reader might not ever make it to the first line of body text for an explanation of an unusual or clunky looking title. In this manner, the explanation stays with the ship name at all times - most importantly in a search where just titles appear without the benefit of any body text at all - even that first line as suggested.Xl five lx 09:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for project improvement

I would like to see this project cranked up a notch. We have a fascinating topic and some really dedicated, extremely knowledgeable people here. I think you're all doing great work, and I really feel the project could benefit even more from some focus on project coordination, as well as a bigger pool of contributors.

My wish list:

• Update the Project main page to make it more user-friendly and current. Remove some outdated stuff and populate the list of FAs. Add a navigation box and a list of all WP:Ships subpages. Add a todo list for open projects (i.e. category issues that need resolution, long articles that need extensive attention).
• Revamp the Participants page with the goal of making it a resource to other participants. Move extremely inactive people to an Inactive list on the same page. Encourage more expansive information about each participant - it would be valuable to be able to look up someone with expertise or resources in a specific area.
• Create a template for inviting people to join WP:Ships, and start applying it to talk pages of users that show a particular interest in ship articles.
• Create a template for welcoming new WP:Ships participants. This should give them a reference point on their own talk page with links to established standards, templates, important categories, etc.

and then the big one:

• Revisit the goal of the project. The consensus seems to be that the focus should be on better articles, rather than more articles - but Assessment and Review seem to have fallen by the wayside. I would love to see both of these resuscitated; seeing 'your' articles progress through assessment and review can be a big motivating factor to contributors, and we certainly have the material for many more GAs and FAs.

I know I'm awfully new; I'm certainly no expert on ships or the project itself, and this is by no means a criticism of what you all have accomplished so far. I just see the potential for much more. Your comments, please. Maralia 04:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Fow what it's worth, I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything you've said. Especially about the last point; assesment and review aren't used nearly enough - I think this is partially due to there not being clear enough guidelines to these, at least none that I have been able to find.

Personally (I know I have complained about this before) I think that in addition to the changes you've suggested, the project main page should be made more welcoming and more useful for people who aren't here mainly to contribute to articles related to military ships. For instance, the only reference mentioned in the main page is the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and all the material on the Sources is exclusively related to military ships. Similarly most ship infoboxes on offer are more or less biased towards military ships and not very easily usable for civilian ships. And the Guidelines sub-page only uses military ships as examples, which cannot be direclty used as examples on how to write a good article on civilian ships. If this project is really going to (like it claims to) be project about all ships and not just military ships, this subject definately should be adressed. (Of course I'm willing to do my share in making this happen).

And finally, speaking of infobox templates and templates in general, it would be nice to have all the various ship-related templates listed somewhere in an easily accessible place. Right now they seem to be all over the place.

So, my few cents. I hope no-one was offended by my ravings... -- Kjet 07:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Maralia's points. Some time ago, I tried to clean up the project front page, and last month J Clear extensively revised it, but there's definitely more room for improvement. I think a navigation box would be especially useful.

I also tried to make a sort of "You can help!" page where project participants could list things that bored people could help out with. I wasn't able to maintain my motivation, but maybe that could be a start.

One point I would like to make to Kjet is that the reason WP:SHIPS isn't very merchant-ship-friendly is that nobody who's interested in merchant ships has made it so. You have the opportunity here, as the WP:SHIPS member most interested in civilian ships, to shape the guidelines yourself. I'm sure you'll find that everyone else will chip in their $0.02 when you need an opinion. However, nobody who's primarily interested in military ships is going to be able to make the project main page more useful for you. You've got the perspective and the interest, so you can write your own guidelines, add useful references, and improve the infoboxes in ways that are most useful to you. If you need help with, for example, actually editing the infoboxes, please ask. TomTheHand 13:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Revamp the Participants page with the goal of making it a resource to other participants. Move extremely inactive people to an Inactive list on the same page. Encourage more expansive information about each participant - it would be valuable to be able to look up someone with expertise or resources in a specific area.

Brilliant in all regards.

On this point let's take Kjet, for example. If the above plan were fully taken in hand, Kjet would no longer feel he were the proverbial man in the wilderness regarding his love for merchant ships. Instead, he would simply pore over the new incredibly detailed participant resumes to easily identify those that share his passion.

More than likely, this would then cause an explosion of productivity among Kjet and his new confederates resulting in more detailed and complete articles on merchant ships with a greater level of accuracy.

I doubt very seriously that Kjet enjoys pleading for fair and ample representation for merchant ships as frequently as the current situation forces. If for no other reason, this revamp would be an extremely valuable contribution and indispensable tool to the vast area of merchant ships alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xl five lx (talk • contribs) 10:18, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Create a template for inviting people to join WP:Ships, and start applying it to talk pages of users that show a particular interest in ship articles.

The Wikiilliterate asks: Why not tag this on the bottom of every ship article? Is this too Wikioffensive? If not, it would sure prove the method to attract the MOST participants. After all, nothing will ever beat a little good old fashioned marketing. Using the softest of soft sells, perhaps it won't breach the pillars of even the most staunch Wiki type. Something light, such as:

If you enjoyed this article and found it in common with interests of your own, perhaps you would like to participate in the Ships Project here at Misplaced Pages.

Short. Sweet. Followed by a link to the project sign-up page. Xl five lx 09:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:Avoid self-references, a section of the manual of style, we should avoid making references to WP:SHIPS within ship articles. Templates and categories which are only useful to Misplaced Pages editors, and which are intended to be used on articles, are regularly deleted. We're going to need to stick to the talk page banner. TomTheHand 13:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox improvements

Yes I strongly support the improvement suggestions. The ship infobox is biased towards military ships, but as a lot of the parameters only display if you enter them, it could serve both civil and military. RMS Titanic uses it already. I am aware of several civil ship articles with handcrafted infotables R.P. Resor (ship), Globe Star (ship), M/S Herald of Free Enterprise, RMS Lusitania, RMS Mauretania from which we can see which extra parameters are needed by civil ships i.e.

• ship owner
• port of registry
• maiden voyage
• ship captain
• passenger capacity
• cargo capacity
• speed (service speed/top speed)
• construction
• number of funnels
• number of masts
• and possibly, regular route

Note that RMS Titanic uses ship class as its (merchant) type e.g. could be RORO ferry, tanker etc (not listed in the table for the example articles but is in the top of the text in each case) - see Template:Ship types for examples. RMS Titanic list the passenger types (first class, second class etc), as well as crew under complement.

The ship template is way too advanced for me, perhaps TomTheHand would amend it for us? However, if anyone wants something simple and non-parameterised, like the military have the class footer templates, and like Template:Ship types, I can do those! Viv Hamilton 14:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A couple of points I'd like to make on the above suggestions:

1. We already have a "capacity" field; is there a need for separate "passenger capacity" and "cargo capacity" fields, or could the capacity field be used to say "1000 passengers, 100 tons of cargo", possibly on separate lines?
2. We already have a "speed" field.
3. What is the "construction" field intended to be used for?
4. Is "number of funnels" and "number of masts" necessary? It seems that if they are relevant and appropriate to include in an infobox, that information might be better placed in the "propulsion" box.

I would be happy to make any changes to the ship infobox for which there is consensus. I'd like to wait a short while for others to voice objections or suggestions before making changes. TomTheHand 14:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox_Commercial_Ship and its talk page Template_talk:Infobox_Commercial_Ship. (On the latter, look especially at the comments of User:Jmvolc, an editor who is also a naval architect.) The naval vessel template does not work, as it calls for displacement, and does not allow for substitution of tonnage, which is the relevant measure. It also calls for launch, an increasingly-irrelevant field as passenger vessels are no longer launched, but floated out of drydocks. Use of the naval template perpetuates the common misunderstanding of tonnage as displacement. It similarly leads to editors treating the delivery, naming ceremony, or service entry date as the launch date, which they clearly are not (and in many cases the ship was never actually "launched"). Kablammo 16:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The new multi-template infobox, described at {{Infobox Ship Example}}, has no required fields, so if we could add fields to that I see no reason it couldn't be used for all purposes. It would better deal with multiple owners and stuff; you could repeat the Career box as many times as you want for Seawise Giant/Happy Giant/Jahre Viking/Knock Nevis, for example. TomTheHand 17:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Viv (and Kjet), I just want to make it clear that I will make any additions you want to the ship infobox, I just like to play devil's advocate for any change to keep the infobox from getting too bloated. TomTheHand 17:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

::See Template:Infobox_Commercial_Ship and its talk page Template_talk:Infobox_Commercial_Ship. (On the latter, look especially at the comments of User:Jmvolc, an editor who is also a naval architect.) The naval vessel template does not work, as it calls for displacement, and does not allow for substitution of tonnage, which is the relevant measure.

Perhaps you misunderstood your Naval Architect friend regarding how weights are calculated and what each type of measure means along with their unique relevance.

Displacement: What is oft referred to simply as Displacement actually means Displacement Tonnage Light. What Displacement Tonnage Light means is the actual weight of the vessel itself before loading cargo, fuel, or stores. Displacement Tonnage Light is often abbreviated to Displacement Light and at others times shortened still to just Light.

Deadweight: Deadweight Tonnage is the weight of the cargo that a ship can safely carry without overloading. Deadweight Tonnage is most often abbreviated as DW, or DWT.

• NOTE: Both of the above measures of weight based on the long ton of 2,240 pounds.

Total Displacement: The term Total Displacement is simply the weights arrived at once the above two definitions are combined. Displacement + Deadweight = Total. Or, weight of cargo plus weight of vessel light. All this reflects is the weight of the water displaced by the ship when fully loaded.

Gross Tonnage: Gross Tonnage, in stark contrast to Total Displacement, is the measure of the carrying capacity of a vessel. It is the total volume of the closed-in space on the ship measured in cubic feet, using the rule 100 cubic feet to the ton.

Example: A Cargo ship.

Displacement: 4,000 tons.

Deadweight: 10,000 tons.

Gross: 6,000.

All the above measurements are for a single ship. All are correct and useful in that they each convey different information.

A passenger ship, by contrast to the freighter, has enormous Gross compared to Displacement or Deadweight.

In summation, the above four distinct definitions are often bandied about as meaning the very same thing, which they clearly are not. No one measure is more relevant than the next. They simply relate different information. Any template should most certainly take this into account in the design phase to permit any, or all, of these types of measures. Xl five lx 18:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The difference in these measures is understood and has been the subject of numerous corrections made necessary by the application a naval template (which calls for displacement) to merchant vessels. As the relevant measure differs by vessel type, a template cannot be "one size fits all". There must either be separate templates for tankers, container vessels, passenger vessels, etc., or a flexible master template with clear instructions on how to adapt it for different vessels (which may be more work than simply having separate templates).

We also need to decide on which template will be used and how that decision will be arrived at, or (by default) allow a multiplicity of templates and discussion on them at a variety of locations, which appears to be the status quo. Kablammo 18:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The template description at {{Infobox Ship Example}} has several sets of copy-and-paste code for different situations, but all use the same underlying set of templates. You just paste in whatever's relevant to your article. Additional fields could be added to {{Infobox Ship Career}} or {{Infobox Ship Characteristics}} which would only be added to the "civilian ship" copy-and-paste code. People writing about civilian ships don't have to deal with "armor" fields and people writing about military ships don't have to deal with "tonnage", but a single template supports both. TomTheHand 18:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Tom, would you then supercede the commercial ship infobox (which really is an adaption of the naval template to passenger vessels)? Kablammo 18:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Call me lazy, but wouldn't a nice and easy approach to laboring through template designs be easily solved simply by denoting which type of tonnage is indicated on the single existing line? 10,800 DWT, or GT, ie - etc etc etc. Xl five lx 18:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I support this. I personally think that supporting "displacement" and "tonnage" is enough. In a single "displacement" box you can include light, standard, and/or full load displacements, while in a "tonnage" box you can have DWT and DT. TomTheHand 18:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. But if displacement were to be combined with tonnage you likely would meet with resistance.Talk:Tonnage#More_on_Tonnage Separate fields would be better, as suggested by TomTheHand. Kablammo 18:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A lot has been said since my last comment, I'll try to adress everything in a more or less clear order.

Infoboxes: I've been using a self-made infobox (based it on something or other that I've forgotten). The one MS Christian IV is a good example as it has pretty much all the fields I have had need for. I realise this type of infobox is a bit problematic, there's a lot of information crammed there and not nescessarily in the most informative order. However, I think this arrangement is better than having several different infoboxes for different incarnations of the ship on the same page, as some ships (M/S Wasa Queen, another article of mine as a good example) have had had a dozen names and served for even a larger number of companies. In the Wasa Queen article for instance having seven different infoboxes (or actually eight as the Cruise Ferries Wasa Queen is quite different from the Silja Line Wasa Queen) is not a very informative option.

Personally I think it would be simpler to have separate infoboxes for different ship types (Infobox:Cruise ship, Infobox:Ferry) instead of having a generic Infobox:Ship that would have a horde of fields not needed for certain types of ship. But this is obviously only my opinion and if others feel differently that is no problem for me.

Finally, regarding tonnage, we should not forget the distinction between Gross Tonnage and Gross Register Tonnage which (contrary to the popular belief) are not the same thing. Although Gross Register Tonnage is officially not in use any more, measurements are only avaialble in GRT for almost all civilian ships built before (or even during) the 90s. Xl five lx's idea above is very good imo. -- Kjet 18:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I feel like there's no reason to have a bunch of different infoboxes when we could just have a bunch of sets of copy-and-paste code. Again, please check out the different options at {{Infobox Ship Example}}. A special set of copy-and-paste code could be set up just for oil tankers, and a different one for cruise ships. Since they all rely on the same templates, formatting could be consistent among all of them. As far as having several different infoboxes on a single article goes, it's unnecessary; it's entirely possible to just repeat fields in the same infobox. See USS Entemedor (SS-340), which served with two different navies. TomTheHand 18:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. Just explain to me why.

TONNAGE: 10,800 DWT

Or better yet:

TONNAGE: 10,000 DWT; 6,000 GT; 4,000 DTL.

That single line now indicates all three calculations from my original cargo ship example. Why break down such similar items. I suspect the hang-up is the word displacement when in the end all you're ever really talking about is a single other word - tonnage. Xl five lx 18:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I suspect we're in violent agreement. One field for displacement (not mandatory, as it is often unavailable) and one for tonnage, with the precise type of measure of each in the entry? Kablammo 18:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Which is exactly what we've already got :-) TomTheHand 18:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

lol, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm just trying to help. All I'm trying to say is this: Displacement ---IS--- tonnage! "Displacement Tonnage Light" is the full and proper term for what we all call displacement. That's tonnage. So, again, I ask: Why two separate boxes where one would amply suffice for all (five including the old GRT) types of "tonnage?" Know what I mean? I feel we are getting stuck on a convention of semantics while we can call the tonnage kettle black and be done with it. Xl five lx 18:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate we are all working toward the same goal. Some people feel that displacement is not "tonnage" in the technical sense of that term. I have no strong feelings but others may. Perhaps more to the point, there are some ships where both values are known. SS America/West Point is one, I believe; and data for both measurements exist for some other passenger vessels which were never naval vessels or army transports. Kablammo 18:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. You can calculate multiple tonnage measurements for ANY vessel. Aircraft Carriers have unusual stats because of their larger closed-in space, etc. That's exactly my point. A cell labled TONNAGE would allow you, the editor, to enter as many TYPES of tonnage calculations as is available from bonafide sources. Displacement just being but one of those five types of tonnage measurements. It makes no more sense to isoalte and devote a separate box for GRT than it does for displacement when up to all five types can easily be indicated on that single line saving both time and space - not to mention the mass of energy otherwise expended on all new templates. Maybe an analogy might help us see through the semantics of this partular issue. If I have five children and I want to brag about their great looks they got from their dad on my myspace page - would I list four of their names after the label marked CHILDREN and the fifth kid under his/her own separate label marked MY FAVORITE KID? As ridiculous as that may sound, and it does, that's what we are doing by breaking out displacement as this holier than thou statistic. It is a measure of tonnage. One of five means. Anything that can be expressed five different ways doesn't deserve it's own stage, IMHO. Xl five lx 19:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

My final thought on this (promise). How anyone can read the definition below and walk away with the idea that displacement is NOT tonnage, is just beyond me. It is the weight of the ship expressed in TONS.

Displacement: What is oft referred to simply as Displacement actually means Displacement Tonnage Light. What Displacement Tonnage Light means is the actual weight of the vessel itself before loading cargo, fuel, or stores. Displacement Tonnage Light is often abbreviated to Displacement Light and at others times shortened still to just Light. Xl five lx 19:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That is not the be-all end-all definition of displacement, and many people feel that displacement is a separate topic; therefore, we have separate cells for displacement and tonnage. TomTheHand 19:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Says who, Tom? The definition is not my own. It happens to be the definition given by the United States Maritime Commission in their official history Ships for Victory. I never, repeat never, would have even attempted to define any technical term using only my memory of when I took four years of architecture. I went and got the book and related it here as they do there. Try pages 4 through 6. "That is not the be-all end-all definition of displacement" is the most absurd comment I've read here to date. You're in charge here, right? I would think that the man at the helm would have the background to keep us off the rocks. Xl five lx 19:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in charge here; I'm just relatively loud ;-) When someone today simply discusses "tonnage" they are generally referring to cargo capacity; people do not usually expect to see the displacement of a ship (especially a warship) called "tonnage". Yes, they were originally synonymous before it was practical to actually figure out what a ship weighs, and yes, "Displacement Tonnage Light" can be considered a subtype of tonnage. However, it's confusing to refer to measures of volume and mass with the same term, and so a distinction is usually made for clarity. I think everyone but you feels it would be best to continue to have separate fields. I don't feel the WikiProject is in any danger of running aground if I refuse to remove the "displacement" field from our infoboxes.

I did not think for a moment that you had just made up the definition. However, this is the second time you've posted a source and said "See? We need to do it like this from now on." There's more to this issue than pulling a book down and saying "This argument is over!" I did phrase things badly when I implied that your definition was incorrect; I apologize for that. However, we have separate fields because "displacement" and "tonnage" are usually used to describe different things, and so we need to make the distinction. TomTheHand 21:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Style Guide?

Is there a style guide for ship articles? See Talk:Christopher Columbus (whaleback) where the she/it question has been raised (I wrote it as "she" but there has been some attempt to change it to "it") ++Lar: t/c 18:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This is... a pretty hot topic. See Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Archive (ships as "she"). I think most WP:SHIPS members probably favor "she" (I hope I'm not making an offensive generalization here). I would regard this issue as being similar to issues of British English vs. American English, or BC/AD vs. BCE/CE. I would say that it should be dealt with in a similar fashion to those above issues. If there is a compelling reason to use she or it in a particular context, then use she or it as appropriate. If there is no reason why in this specific case one is better than the other, the article should follow the style of the first person who contributed substantially to it. That is, as you took the time to write this article, and you used "she", nobody should change it to "it". TomTheHand 18:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

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