This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Ships and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Shortcuts WT:SHIPS WT:SHIP

Archives: Index, Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76Auto-archiving period: 21 days

	This project page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
Ships This page is within the scope of WikiProject Ships, a project to improve all Ship-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other articles, please join the project, or contribute to the project discussion. All interested editors are welcome. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.ShipsWikipedia:WikiProject ShipsTemplate:WikiProject ShipsShips

WikiProject Ships was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 28 June 2010.

Main Project Page Talk
Things you can do
Assessments: Class assessment needed • Log Categorize and tag: New article feed Cleanup listing: Articles tagged for cleanup alphabetically or by category at Labs Expand stubs: Stub-class ship articles Images: Requested ship photos • Infoboxes without an image Infoboxes: Infobox needed • Infobox conversion needed Recent changes: US changes • UK changes • cruiseship changes
Information and sources
Article alerts: Updated daily Guidelines Manual of Style Infobox ship: Usage guide Naming Conventions (articles) Categorization Project Scope Past AfDs Popular Pages: Most popular ship articles Tools and Templates Ensigns {{Navy}} {{USN flag}} Outreach Resources Participants Barnstars Project subpages

Any objections to the List of Victory ships and the various Lists of Liberty ships (e.g. List of Liberty ships (A-F)) being rewritten into a format similar to the List of Fort ships, List of Ocean ships, List of Park ships and the various lists of Empire ships (e.g. List of Empire ships (A))? Mjroots (talk) 11:52, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it! GGOTCC (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mitchell & Sawyer's books ordered. Mjroots (talk) 11:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So years ago, at a content review somewhere, I had been told that it is part of the MOS not to proceed the name of an invidual ship with "the". So, for instance, "the battleship Bismarck" would be okay, but "the Bismarck" wouldn't. Is this actually a part of the MOS somewhere? I'm having trouble finding it if it is. This has come up at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/CSS General Earl Van Dorn/archive1. Hog Farm _Talk 22:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I found it Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ships)#Using_ship_names_in_articles. History6042😊 (Contact me) 23:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This has been contentious. It is up to the article's author and is not part of the MOS. However, according to WP:NC-SHIPS, you should not start an article with the definite article "the" and the use of "the" before a ship's name is not preferred, but not outlawed. Llammakey (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the ship's name starts with "The" of course. Mjroots (talk) 11:11, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 2010, User:Theoprakt changed Dry cargo ship from a stub article into a redirect to Bulk carrier. I am not convinced that this is correct, as Breakbulk cargo ships are also dry cargo ships. Last week, therefore, I changed the article from a redirect to a one-sentence statement. However, User:JalenBarks almost immediately reverted it, citing WP:NOTDICTIONARY as a reason. If "dry cargo ship" is a synonym for "bulk carrier", it is news to me. Please may we have an intelligent article on dry cargo ships, instead of a redirect that, I contend, is a misdirection? Motacilla (talk) 22:12, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have one - cargo ship! Mjroots (talk) 09:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article Marlin-class submarine has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Could not find reliable sources to establish notability.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Esw01407 (talk) 00:45, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) and the just announced USS George W. Bush (CVN-83) should have their hull numbers included in the article titles as dabs, as they are essentially identical. For the articles that still retain the hull numbers, this is the reason why. - wolf 09:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going into hull numbers debate, but I do want to point out that by that logic George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush should have disambiguators as well. Llammakey (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have (41st U.S. president) and (43rd U.S. president) added to their titles, but that's just a suggestion, any dabs would have to be sorted out on a page related to them. Meanwhile, we're fortunate that the ships that are the point of this discussion, already have handy dabs built right into their names, that being their hull numbers, just like we see being used on thousands of other ship articles. - \\'cLf 03:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You could similarly argue that the two ships already are disambiguated by their names - the additional H. does the same job as adding the hull number.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, and I doubt anyone reading carelessly enough to miss the "H" will know what "CVN-number" means. Disambiguators are used for two topics with the same name, not for similar names. This is exactly why we have {{distinguish}} and {{about}} (which, incidentally, is used on the two namesake presidents' articles). As to the rest of TWC's arguments, no, we've been through this a million times before, hull numbers are not part of a ship's name, and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Parsecboy (talk) 11:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When I first read TWCs post I missed the extra H and thought Oh they've named a second carrier after Bush and it was only on reflection I thought that can't be right and I realised the difference. I can appreciate the difficulty for someone who's not familiar with American politics or is not a native English speaker or whose first alphabet is Cyrillic, Arabic or Chinese in noticing this. Would you recognise the significance of an extra squiggle in an arabic title? So although the consensus is long established not to dab, in this instance as it does no harm I think we should Lyndaship (talk) 12:47, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would the average Russian, Arabic, or Mandarin speaker immediately identify the difference between "CVN-77" and "CVN-83"? And moreover, would they grasp the difference any better than just having the "H" to differentiate the articles? Cases like you describe are much better handled with hatnotes, which actually explain what differences are (unless we want to dab the articles as USS George H. W. Bush (Nimitz-class aircraft carrier) and USS George W. Bush (Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier)). But now we're back to the reason why hull/pennant numbers are generally bad ideas to use as disambiguators in the first place; they only mean anything to people who already know what they mean (in other words, the only people who they help avoid confusion aren't confused in the first place). The general reader, they're gibberish. Parsecboy (talk) 14:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Sorry, disagree. The names are different and don't need disambiguation. What could be done is add a "not to be confused with" template at the top of each article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:56, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thats a fair point Parsecboy although I feel that numerals are more easily recognised than letters. As hull numbers frequently appear in media reporting and in pictures which might make general readers want to see more about the ship they have just seen on the tv I feel they have value in the article title. Just expressing my opinion and if the consensus is a hatnote is sufficient in this that's ok by me Lyndaship (talk) 15:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that a hatnote is the proper solution. The average person knows that George W. Bush is different from George H.W., on the account that both have been presidents of the United States, the most memorable person in the world. Most folks have no idea what a CVN is. I do, but I am of course am a boat nerd, so I don't represent the average person :P CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:20, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just throwing my hat into the ring, but I favor the solution I added a few days ago which is the hatnote reading, "For the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, see USS George W. Bush/For the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, see USS George H.W. Bush"

I did this as any disimbiguation page between the two would take the name "USS George Bush", which I felt was pointless as there were only two very similar ships. Also, I did not feel the need to move any pages around as adding the hull number would violate Wiki:NC-Ships, and I think it is not needed with the hatnote.

GGOTCC (talk) 22:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think disambiguation is needed, as they are different ship names, and agree with GGOTCC's actions to hatnote both in case people click on the other one from the one they intended. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On a slightly related note which I brought up also on the article talk page, should there be a space between "H." and "W." as per namesake? Tupsumato (talk) 07:44, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a dab problem, it's a Template:Distinguish problem. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 08:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, the US Navy recognizes the name as George H.W. Bush (for some reason). GGOTCC (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]