Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships

First, an important note for everyone to remember:

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about military ships. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

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Table of contents 1 Title 2 Scope 2.1 Index Pages 2.2 Individual Articles 2.2.1 Introductory Sentence 2.3 Ship Class 2.4 Article Body 3 Parentage 4 Descendant Wikiprojects 5 Similar Wikiprojects 6 Participants 7 Structure 8 Hierarchy Definition 9 General Strategy and Discussion forum 10 Templates 10.1 Index Page Template 10.2 Individual Ship Template 10.3 Ship Class Template 11 Ensigns, Jacks, Pennants, and Other Vexillologs

Title WikiProject Ships

Scope This WikiProject aims primarily to organize the effort to create articles about naval vessels, but also addresses civilian ships. Most ship names have been used more than once, and many ships have had long service lives. That combination can produce very long articles if all ships of a given name are included in the same article. Accordingly, it is now recommended (yes, this is a change from an earlier version of the "naming standards") that editors create an index page under the simple name of the ship, and detailed pages for each individual vessel.

Separately, classes of ships should also have articles of their own.

Many public domain sources of information on ships are available, such as the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. If any material in an article has been copied from the public domain, be sure to credit the source. DANFS in particular has been widely copied across the World Wide Web, and its copiers sometimes (wrongly) claim that they hold the copyright to that public domain material. A Wikipedia editor checking provenance could discover one of those copies and jump to the conclusion the article is in violation of that (non-existent) copyright.

Index Pages

Index articles about ships should include in their titles only the standard prefix used by that ship. Other identification should be omitted, so that a reader can easily locate the material sought; eg, name an index article simply "USS Enterprise." If more than one prefix was used, choose one and create redirects from the others; for example, "SS Titanic" redirects to "RMS Titanic."

Within the article, give a brief introduction to the name, followed by very brief identifications of each vessel. The identifications should provide only enough information for a reader to find the particular ship being sought; providing the ship type and historical era is sufficient.

An article about a ship with a unique name should still include any obvious disambiguators, with an automatic redirect from the index page. For example, only one ship (as this is written) has been named "USS Ronald Reagan," but an editor of another article will probably automatically link to [[USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-77)]]. For consistency, create the article at the latter page and a redirect at the former. Then, when a second ship is given the name, the redirect can be overwritten with the index, and the CVN article will not need to be moved.

Some types of ship are known only by a hull number; for example, American PT boats, German U-boats. In these cases, spell out the ship type -- Patrol Torpedo Boat 109[?], Unterseeboot 238 -- for the main article, and create a redirect or a disambiguation page at the short form -- PT-109[?] can probably be a automatic redirect, but U-238 must be a disambiguation page. In this case, there is no distinction between the index page and the individual page.

For details of the components of a ship's name, see ship prefix, hull classification symbol, and pennant number[?].

Ships that have changed nationality may want to have separate articles for each nationality; for instance USS Phoenix and ARA General Belgrano were physically the same chunk of iron. The end of one article should explain the circumstances of the transfer and link to the article about the new incarnation. In some cases there is little to say about some of the incarnations (Cutty Sark for instance), in which case separate paragraphs within the article work.

A useful litmus test; will a link from another article immediately connect to relevant info? To use the Phoenix/Belgrano example, a Falklands War link that jumped to a World War II US cruiser would be distracting at best; better to link directly to an article about an Argentine ship.

Individual Articles

Articles about individual ships should have fully disambiguated titles, and include all information from the index page; in other words, don't assume that the reader had seen the index page. (This is because references may link directly to the article.)

The articles ship naming and launching and ship commissioning make good links from the discussions of construction and commissioning.

Introductory Sentence

The first sentence of (any) article should use the article title (set in bold face) early in the sentence and establish context. In the case of ships, set all elements of then name in bold face, with the ship's name also italicized; for example, '''HMS ''Ark Royal'' (R07)''', '''USS ''Constitution'', 44'''. The commissioning nation, the ship type, and the time period are important elements of context. Why the particular name was given is interesting, especially if it is not obvious.

It is also helpful to the reader to mention the particular significance of the ship; "world's first aircraft carrier" for instance.

Later references to the same ship in the article (which should not be links) should just use the ship's name, still in italics: Ark Royal or Enterprise.

Ship Class

Articles about a ship class should be named (Lead ship name) "class" (type); for example, [[Ohio class submarine|''Ohio''-class submarine]] or [[Town class cruiser|Town-class light cruiser]]. Do not be overly specific in the type; for example, use "aircraft carrier", not "light escort fleet assault carrier". Use the singular form of the ship type; for example, "submarine", not "submarines". Note that the navies of the United Kingdom often name their ship class after what the ships' names have in common rather than for the lead ship (Flower-class destroyers, A-class submarines); in these cases the class name is not italicized.

When writing references, using the class as an adjective followed by the type name as a separate link lets the reader go equally easily to specific or general info, as in Ohio-class submarine.

Article Body

In a sense, an article about a ship is a lot like a biography; the dates of commissioning and decommissioning set the context, while achievements explain why the ship has an article about it in the first place, and events in the ship's life make the narrative connected. In addition, a ship will have associated with it other ships, various people such as officers and crew, and these should all be interlinked - famous admirals were once junior officers on some ship or another, and the cross-links will illuminate.

Since this is Wikipedia, ship articles should be pruned to the ship's life as such, and links made to separate articles about battles and other multi-ship events (such as the cruise of the Great White Fleet).

Finally, articles should make objective assessments of the ship as the data warrants ("too slow to be of use", etc). If the article content is not sufficient to support the assessment, then cite external references. Assessments are especially important for ship class articles.

Every ship article should have a picture of the ship if possible.

Parentage The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Transportation[?].

Descendant Wikiprojects No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.

Similar Wikiprojects Similar WikiProjects are

• WikiProject Aircraft[?]

Participants

• the Epopt
• Stan Shebs
• Stephen Gilbert (casual participant; I want to do a few Canadian ships)
• Tannin (Mostly Australian, maybe some English ones too, time permitting.)
• Arwel (Mostly WW1 British and German, with a side interest in the Battle of the River Plate.)

Structure Three types of articles are created by this project: index pages, individual ship pages, and ship class pages.

Hierarchy Definition Military ships can be classified into their various types such as submarines, frigates, cruisers, battleships, &c, and into their various eras such as the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, &c. See this example on dividing a topic into a hierarchy.

General Strategy and Discussion forum

• /General[?]
• /Strategy[?]

Templates

Index Page Template

Nine ships of the [[Royal Navy]] have borne the name '''HMS ''Pinafore''''', named in honor of [[pinafore|an apron]].

<p>The first [[HMS Pinafore (1878)|''Pinafore]] was a [[sloop]] that saw action against the [[Penzance]] corsairs.

. . .

The ninth [[HMS Pinafore (D987)|''Pinafore]] was a [[Operetta class destroyer|''Operetta''-class escort destroyer]] primarily employed in escorting cheese convoys to France during [[World War II]].

Individual Ship Template

'''HMS ''Pinafore'', 23''', was a [[sloop]] of the [[Royal Navy]], named in honor of [[pinafore|a frilly apron]]. She was [[ship naming and launching]] on [[29 December]] [[1877]], and [[ship commissioning|commissioned]] on [[25 May]] [[1878]] under the command of Captain Corcoran.

== General Characteristics ==
* Displacement:
* Length:
* Beam:
* Draft:
* Complement:
* Armament:

Ship Class Template

The '''''LEAD_SHIP'' class of [[SHIP_TYPE]]''' was designed to....

. . .

== Ships ==
* [[USS LEAD_SHIP|USS ''LEAD_SHIP'']]
* [[USS NEXT_SHIP|USS ''NEXT_SHIP'']]

== General Characteristics ==
* Displacement:
* Length:
* Beam:
* Draft:
* Complement:
* Armament:

Ensigns, Jacks, Pennants, and Other Vexillologs