Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)

I've been editing Zeewijk (1725) - this is the only article on a ship, or anything else, called Zeewijk, and Zeewijk (and Zeewyk) redirect there. Betterkeks moved the page from Zeewijk a few years ago, citing this guideline.

As far as I can see, this guideline only suggests use of a year when other ships by that name actually have articles, not preemptively just because other ships of that name existed?

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

@TSP I have no objection, just a request. Please make it work in harmony with MOS:NAT (for ships, which is this context), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) – and in particular Make a link from the first mention of each ship in an article, even if Wikipedia does not yet have an article about that ship – in combination with template:ship used to do that, without readers ending up getting confused by ending up on a non-ship page that happens to get added before the ship page. Betterkeks (talk) 12:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Betterkeks. Looking through those, I don't think MOS:NAT has any bearing - that's about italicisation in article text, it tells you not to italicise disambiguation terms if they are present, but doesn't bear on whether they are present in text, let alone in article titles.

You can still, if you like, use Zeewijk (1725) to link to articles via a redirect, to make doubly sure they go to the right place; but I don't think that wish for links to be unambiguous overrides Wikipedia's general policies on article titles being concise, natural and recognisable.

I am a bit curious about that line in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) - WP:REDLINK says In general, a red link should remain in an article if there is a reasonable expectation that the article in question will eventually be created. Is it really our expectation that every ship should eventually have an article?

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

Re red links: my approach is to make my own assessment of "reasonable expectation", albeit cursory, before linking or not-linking; existence ≠ notability, per WP:GNG. -Davidships (talk) 12:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

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

For example, Soviet/Russian ship classes may be referred to by their project number and various PLAN ship classes referred to by "type". Some may also have a Russian or Chinese class name (often but not always after the lead ship), some may have a western (NATO etc.) class/reporting name, some may have both, some may have neither. Sometimes names are used by few sources but not well-established and widely-adopted in WP:RS.

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

The reason why I'm bringing this up is that I wasn't sure which would be the correct convention to follow with Project 97 icebreakers; see merge and move discussions on the talk page. Tupsumato (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

While I agree with the proposed text in general, I was specifically looking for guidance how to select the article title: not how ship classes are named in general, but how they should be named in Wikipedia. Should the English-language Wikipedia give priority to original Soviet/Russian/Chinese "Project" or "Type" number and/or class name over one "given" by NATO or western literary sources, or the other way around? Should there be different convention for naval vessels and civilian ships? Old and new ships (e.g. there's well-established class name for this but not for this)? How is it done with other types of (military) equipment (could someone ask WP:MILHIST)? What do we do with ships that do not have established class name but that are sometimes given one by ship enthusiasts? Tupsumato (talk) 13:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

  I find it interesting that you're coming from the world of "correct pronouns for trans people", and you think your opinion on what to call ships is much more important than the opinions of people from the world of ships. Not only that, but you already know that "of course that's gonna be the result", meaning, you know that the people actually involved with ships clearly reject your intrusive prescription, yet after a literal dozen of like attempts have been made and failed before, still here you are. You don't accept consensus to the contrary. You want to tell the people who concern themselves with ships how they should talk about ships. You know they don't approve of your prescription, so you want to get the greater Wikipedia community to order them to obey you. Because somehow that's not trespass and tyrannical, but progress and Democratic. (Big D. No wait, DATS SEXIST!!1)

It's like, I'm a miner, and I want to tell the people involved in aviation what they should call the cockpit, because in my world, bird compartments are called canary cages, and they're very important to me. Also, I have Saint Barbara ideas of what a cockpit even is, or whence it got its name, and I think dats sexist too. When everything's sexist...

Finally, you (or other non-salts alike in ambition) have already POV-pushed the issue to the point where despite the admitted she-consensus among salts, the Wikipedia Manual of Style has "compromised" by including "it/its", and slyly relegating she for ships to an "optional style". But that's not enough for you, as it still allows people who care about ships to get their way by husbanding individual articles on ships: No, you've got to push the issue again, and push it even further, because that's Progressive™, which is why you must get absolutely everybody to do exactly as you say, and say as you do, which is so important. Don't look at your material conditions or the dead babies over there, look at this! Righteous cause, righteous cause, right here! Virtue, virtue, virtue!
—ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 15:49, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

PS: By the way, as someone not totally devoid of salt, let me tell you: Winds can change. And if the greater community can order the people who care about ships what they must say, the winds might change, and then the greater community could order the people who care about trans pronouns what they must say.

• Last time this issue was discussed in WP:MOS was in March 2022; see list of archived discussions since 2004. Personally I wouldn't mind having this discussion again but I doubt there would be clear consensus this time either. Tupsumato (talk) 07:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
• @LilianaUwU "She" actually is proper grammar for a ship in English, it's one of the few things in the language that operates that way. Either form is perfectly fine grammar, actually, and that's independent of the fact that we should of course respect the pronouns of trans individuals. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  You mean transoceanic ships? EEng 18:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

• It's perfectly fine grammar, though that's a separate question from whether it's pretentious and stupid, which it is. See WP:Queen Elizabeth slipped majestically into the water. EEng 18:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

This argument has cropped up so many times on the Talk:Titanic page that I took the liberty of adding an FAQ there. Perhaps an FAQ should be added here too? Muzilon (talk) 21:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

If you have a ship called, say, Queen of Victoria, and it and its fellow class members are in the Victoria class, is "Victoria" italicized? The class name is "Victoria class" not "Queen of Victoria class", so I'm unclear. —Joeyconnick (talk) 22:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The thematic name is Queen, since BC Ferries used to name their nearly all their ships with the moniker, however, since the ship is "Victoria" and named for a specific ship, then it is italicized. This is commonly found among the cruise ship classes, where every ship of the Princess cruise line gets the fleet moniker Princess or Costa for Costa cruises. Llammakey (talk) 00:21, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Just as a reminder to new(er) editors, in Wikipedia we should use whatever class name the references use. In the past, passenger ship articles in particular were rife with class names coined by enthusiastic editors. Tupsumato (talk) 07:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the current page here is a bit confusing regarding hull and pennant numbers and when to use them. Read carefully, it seems to be consistent with WP:AT in that this extra information should be added when necessary for disambiguation, but I can see how that's not completely clear and could be better organized and more explicitly stated. For instance, I think the content at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ships)#Hull_or_pennant_number_or_disambiguation should be combined with the "disambiguating ships with the same name" in that hull or pennant numbers, when they exist, are the first choice for disambiguation, but should not be added if there is no other ship with that name.

The issue is that it seems U.S. Navy ships follow the correct guidance, in that we have USS Arleigh Burke but USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), with USS John Paul Jones being a ship set index. But at least some ship classes in the Royal Navy and others seem to always include the pennant number, e.g. HMS Erica (K50) but HMS Erica is a red link. That article should be moved to HMS Erica. Mdewman6 (talk) 05:14, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

That's because once long ago all ship articles included the pennant number (when the ship had one). Then the nabobs came and demanded it be done a certain way where they would only be used as disambiguation when necessary, but some articles still haven't been moved to un-"disambiguated" titles. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:37, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the title of nabob. I didn't realize I needed that in my life @The Bushranger:. I guess WP:CIVIL does not apply to you. Good to know. Llammakey (talk) 12:29, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

HMS Erica has now been moved. By one of the "nabobs" of course. Llammakey (talk) 12:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

This is solved. Please read previous discussions on the main talk page. We do not need to have the same discussion seven hundred times. If you see a ship article that has an unnecessary disambiguation per WP:DISAMBIG, please move it to an un-disambiguated title. As for hull numbers, they really only work for American ships because they are sequential for the most part, with major exceptions such as the aircraft carriers. Pennant numbers in other navies get changed so often as to warrant them as useless, which is why we use the date of launch since it can only happen once in a career. Llammakey (talk) 13:11, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I've moved a bunch of articles to their base names, and will keep going through them, but I still think the text here could be greatly improved to be clearer. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:31, 29 November 2025 (UTC)