Talk:RMS Empress of Japan (1929)

Untitled
I am the owner of the website from whcih this article is taken, and therefore the owner of the copyright.
 * Well we can't just take your word for it. -- Steel 00:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

How can I prove it then ?

Please see my external e-mail dated 8/11/06

Name logic
Is there any particular notability reasoning behind calling this article "Empress of Scotland"? Because at least personally I'd think it more logical to refer to her under her original name (or even her final name) instead of the one she had in the middle - at least personally I fail to see why she would have been significantly more notable as Empress of Scotland from what she was as Empress of Japan. And the convention generally has been to put ships no longer in existance under their original names. So, just a thought. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 12:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I actually did this back in December 2006. I moved the article to Empress of Japan (1930), and I was reverted three months later by Ps646566, who at that time said, "This ship is more familiarly known as Empress of Scotland, is most frequently searched under this name, and therefore the main page should reside under this title."  I disagreed with the rationale, but due to a whole bunch of personal matters going on at the time, I didn't argue with it.  Opinions?  SchuminWeb (Talk) 19:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, obviously I agree. There's no reson why the Empress of Scotland is more notable (except Eurocentrism) - certainly as Empress of Scotland she'd be more notable from European point of view. But I'd argue that notability is definately on the side of Japan, as she was the fastest ship in the Pacific during her time under that name (according to William H. Miller), which I'd say counts as more notable than Scotland which was essentially just another liner in the Atlantic. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 19:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and completed the move. SchuminWeb (Talk) 20:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Excellent. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 06:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually the ship was notable in the Atlantic also because she held the unofficial Blue Riband for the UK to Canada crossing. Why should N American convention win out over European here as a matter of course ? I thought Wikipedia was intended to be a worldwide facility. I just checked and found that the ship General Belgrano is listed under that name, and not under it's original name of USS Phoenix. Consistency ? Ps646566 (talk) 19:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Have it your own way then. I'm not going to play bat and ball with the opening paragraph. I suspect that my own website, which describes everything appropriately, gets a lot more hits than this does anyway. Ps646566 (talk) 19:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Plausibly useful links?
The process of changing the name of this article revealed a number of links. It is unclear whether these links should or should not be incorporated in the article's "See also" section. They are posted here for evaluation and review by other editors. --Tenmei (talk) 14:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The following pages link to RMS Empress of Japan (1930) ...:


 * List of cruise ships
 * Empress of Japan
 * CP Ships
 * RMS Empress of Australia (1922)
 * John Wallace Thomas
 * SS Hanseatic (1930)
 * Hanseatic
 * SS Maxim Gorkiy
 * Hamburg Atlantic Line
 * SS Shalom
 * Samuel Robinson (sea captain)
 * RMS Empress of Japan (1891)

Ship's most notable incarnation

 * The following was copied from User talk:Kjet.

User:Kjet -- Please help me understand why your recent edit presents a better and more useful title than "SS Empress of Japan (1930)" -- not that I dispute that your edit is correct, not at all. In this query, I'm hoping you'll help me re-think the ramifications which play out in terms of other vessels in Canadian Pacific's "Empress fleet" -- see CP Ships.

In List of ocean liners, the only vessels without prefixes are the "Empress fleet;" and if RMS is the better choice for the Empress of Japan, then it follows that the other Canadian Pacific (CP) ships are best identified in a similar manner.

Unquestionably, the CP trans-Pacific fleet was created because the company gained the mail franchise, and each ship flew the Royal Mail pennant; however, the RMS article explains that, technically, a ship would use the prefix only while contracted to carry mail, and would revert at other times to a standard type designation such as "SS". The brief exchange at Talk:RMS suggests that this minor point should not be too quickly marginalized in terms of our discussion about the proper prefix for each of the Wikipedia articles about the "Empress fleet" ships.

I'm also persuaded that the exchange of views at Talk:RMS Empress of Japan (1930) deserves our attention.

Yesterday, I changed RMS Empress of Australia (1922) to SS Empress of Australia (1922) because I'd been convinced that the Wikipedia articles actually do (or should) describe the vessel from launch to dismantling for scrap -- including the linked changes of name. If we construe the article in this way, there would be an appropriate place within one article which somehow links the article about a ship designed to be the Kaiser's toy with that ocean liner which became famous in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Do you see my point?

The question becomes not so much one of right or wrong, but rather an issue of how best to construe each of the Wikipedia articles about steamships. For example, the maiden voyage of a famously unsinkable White Star vessel in 1912 was tragically cut short, and no one would suggest that SS Titanic is better than RMS Titanic. However, I would have thought the issues we need to parse would play out differently in terms of that single ship which was RMS Empress of Australia in 1922 ... and also RMS Empress of China in 1921 ... and, before that a German ship named Tirptiz in 1914 ... and before that was built as the Admiral von Tirpitz ....

You see that I have tried to parse the issues in a reasonable way, but maybe I'm missing something which has an over-riding importance.

In the same way that former Presidents of the United States are still called "Mr. President" after their terms of office have ended, for example, maybe it makes better sense to apply the RMS to articles about ships because the prefix represents the vessel at the apex of its career?

So, as I see it, the range of issues devolves into one of deciding how to proceed from this point. I look forward to reading your response to the rather open-ended set of questions I'm trying to suggest are relevant here.

In this context, please review John Wallace Thomas. The text now reads:
 * Born in the British Colony of Newfoundland, Captain Thomas commanded the 26,000-ton Empress of Scotland (originally named the SS Empress of Japan II) throughout the Second World War.

In terms of the range of issues I'm trying to bring out here, how would you re-write this sentence to adequately and appropriately reflect that "RMS" designation? --Tenmei (talk) 16:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I don't have the time to reply properly to you right now, so just brief pointers: During wartime the Empress of Japan / Scotland would be referred to with the SS prefix as she did not carry mail during war service. During the vast majority of her existence as Empress of Japan she was in commercial service as a mailship, therefore it is appropriate to refer to her under the RMS prefix rather than SS. By the naming convention, an article on a ship should be named after the most notable incarnation of the ship - if that incarnation was known with an RMS prefix, then the article should have one in it's name. -- Kjet (talk · contribs) 16:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the helpful feedback and explanation. No need to write more.  Your succinct response resolves my lingering questions well enough. I'm going to copy this exchange at Talk:RMS Empress of Japan (1930) where it may prove useful to other editors. --Tenmei (talk) 12:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Trains
See explanatory comment at Talk:RMS Empress of Canada (1928) --Tenmei (talk) 20:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Fire & retirement?
There's no mention in the article right now, but the SS Hanseatic was struck by a fire in the machinery spaces which caused about 1 million in damage. I don't have time to write this up, nor do I know if the ship was scrapped after this, but the USCG report has details of the fire itself: http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/docs/boards/hanseatic.pdf 216.9.11.232 (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a book about it somewhere as well... worth adding. SchuminWeb (Talk) 00:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree: the article would benefit from this section having further details. 88.79.237.230 (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

25.000 or 30.030 GRT
I read the article. I first read of 25.000 GRT during planning and then having 30.000 GRT in the end and of a remodelling before becoming ss hanseatic. So I assumed that this remodelling produced the change. But the info-box states that it was 30kGRT even as empress of Scotland. When did it get the extra weight and why. Could this be clearer in the article? 88.79.237.230 (talk) 17:03, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Evacuation from Singapore
Unless I missed it, I’m surprised that there’s not any mention of the ships use to evacuate people from Singapore in 1942 when the Japanese invaded and the renaming of the ship (understandably) from Empress of Japan to Scotland? Ambitus (talk) 06:09, 2 August 2019 (UTC)