Template talk:DANFS

Italics
In the interests of avoiding back-and-forth changes, I think this note should be italicized, because it's like a colophon or textual note in that it's a comment about the text, not part of the article proper; like one of those disambig notes at the top, which are also italicized. I observe that the 1911EB and other old encyclopedia notes are italicized as well, presumably for the same reason. Stan 01:43, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Done. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 15:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, why is the title of the work in DANFS not italicized? What makes it different from NVR, where the title is italicized?

Just thought the two looked funny together in DANFSNVR: -- Pslide (talk) 06:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * As the title of a published work, DANFS is normally italicized, but when an italicized word or phrase appears within an italicized context, it is doubly italicized, which makes it upright, the way a double negative equals a positive. The NVR is treated differently because it's a the name of database or something.
 * —WWoods (talk) 15:11, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, makes perfect sense now. Thank you! -- Pslide (talk) 14:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The NVR is also a published work. An English language dictionary is merely a database of words. The MOS doesn't address this issue directly but seems to indicate that generally, titles are italicized (smaller sub-components of large works are quoted). So, I think that Pslide's initial impression was the correct impression.  The NVR title should be doubly italicized.--Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Category
Should this template include its own Category, such as ? I noticed the 1911EB has such a tag.--J Clear 13:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Pages on which this templates is used are now added to Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, per a request on WP:AN – Gurch 20:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit request
editprotected Please change this template to remove Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships and place a noinclude note on the template page to add DANFS talk to articles tagged with DANFS. See the category page and Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_April_15. Once this is done, someone who owns a bot will complete the transition. -N 20:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 00:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit request
Please add the wikiproject category to this template inside the noinclude. Maralia 03:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Done! TomTheHand 13:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Link parameter added
I have added a parameter to the DANFS template based on discussion at WP:SHIPS. It accepts an external link to a DANFS entry. If you don't provide a parameter, and simply use DANFS, it gives the same result as before:

Using produces this:

Let me know if you have any questions or comments. TomTheHand 13:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I like it a lot because it can often eliminate the need for the External link heading in the article which just makes for a cleaner looking article. How about doing the same for ? And while I'm demanding things, how about making both  and  capable of accepting dual links? Dual links can point to two DANFS articles when you have one ship that carried dual names during it's career. --Brad (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I can do both of those, but it may be a few days; if someone else wants to attack it first, please feel free. Does DANFS really have separate articles when a ship's name gets changed? TomTheHand (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've ever seen separate entries on the same ship. On a different note, though, Gatoclass recently mentioned that history.navy.mil links often don't work for him, so I suppose there could be an argument for two external links on this template, to accommodate both that site and hazegrey. Maralia (talk) 03:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes but remember this is the DANFS template, so linking to hazegray via the DANFS template seems out of place. --Brad (talk) 04:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hazegray has an online copy of DANFS. I believe it's a direct transcription of the books, while the Navy's DANFS is a living website that is updated and corrected, so I prefer the Navy's; however, I can see dual Navy/Hazegray links being a good reason to add two link support to the template.  I will attack this, and NVR, this afternoon or evening. TomTheHand (talk) 19:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't recall now what ship I was working on where two links would have been required. I think it's safe enough to say that there are very few articles that would ever require links to two different ships on danfs. I've only had the once instance so far; not enough to require a change. --Brad (talk) 04:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to mention, what I had in mind was something like this:

Which would result in this:

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.

Does that look alright? Do we want it to be phrased in a way that specifically talks about the Navy's DANFS versus Hazegray's? Of course the extra input would be optional. TomTheHand (talk) 20:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good enough for me. Leaving it non-descript allows a dual link and that dual link can either be used for one or both sites, yes? --Brad (talk) 00:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, folks, I've been super-busy and haven't been on Wikipedia much lately. I've finally updated this template to accept up to two links, and I'll work on the NVR one next. TomTheHand (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There are instances of DANFS having two articles for the same ship. Named LSTs are the largest group I can think of, with a stub-class article at LST-XXX and a longer article at COUNTY County. E.g. LST-344 and Blanco County. And I've recently seen others like Grampus / A-3 and George M. Bibb / Bibb. Plus, there are DANFS' equivalent of redirects, like "Ginko (YN-65) was renamed Mastic (YN-65) (q.v.) on 17 April 1943."


 * When converting DANFS articles, I've habitually included links to both history.navy.mil and hazegray.org because I found that they sometimes had differences ... e.g. different sets of typos. :-) Plus, a lot of "B-" articles used to be missing from navy.mil, though that has mostly been fixed.
 * —WWoods (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit request
Please add  inside the   tags. Thanks&mdash; G716  &lt;T·C&gt; 04:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ SkierRMH  ( talk ) 07:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem with category inclusion
This template should contain the following code:

so that articles with this template are put in the appropriate category. The above category is hidden, by the way.

For some reason, this category isn't in the template. Can some administrator please add it? --Eastlaw (talk) 13:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This needs further discussion, I think. Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 15 resulted in removing it from this template and instead placing it on DANFS talk. However, I notice the category is currently almost depopulated. It appears that a recent editprotected request to DANFS talk, intended only to standardize the formatting, was performed improperly, unintentionally overwriting the category inclusion. We should probably clear that up first, to restore the status quo, and ping WP:SHIPS and WP:Military History for a discussion of the merits of a hidden category on mainspace versus a visible category on talk pages. I think the former is probably preferable, as you said, but let's go through the motions since this affects many thousands of articles :) Maralia (talk) 16:17, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I strongly support using a hidden category on the mainspace. Currently there a number of of templates (listed in Category:United States government attribution templates) that add articles to the hidden category Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from public domain works of the United States Government, or one of the subcats. The addition of the article to the category is accomplished automatically by adding the template to the article. If a visible category on talk pages was used, this would require a second template to be added to the talk page of the article - and that would require maintenance. I imagine that there will be three sets of articles - those with only the template on the article mainspace, those with only the template on the talk page and those with both templates. This will result in a mess.


 * (BTW, this discussion should involve more that just WP:SHIPS and WP:Military History, and thus I'm not really sure where it should be best discussed.)


 * &mdash; G716  &lt;T·C&gt; 02:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The thing is, there already is a second template on many talk pages, which is supposed to add them to that same category (and only isn't doing so due to a recent error). I submitted an editprotected request at Template talk:DANFS talk to readd the category to that template in the meantime, as it was unintentionally removed in a recent edit.
 * As I said above, I think a hidden category on mainspace is probably preferable (on reflection, for many reasons—the main one being that many articles lack the talk page template altogether), but this is a change that warrants some discussion. If the category is added to this (mainspace) template, the DANFS talk template would be obsolete (and I'm fine with that, but it would need to be dealt with). Thanks for notifying WP:SHIPS and WP:Military History. Another project that may heavily use the template is WP:WPBIO; I have notified them of this discussion as well.  Maralia (talk) 03:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with Maralia. Let's restore the category to DANFS talk before jumping in with this . — Bellhalla (talk) 04:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Restoring status quo is a good idea - but I still agree with Maralia that a hidden cat on the mainspace would be easier than a cat in a talk page template. Also, a consensus here about this template needs wide discussion because other templates are affected. Regards &mdash; G716  &lt;T·C&gt; 05:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC).

(<--) I'm sort of lost on this subject. It would appear that DANFS talk had an error that removed the category and now it needs to be replaced. Secondly, it would seem that this template can be modified to replace the duty of DANFS talk? At least since I've been around the past year, the danfs category has not been used on the main page because it was unnecessary and cluttering. That's the way it should remain. --Brad (talk) 15:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Brad, what's changed recently is the introduction of hidden categories. The longstanding precedent was to place 'meta'/tracking categories on talk pages so as not to clutter mainspace articles—but now we have the option of using a hidden category on mainspace. As I see it, the main benefit to doing so here would be that all articles using DANFS text should already have this mainspace template (and therefore would get the category assignment), whereas many of them are lacking the DANFS talk talkpage template. Maralia (talk) 16:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, given the new explanation (combined with me having gotten some sleep), let me reverse what I said above. If we can add a hidden category through DANFS and eliminate DANFS talk, I'm all for that bit of simplicity. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with this method. Results are less talk page clutter as well. Never a bad thing. --Brad (talk) 23:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't realize I would start such a huge debate. I just want to step in here to say that I agree with User:G716 that a hidden category in mainspace would be the best way. The hidden categories were a very good addition for the maintenance tasks of Wikipedia, and are just as good for attribution categories like this one. It's already being done on a number of other articles. While I admit hidden categories don't necessarily denote any "distinguishing" or "defining" characteristic for all articles within a given category, they are useful for attribution are useful for registered users such as myself not only for maintenance/updating purposes, but also for satisfying curiosity as to what other articles and topics were researched from a particular source document.

If it isn't too much trouble, could you folks give me a heads up on my talk page when you come to some sort of resolution about how to handle this? Thanks. --Eastlaw (talk) 06:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Disabled while discussion continues. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

In summary
Eastlaw's proposed edit to this template is to add a hidden category via the insertion of this code into the template:

In light of the disabling of the "editprotected" template for this change, my read of the editors' opinions in the above discussion is summarized below. (if I have mischaracterized any editor's opinion, it purely unintentional.) — Bellhalla (talk) 12:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * 1) Support (as proposer of edit) — Eastlaw
 * 2) Strong support — G716 (per 02:49, 2 December comment)
 * 3) Support Neutral — Maralia (per 03:20, 2 December comment)
 * 4) Support — Bellhalla (per 17:07, 2 December comment)
 * 5) Support — Brad (per 23:56, 2 December comment)

Well, apparently, according to Template talk:DANFS talk, the category has been added to DANFS talk, so perhaps this whole discussion is unnecessary...UNLESS you folks want to remove the category from DANFS talk and add it to this one. You decide what is best. --Eastlaw (talk) 18:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I think from the way the discussion has evolved that handling it through Template:DANFS and a hidden category may be better than having two templates. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I support adding the category to this template, and deprecating DANFS talk, as the latter template is not omnipresent on the relevant articles. I have posted a note at Template talk:DANFS talk to make sure we are not missing any interested parties. Maralia (talk) 22:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * editprotected
 * Per the discussion above and resulting consensus, please add the following code into this template:




 * Thanks. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅  It Is Me Here  t / c 18:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Do we really Need templates for DANFS and Cite DANFS
I would like to solicite comments on wether we really need 2 separate templates that do basically the same thing. I realize that the Cite DANFS template is designed more for use as an inline citation and this is more for a notification but I recommend we modify the Cite DANFS template so that if there is a flag set (maybe info-only= Yes) then the citation would display with the This article uses information from verbiage that this template uses. Does anyone have any opposition to doing this? --Kumioko (talk) 15:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Reform the template output to enhance accessibility



 * The entry can be found here.


 * here

Accessibility would dictate that the linked text should be descriptive of the link's purpose. The here isn't meaningful. Scanning the text generated by the DANFS template, the eye sees the end of the first sentence and then lands on here. The eye pauses and then reads the sentence: The entry can be found here. No real indication of where the link leads, so, the eye must now read the entire template output. Someone with visual impairment using a reading tool might have even more difficulty.

Perhaps the template output should be changed to read something like:


 * This article includes text from the entry in the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

Using the magic word (see Help:Magic words) would seem to mean that the changes to the existing  template would be relatively mnor. Of course there is the issue of italics:


 * This article includes text from the USS Will Rogers (SSBN-659) entry ...

--or--


 * This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships' entry.

I'm sure that there are other possible sentence constructs that would fit the bill.

And, while I'm thinking of this, the template should be modified in the same way. In fact, I see no reason why both shouldn't output the same generic text. I've created a talk subject about re-wording the template on the  NVR talk page.

--Trappist the monk (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Please create a version at Template:DANFS/sandbox that meets the following requirements:
 * Reads correctly for all testcases.
 * Does not read incorrectly even if does not match the topic if the linked entry.
 * Then reapply edit protected Anomie⚔ 20:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request DANAS
There is a publication similar to this one, also from the Naval History & Heritage Command, that covers aircraft squadrons instead of ships. It would be useful if it had a template, plus a cite template. Some specifics: I just found DANAS yesterday, while working on articles about some squadrons. It may be an undiscovered gold mine for Wikipedia. If it gets a template, I'm willing go go through the various articles about squadrons and aircraft, and incorporate the template as needed (this is a huge job, but I'm willing to start it). With a few examples, I'm guessing that others with a Naval Aviation interest would also get engaged in the project. Lou Sander (talk) 14:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The publication in question is Dictionary of American Naval Aircraft Squadrons (DANAS), published in two volumes, with maybe more to come.
 * The online version of Volume 1 consists of about 30 online files, shown HERE. There are a few special files (such as THIS very informative one for title page, "about" information, etc.) and about thirty files, each covering a dozen or so squadrons. Volume 2 is similar, and can be found HERE.
 * Because of this layout, readers would have to be linked to a specific chapter (instead of a specific ship, as in DANFS), then scroll to find the squadron they are interested in. This is easy and straightforward, but some instructions might be useful.
 * There doesn't seem to be an alternate version such as the Hazegray version for DANFS.
 * There doesn't seem to be a need to combine references to two sources, as the Naval Vessel Register for DANFS.
 * The work lists a LOT of squadrons; maybe more than DANFS lists ships.
 * The information for each squadron is extremely detailed, and seems to be more authoritative and useful than that in DANFS.
 * Unlike DANFS, which had many unidentified authors, each of the two volumes was written by a single author. One was a professional historian at the History & Heritage command, the other was a retired Captain in the Medical Service Corps.
 * The work also includes, separately, detailed information about the aircraft used by the various squadrons.


 * Retitled this section because there are several sections above with the same title.


 * I can easily see how to make a citation template that would be a wrapper template for, perhaps as :
 * where:
 * article is the squadron name (perhaps the parameter should be squadron (or whatever an abbreviation of squadron is)
 * section is the unique part of the url for the chapter section
 * which would then produce:
 * which renders as:
 * which would then produce:
 * which renders as:
 * which renders as:


 * I think that a bit of research and some simple code can modify the url so that when clicked, the reader is taken to the correct page in the pdf document. This works in Chrome; haven't tried other browsers.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:22, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Maybe/probably there should be a template for each volume, since they have different authors, and maybe other differences I'm not aware of yet. I like "article" over "squadron" because there are articles on specific aircraft, etc. It would be most excellent if the reader could be taken to a page in the pdf document. Possibly the cite template could take them there, but the general one could take them to the index page for the proper volume, and/or to the "about" PDF page, (whatever it's called in the book).
 * I'm a reasonably competent and prolific editor, but I don't know much about templates, and it probably wouldn't be productive for me to learn. OTOH, I'm glad to help with this in any way I'm capable of. (Once the template is enabled, I can see myself doing 20, 50, or 100 articles about these squadrons. They'd probably be stubs to begin with, but there are many people with a Naval Aviation interest who might want to expand on them.) Lou Sander (talk) 16:38, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, I've added volume to the above and will begin plotting out the template.


 * Is there much need for a generic This article contains content taken from ... DANAS type of template? I personally dislike those because after a few edits the text that was take from such sources has been modified sufficiently that it is no longer the text from the source.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:59, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Naraht has created a basic  template, which I've used in VAK-208 and VAK-308. I see your point about many edits changing things, but personally I like the idea of being able to put everyone on notice about public domain text. No copyright problems with it, then.


 * Until a cite template is made (IF it's made), I've put some examples and assistance HERE. If one is clever enough, one can change the title= and url= to point to the appropriate chapter name and URL. It requires less cleverness just to point the reference to the proper volume. I was clever in VAK-208 and VAK-308. It takes a bit of work, but it's SO cool to click the reference and go straight to the proper chapter! Lou Sander (talk) 02:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Italicize title
I suggest that the title of the book should be italicized (as it is on its own page).--NapoliRoma (talk) 00:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Looking back at this, it appears I misinterpreted the formatting of this template's output.  So, continue to never mind...:-)--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:50, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

DANFS links sometimes dead
DANFS links are sometimes changed (perhaps for older and less significant vessels?), so that the invitation "This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here" fails. I fixed this a few minutes ago for USS Patapsco (1799); a quick search for 'danfs sloop "public domain"' finds the same issue for USS Granite (1862), amongst presumably many others. The solution is of course finding and replacing the updated link.
 * (Patapsco, until 5 Feb 23) gives deadlinked:
 * (Patapsco, until 5 Feb 23)


 * is the corrected link


 * (Granite) gives deadlinked:
 * (Granite)

I don't know if the correct form can be inferred by examining the URL, but for Granite the rule, inferred from Patapsco, and easily implemented as a script, is: - (maybe) replace" http" by "https" - insert "/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories" between "www.history.navy.mil" and "/danfs" - replace initial letter followed by a number ("g7") by initial letter ("g") - replace "htm" by "html" giving:


 * (Granite), giving:
 * (Granite)

Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 13:01, 5 February 2023 (UTC)