Template talk:Infobox ship begin/Archive 7

Edit request
Please change

To

(1) -- the switch statement actually ends before  so the internal commenting is wrong, and the switch end comments needs to move to the end of the switch

(2) -- more mods: So that a switch  can be activated to override DISPLAYTITLE found in italic title prefixed to prevent the ugly DISPLAYTITLE error messages this template generates all over pages.

-- 70.51.203.69 (talk) 11:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done I've restored italic title; the  hack is a travesty. For usage instructions, see Template:Infobox. Alakzi (talk) 20:21, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Conflict with Template:Italic title
The current version a of the template (as of September 16, 2015) is in conflict with Italic title directives on many ship articles. These examples came up: Mein Schiff 1 and Mein Schiff 2.

On the template documentation Template:Italic title/doc I read:
 * Sometimes you may see red error messages like this at the top of the page:
 *  Warning: Display title "Article title (disambiguation)" overrides earlier display title "Article title (disambiguation)". 
 * This usually means that there is another instance of on the page, usually added by one of the infoboxes. Certain infoboxes, for example infobox album, add  by default. Check the template documentation for any infobox used on the page; it may have instructions about how to deal with italic titles. You may be able to adjust the italics from the infobox instead of using  at the top of the article. Or if that doesn't work, you may be able to disable the infobox's italics code altogether.

I am not going to start fixing individual articles. Someone fix this please. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:46, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Displacement not a common metric
This template lists displacement (the weight of the ship) but not gross tons or net tons, which is the carrying capacity of the ship. Vessel documentation does not typically include the displacement and is usually obtained only through the master builder certificates. For example look up the Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States, you'll see dimensions and gross/net tonnage but not displacement, some might confuse gross/net for displacement. I suggest adding a field for gross tonnage and net tons. Keysgoclick (talk) 17:17, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * it already exists in the form of |ship tonnage= and appropriate units can be linked as necessary. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Even better, we have GT, NetT, GRT and NRT that can be used for gross and net (register) tonnage in that field. Tupsumato (talk) 04:37, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! 209.112.199.5 (talk) 21:10, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Need links in box
Draught.... needs a link to Draft (hull)

Others similar. Not all the terms are common. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.2.239.28 (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Add links to the article body. Tupsumato (talk) 08:09, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Filling in fields
I need some help on clarifying what it means to "fill in as many fields as possible". It seems I've ruffled some feathers on this matter by filling in empty fields on some ship pages. I've been filling in the "|Ship sponsor=" and "|Ship identification=" fields and am being told that these aren't significant to the infobox. My question then is why are they there? And why should one person get to choose what does or doesn't get added to a page. I've added these things to two different pages and in both cases my changes were "undone" as being irrelevent.Pennsy22 (talk) 03:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Who told you "Ship identification=" is not important? As far as I know, I've filled it out in every ship article I've written. Tupsumato (talk) 08:08, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I've been putting the hull numbers along with code letters and the flags. They are saying that the flags? code letters? don't add to the ship info. I think they are misreading the part that says keep the Infobox brief. To me that means keeping each entry brief, you don't need a sentence explaining each entry. They are saying that the whole info box should only be a few entries. Pennsy22 (talk) 05:39, 26 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Who are "they". Invite them here (or better, the main project talk page), and let's discuss it with everyone in WP:SHIPS. Tupsumato (talk) 05:53, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Pennsy22, you might want to add a bit more context to your comment, along with diffs. You were entirely correct to add hull numbers to the ship identification parameter, but I don't know about the other stuff as they're not referenced in just about any source I've ever seen. So I find them of dubious utility for warships.
 * As for your other point, we have a major point of disagreement on how you stuff almost every possible thing into the infoboxes. You also cite almost every line therein rather than citing the same info in the main body so that the infobox looks like it's gotten blue measles. And since one of your sources was dated 1914 for a ship that wasn't even laid down until four years later, I reverted the whole thing. Here's the diff . In accordance with WP:BRD, you were bold, I reverted, and you never went to the ship's talk page to discuss your changes in detail. Looking over your additions now, I see some good info there that should be added to both the infobox and the main body, with the supporting cites added to the latter, so whenever you want to talk about them, I'm ready to do so.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:21, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Edit request/proposal
If Template:Infobox ship image is used without an image it puts that page in hidden category Category:Ship infoboxes without an image. That's fine for articles (i.e. pages in mainspace), but isn't ideal for pages in User namespace (i.e. in editor's sandboxes) for several reasons: (1) it means the user page is in a part of the category tree where you wouldn't normally expect to get user pages (e.g. these pages show up when I'm looking for violations of WP:USERNOCAT etc) and (2) it clutters up Category:Ship infoboxes without an image with sandboxes (although they are only a small fraction of the 10000 pages in the category). Changing the bit of code that does the categorization to  would do the trick - that code takes User namespace pages out of the category, but would leave Draft namespace in - alternatively the template could be changed to just categorize articles -. DexDor(talk) 23:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * An alternative would be this so that only article space and draft space are categorized:


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:15, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree - that's probably the best option. DexDor(talk) 10:28, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 3 January 2016
Please change:  to: 

See Template_talk:Infobox_ship_begin for explanation. DexDor(talk) 10:34, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- John of Reading (talk) 11:21, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Position info available
In many (most? all?) cases the IMO Number and MMSI templates display a ship's current position (and other information) when clicked; e.g. ,. This is often useful for the reader, but is not obvious. I would suggest modification of either Infobox ship or the templates themselves to inform readers of this option. Ideally, perhaps, if either of these parameters is included in Ship identification, a brief note like " click the IMO or MMSI to view current position and other information " should be displayed in the Infobox. Simpler to implement: if the Ship identification field is not empty, something like " If IMO or MMSI are highlighted, click to view current position and other information ". I don't know enough about ship articles and information to be more specific (is the position available for most ships, given ID? do most articles use the IMO or MMST templates? Does this work, or is there something analogous, for some military ships—seems unlikely?).

I've added a short section about clicking for position to MV Viking Sea (2016), but it seems far better to modify the Infobox or IMO/MMSI templates, not least because it'll add the information to all existing articles. Pol098 (talk) 15:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I've also added a "Current position" section to the more prominent QE2 and QM2 articles.

Alternatively to the infobox, a vessel's current position could be displayed as clickable coordinates at the top of an article in the same way as the coordinates of a place are shown. This would require a lookup, and may not be appropriate for performance reasons. (This would not be part of the ship infobox, and would need to be discussed elsewhere, I suppose.) Pol098 (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2016 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 16:49, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that linking to the MarineTraffic position is a bit of an easter egg, but adding a section describing how to click the link seems a bit out of place. The reason MarineTraffic is used is because it should a good overview of the ship's characteristics. A better idea would be to put the MarineTraffic template in the "External links" section which puts "". --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK


 * Thanks for comment. I'd agree that adding a full "current position" section to each article is not a good idea, though I'd say it's better than the present situation (i.e., usually nothing at all). I reiterate my suggestion to add a brief note to this effect in the infobox. Though I've had some involvement with ship classification, I'm not up-to-date or greatly expert, and wasn't aware of MarineTraffic. I think it is of interest to the general user of Wikipedia to know that clicking a link will show a vessel's position. As articles on places have coordinates at the top, why not a link at top to show ship position? I added the section to QE2 (stationary!) and a few other articles in the hope of sparking discussion; it seems to be working. Best wishes Pol098 (talk) 17:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I continue to think that this information should be added to the template, near the top of the article; it points the user to a useful function, it's more than an Easter egg. An article-by-article approach that requires no change to anything and may be acceptable is to use an entry in the infobox like:


 * Ship status=in service


 * which displays in the box as


 * Ship status: in service
 * Pol098 (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I've tried putting this information at the top of the MS Queen Elizabeth article: anyone interested might like to have a look, and maybe an edit. Pol098 (talk) 16:40, 9 May 2016 (UTC)


 * - I like that idea. :) Mjroots (talk) 12:45, 10 May 2016 (UTC)



Position & info
 * Rather than use the MarineTraffic template I prefer something terser (see second right-justified line above), though using a template will enable following any changes to the marinetraffic URL. Any ideas? How about a new template with shorter wording, maybe jumping directly to the MarineTraffic map rather than full ship info (which should be in the article)? Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 14:29, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not think there should be a textual mention of this at all. The QM2 article (the only one I have checked) gives it undue prominence, but a mention anywhere in the text would still be inappropriate.  It contributes little to an explanation of the vessel.  WP is not a how-to guide.
 * As to inclusion in the infobox: It likely would add even more bloat to infoboxes (which already are overly long in many cases), but if it should be included anywhere, it likely would be the infobox.  Kablammo (talk) 19:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responses. The QM2 article was an early attempt, and I've improved the idea since then (I've left the QM2 for now as one approach, I'll change it later according to discussion here). A later, and I think better, approach with existing tools is to put the ship position link in small text at the top right of the article, in the same way as position information is displayed at the top of place articles such as Calne and Lindblad Explorer. There's an example of what would show at the top of a ship article in a comment of mine above, just below the rule (representing the top of an article). A live example is the MS Queen Elizabeth article: anyone interested might like to have a look, and maybe an edit. As I said before with some suggested details, the infobox is a possibility. I definitely think that the information that the ship's position is available at a click is more useful to most readers than much of the detail given. Pol098 (talk) 21:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I like the placement on MS QE-- it is much less obtrusive. Regards, Kablammo (talk) 23:31, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I've edited the QM2 article to use the shorter of the two top-placed position tags (MS Queen Elizabeth uses the longer form). Compare and comment. (The short form will break if the MarineTraffic Web site changes even if MarineTraffic is adapted.) Technically this discussion no longer belongs in the Talk for the ship infobox; should it be continued here, or elsewhere? (Alternatively, the infobox template itself could be modified to show the position note above the infobox top, as I've done in the examples linked, if the IMO number is specified in the template.) Pol098 (talk) 12:27, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Meh. I don't see how knowing a ship's current position helps a reader understand the ship.  If the decision is taken to include this form of information in the infobox it should be tied to Ship status so that as long as that parameter has a reasonable value assigned to it (in service or some such) the position information would show.  When Ship status is empty, omitted, or if Ship fate has a value then the position information is hidden.  Still, I'm not convinced that this information benefits the reader.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I won't discuss further whether or not it's a good idea to show clearly a ship's current position, I explained my reasons above and it's time for others to comment. Regarding what's added at the top, in an edit to MS Allure of the Seas the valid point was made to "Avoid external links in the main body", a concern I expressed in a previous comment, so the wordy template is probably the best approach. If the consensus is in favour of providing clear position information, I'd suggest a modified template, perhaps simply an optional "alt=" parameter in MarineTraffic:  as in As of and other templates. Pol098 (talk) 11:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Add it as external link, if you feel its necessary, but that it's current live position has no place in an infobox. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with Trappist and Graeme. I had not thought of the placement Graeme suggests, and I agree with him that placing the link in external links is better than at the top of the page, which alters the page format.  Kablammo (talk) 12:21, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not at all convinced that this is an appropriate addition for an encyclopedia - it is transient and ephemeral - and from an unedited primary source. People who want to know where a ship is can go directly to appropriate sources, which are readily found through Google etc.  WP is not a one-stop-shop for random information. And certainly not in the infobox - far too many ship infoboxes already contain information that is not in the article proper, contrary to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE.
 * Secondly, Marine Traffic does not reliably show where a ship is - it is dependent on receipt of correct AIS information (eg properly entered data onboard the ship), on receipt of transmissions (MT does not have global coverage, and MT limit the publication of satellite-derived info - and the transmitter may well be switched off); some info will be up-to-the-minute, other cases will be hours, days, weeks or even months old. The coverage is certainly not all, or even most, ships with IMO numbers, though the proportion will be higher for those that have WP articles.
 * Thirdly, the WP data needs checking frequently, particularly the MMSI, which is not a fixed number for the ship - if the flagging changes, so will the MMSI, and changes under the same flag also happen. Already the maintenance of a large number of ship articles leaves a lot to be desired.
 * A link to the MT page (normally using IMO only, and MMSI only where there is not IMO) in External Links would be the only appropriate place for this, if there is consensus in favour of including this info. Davidships (talk) 15:37, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting points made by Davidships. It raises issues unconnected with the idea of putting a link to a ship's current position at the top of an article, as is done for places in Coord. Is the MarineTraffic position significantly unreliable in practice? I'm not up-to-date on this. It also might be better if MMSI were dropped from the infobox if IMO number is available. Maybe also other material that might go out of date, but is likely to be up to date on MarineTraffic or other source provided in the article.


 * There's been comment here by people I believe to have expertise in ship matters. It would be interesting to find whether the general reader (of a general, not shipping, encyclopaedia) would be in favour of a clear link to location. I don't know where to ask the question. The expert will know that current position is available, and where; the general reader might have no idea that this is possible, and might want the information. My main concern is simply to make the general reader aware that position is available—a note at the top of the article is simply one way to achieve this; a note that clicking the IMO number will elicit the position is another. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I'd actually reverted its addition to Allure of the Seas a few days ago because I had no idea this was even a thing being discussed. As others have opined, I do not believe this has any place in an article, as it simply does not add any real value. Why do we need to know, in educational terms, what the location of an active vessel is? By its very nature its location is completely transient...if it is a museum ship or other mostly permanent fixture, we can use coord to show users its location. — Huntster (t @ c) 16:51, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Classification Society?
Would there be any point in adding a ship's Classification Society, distinct from the port of registry? E.g. I believe MV Viking Sea (2016) is registered in Bergen, Norway, flag Norway, but classified by Lloyd's Register (London). Pol098 (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's relevant information for the infobox. Personally, I prefer to include the information in the article body together with explanation of the class notation. Tupsumato (talk) 16:41, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

PAGE ]]) 18:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 20:08, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Many of the major classification societies are supported by ship register, which can be added to the "Identification" section of the infobox (see MS Liberty of the Seas for an example). --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK
 * Thanks. I was looking for something like de:Viking Sea; there's no sensible way I can find to include that information in MV Viking Sea (2016). Pol098 (talk) 17:24, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't have any objections per-se to adding such a field. Sounds like a reasonable idea. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK

For use with fictional ships?
I checked the archives on this, but didn't see anything: is there any precedent for using (or for NOT using) this template on an article about a fictional ship that has all of the characteristics of a real ship? I am thinking in particular of The Unicorn, a notable ship from a notable story. The current article has no infobox, but it certainly could be given one. I am hesitant to include such a template for an imaginary vessel, but then... Is there any reason why not?? Does anyone know? Thanks! KDS4444 (talk) 04:50, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Add "Coal capacity" to warship template
One of the limiting factors on range for coal-era ships was their coal capacity, so it should be in the infobox. Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  23:59, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The most important thing is their range, which is the only thing that should be in the infobox. Details like oil or coal capacity should be in the description as I've already gotten complaints that the infobox is too long. Remember that it's a summary, not a complete description.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with above. In ships built for exceptional capacity and range, it could be included in the "ship capacity" field. Otherwise, endurance and range will do. Tupsumato (talk) 09:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Help, please
Please can someone debug and improve the infobox, currently commented out, on RNLB Queen Victoria? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I added Template:Infobox ship begin, which was missing. See if that helps. - BilCat (talk) 17:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion about "ship class" templates
Regarding temples for ship classes (including all like submarines), is it possible to add something like:

 
 * Primary Users=
 * Operators=

like in warplanes templates to distunguish two different information. Just an idea. Mingus79 (talk) 10:14, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Help Please
I am trying to make a replica of this style on another wiki here: https://conquestofparadiserp.miraheze.org/wiki/Felipe_IV_(Ship) But as you can see its broken and I am not sure whats wrong with it. I contacted my host and they sent me here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.40.40.197 (talk)
 * The code produces a possibly invalid mix of hmtl and wikitext for table code. It's cleaned up by our MediaWiki installation, maybe because we have wgUseTidy set to true in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. If you start the table with  then it seems to display the infobox OK but also some stray code to the left, and I don't know whether the features of Infobox ship begin are activated. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:01, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Ship depth
Can anyone define what the "ship depth" parameter is supposed to represent. "Ship draught" is obviously the depth to which the vessel sinks, usually when fully loaded. Depth might be mast-to-keel distance? or something else? CalzGuy (talk) 11:42, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Ship depth is defined here.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:57, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * And here.
 * Kablammo (talk) 14:11, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

(ships) Ordered
I was looking at adding the parameter "Ordered" to the infobox for the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier. As per the template instructions, I added the following custom markup;
 * }}
 * Ordered:
 * 1
 * {{ Infobox ship class overview
 * Hide header=yes
 * Hide header=yes

...in between the "Total ships building=" and "Total ships planned=" parameters. It worked, adding the parameter "Ordered" with the number and ref, but it was then followed by a repeat of the "Class overview" header. So even though I added the "Hide header=yes" parameter, it did not hide the header. Capital ships like this can be on order for years, and are listed separately as such on various ship lists, so I figured this would be a worthwhile parameter to add to the infobox. Anyone know why the "hide header" function didn't work? Is there another way to add this parameter? Thanks - {{sup|the}} WOLF  child  21:58, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Because {{tlx|Infobox ship class overview}} did not have support for {{para|Hide header}}. Try again.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:31, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Cool. Thanks Ttm. - {{sup|the}} WOLF  child  01:37, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Flag on Hougoumont (ship)
Please can someone attend to the "malformed flag image" error message on Hougoumont (ship)? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Ship flag alignment
Hi, Shouldn't the flag be centered as opposed to left-aligned ? .... The current alignment makes the flag out of place if that makes sense, – Davey 2010 Talk 18:37, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Bold formatting on labels
Should the labels for the fields not be in bold to keep consistent with other pages, like here for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stu177 (talk • contribs) 08:28, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Display title documentation
This template interferes with placement of italic title and on articles, with no guidance for editors on what to do when error messages appear. See, for example, here. I'm lucky I know a (very) little bit about magic words, templates, and code, or I would never have figured this mess out. Either the interfering feature needs to be removed from the template, or at minimum the template documentation must be updated to address this situation. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 04:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I see error messages from time to time and have no idea how to fix them. Now some ship articles don't have italic titles because I can't get it to work... Tupsumato (talk) 06:56, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The title of the article given in that example should just be Katherine V anyway, not "Fishing tug Katherine V". Gatoclass (talk) 11:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This has also annoyed me. I have added it to the documentation.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_ship_begin/shared_doc&diff=856012792&oldid=851400577] PrimeHunter (talk) 08:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Link the "Displacement" title?
Ship displacement is complicated, at least for me. I think the template should link "displacement" to Displacement (ship). -Arch dude (talk) 17:06, 23 September 2018 (UTC)


 * We don't link anything in the infobox. Most people are not familiar with specialized nautical terminology, so if we linked displacement, we'd also have to link e.g. tonnage, tons burthen and ice class which are far more obscure concepts. Tupsumato (talk) 07:30, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Parameter question
We have "(Total ships) planned, building, completed and active as basic parameters. Once they're built they're listed as "completed", no longer under "buidling". Once they're commissioned/put into service, they're listed as "active", but still under "completed" as well. This creates a numbers problem, through duplication. Take the Independence-class littoral combat ship page for example ;
 * (This is as the article stands .)


 * Planned: 17
 * On order: 3
 * Building: 7
 * Completed: 7
 * Active: 7

Total is 24. This class does not, as of now, have 24 ships at any stage, starting with planning. Before planning, they simply don't exist at all, for our purposes.

Would it not be more accurate to list as; Total is 17... as it should be. "Planned" is the overall number and will always the highest number, regardless of the status/number of the othe parameters. This is the parameter the others should add up to.
 * Planned: 17
 * On order: 3
 * Building: 4
 * Completed: 3
 * Active: 7

Thoughts? - wolf  16:47, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So you're looking for some snippet of code to make sure that planned = ordered + building + completed + active? And then do what with that information?  Error message?  Category?  Something else?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:40, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No, just seeing if others agree. If there's a consensus for support, then I'll start adjusting the numbers wherever I find them in need of it. Maybe we can post something at wt:ships to let others know and then there'd be more fixing as well. (But, if there was a code that would do that automatically for all pages with this template, that would be cool tho'... ) Cheers - wolf  22:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Traditional ship registries do not treat 'Completed' as a ship status — it is a total count of ships for which construction was completed, not the number currently in a 'completed' status. Stated another way, the value of the 'completed' field goes up, but never goes down.  I would say "planned >= on order + building + active + cancelled + deactivated (lost, retired, etc.)", "planned >= on order + building + completed + cancelled", and "active + deactivated = completed". I used "planned >=" instead of "planned =" since a small number of articles adopt a planned count based on the majority of sources about the ship class documenting an original planning count value higher than the number ultimately ordered (i.e. an original planned count was announced and significant but subsequently reduced before orders were placed). —RP88 (talk) 12:16, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm open to suggestions. If the "completed" parameter is to remain fixed, perhaps the parameters needs to be re-arranged then? Planning is naturally at top, and essentially presents a total number. No ships are built unless they were planned, so that number should not be exceeded. The parameters that follow basically present a chronology of the ship's lifecycle from the planning stage; ordered-> building-> completed-> active. (As I said above, these are the basic parameters, but we can add "cancelled" and "retired" (or lost), etc., to that chronology as well.) The point is, at each stage, the number is adjusted as the ships progress to the next stage of their life cycle, and the stages, when added together, should reflect an accurate overall total. In the example I posted above, that is not the case. So I'm just gauging opinions for possible solutions. Cheers - wolf  13:38, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * makes the key point that the totality of these parameters are not mutually exclusive, nor meant to total to anything (though some subsets can be added); and reminds us that there are additional parameters in the menu. The menu comprises a mixture of "events" and "status".  To my mind:
 * planned comprises all those ordered (ie contracted) plus any intended but which didn't, yet, get that far;
 * ordered comprises all those actually completed or still subject to building contracts, plus any cancelled contracts;
 * completed comprises those with a status active/laid up/lost/retired/scrapped/preserved (I think that these six are meant to be mutually exclusive).
 * Nevertheless, if they are all intended to add up, then some of the parameters would have to be reworded, eg "planned but not contracted", "ordered but not started" and "completed" would have to be either dropped or only used in the absence of the six statuses. Davidships (talk) 19:03, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Why separate templates?
Howdy all, curious if anyone can shed some light on this. I'm curious as to why ship templates are broken up into multiple templates Infobox ship begin, Infobox ship image, Infobox ship career, etc as opposed to just being one template? Not pushing for any change here just curious. I know there are a few template series still out there like this but most have been converted over to a single template. Apart from the obvious pain of having to convert the template and then all the subsequent pages, is there a reason that this hasn't been done? I'm guessing there some history here that I'm not aware of so if anyone can clue me in that'd be awesome! -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 06:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Some ships need multiple Infobox ship career. Davidships (talk) 20:22, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * ^ This. Due to changes during a ship's lifetime, many details about a ship may change, so breaking these up allows for finer tuning. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:12, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Unnecessary complexity
, a naval architect, was a great asset to Wikipedia. Unfortunately (and like too many experts), he no longer edits and has had no substantive contributions for over a decade. When we were working on the prior version of the ship template, he cautioned against too much detail, and also stated that many fields would, as a practical matter, be unobtainable.

Unfortunately his advice was not taken. Now we have a variety of gargantuan templates with fields for every conceivable metric or or datum, most of which will never be filled. We are here to write articles, not aggregate every factoid we can find. And our articles would be much improved if we confined our infoboxes to the basics and relied on the article text to flesh out the story of the ship.

But it likely is too late for that-- we love to add detail, no matter how trivial (and those who do not feel comfortable in writing can thereby get satisfaction from contributing). But can we at least strive to simplify, rather than make things even more complex? Kablammo (talk) 19:51, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * While I'm inclined to agree that there are some potentially unnecessary fields, I'd like to know what other editors think as excessive or "unobtainable" detail in the infobox. Tupsumato (talk) 07:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Depth
The template contains a field for "hold depth" and one for "depth". The latter should be changed to "moulded depth", a similar but not identical metric. Or simply have one field only for depth, and let the editor specify which after the number, as we do with "tonnage". Kablammo (talk) 14:27, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Unnecessary detail, in my opinion. Depth is depth. Wouldn't we then need moulded beam as well? Hold depth is some archaic, specific term. Tupsumato (talk) 12:34, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that one field for depth is sufficient. But the infobox at SS Edmund Fitzgerald has figures for both metrics. I do not have access to the cited source.  Kablammo (talk) 12:41, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The FAC page for the article and the linked discussions on the article talk pages show the confusion between the type of "depth", and (as is common) between "depth" and "draft".  Kablammo (talk) 13:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If one is sufficient, which one? These insource: searches would seem to indicate that editors are roughly evenly divided when choosing between the two:
 * Ship hold depth 2,639
 * Ship depth 2,472
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:06, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I will defer to here, but I think in many if not most of these cases the editor did not know which was being used.  And the abbreviation "D" or "d" often used in sources does not specify (and of course is routinely confused with draught/draft).  Kablammo (talk) 13:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * (I have collected a few sources here: User:Kablammo/Draft:_Depth_of_hold_v._moulded_depth -- more for my education than as the basis for an article.  Kablammo (talk) 13:31, 23 February 2019 (UTC))
 * AFAIK hold depth is somehow related to Builder's Old Measurement but I admit I'm not a specialist in old measurement methods. However, I have never encountered it as a metric for modern ships whereas (moulded) depth to main deck is always given. Anyway, I'm stuck in the jungles of Southeast Asia (and continue to be so for the next two weeks) so I can't really research it further. Maybe ask the main project talk page from people more familiar with older ships? Tupsumato (talk) 06:34, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Designer?
Do we have anything to support a 'designer' field, as either an individual or a noteworthy office? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:34, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I can see a few problems with this, so I oppose having a separate field for it. The information can be included in the article body. Tupsumato (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Such as?  We could also limit any of the fields here to only being in the body. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:04, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Who gets to "claim" the design and how this information is verified? Tupsumato (talk) 16:45, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I have decided to clarify my point now that I'm at a computer instead of a smartphone. How do we identify the designer, knowing that multiple companies are typically involved at different stages of a ship design project (conceptual design, classification design, workshop drawing development...) and it's not uncommon for design offices to "claim" references to themselves, "forgetting" to mention the original designer in their press releases (which often become news articles that would then meet WP:RS). As for individuals, typically a project manager acts as the public figure even though there may be a separate lead naval architect or chief designer in the background. While the "true story" can sometimes be parsed together from multiple sources, it may be difficult to condensate such information in the infobox. Tupsumato (talk) 19:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * How we identify the designer is exactly the same as how we do anything: WP:RS and WP:V. For most cases there will not be any such person. However, in some cases there are. Those are the ones where it matters. We have articles on notable designers, such as Uffa Fox and Peter Du Cane. Are you saying that we shouldn't have such articles, because it's not possible to identify designers?  (Aircraft, cars and trains seem to manage.)  Andy Dingley (talk) 21:17, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I am against including such information in the infobox as it may be difficult to reliably identify a single designer (company or individual person) for ships and there is potential for edit warring as the designer is typically not identified in e.g. ship databases (one notable exception is if the vessel follows a standard design, such as SDARI 400OC); this information should be described in the article body where there is more space for clarification such as who was responsible for what stage. However, if a "designer" field is to be included in the infobox, I would propose setting guidelines such as only notable designers should be included (that is, designers notable enough for a standalone article) and if the vessel was designed by the shipyard that built it, the information should not be duplicated from the builder field. Tupsumato (talk) 13:51, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly not advocating adding a designer as standard, because in most cases it isn't significant and it's little more than the regular design office of the building yard.
 * Nor do I see it as necessary to codify your constraints here, as I'd just assume that editors would act reasonably. However if you think it does need to be stated as such, I wouldn't question that. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:02, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding the guidelines, I was referring to Template:Infobox ship begin/Usage guide which is supposed to improve the consistency of infobox content by giving clear instructions how to include the information in the fields. Tupsumato (talk) 14:09, 18 April 2019 (UTC)