User talk:Pedant/2004-11-24

I'm online for a bit 66.245.208.69 22:15, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My talk page was getting cluttered, and most of the discussions were concluded, but if we were in the middle of something, feel free to move the discussion back to this page from: User talk:Pedant/2004-11-19.

Archived Talk
Archive 1

soliciting advice
Anyone who has any advice on this, please advise me:

There are up to a dozen students between the ages of 6 and 15 who use this computer. I have allowed them to edit on my account, to avoid sockpuppet issues, but I think that it's time for at least some of them to actually make their own accounts. If they do, at least some of those accounts will be editing from my IP address, possibly only from my address, and I leave the computer connected for several days at a time, so it will definitely look like me. What is the most straightforward way to handle this without problems? (they will most often be editing with an adult in the room, not always, and they will certainly be reading my talk page). They will not be here until next week, Tuesday, and I'd like to have come to a decision by then. Thanks for any advice Pedant 19:11, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)


 * Have them create the accounts, and add to each user page that they share an IP with you, then add a list of those accounts to your page. IP matching only comes into play when somebody is pretending to be somebody else; if everybody already knows that the several accounts are using the same computer, the issue won't even come up (and you'll be the first to hear, should any of your students be tempted into vandalism :-) ). Stan 04:57, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Pedant 16:53, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

Naming_conventions

Nautilus
The text was from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships which is online at 1. They did indeed use OCR to scan the data in. Thanks for catching that one.

As for the category, please check the other ship categories and notice that typically index pages are used for ships with the same names, rather than categories. After all, how many "ships named Enterprise" would there be? Jinian 18:01, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nautilus
Nice additions to the Nautilus article, 2 things though, please don't remove this article from Category:Ships named Nautilus, as it was a ship named Nautilus. Also did you use Optical character recognition to scan this data in? Would you check this phrase: "arid after provisioning" is that not supposed to be "and after provisioning"? Anyway, good job de-stubbifying the article. Looks great.Pedant 17:57, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
 * sorry, I think I'm not understanding your comment on index pages, categories. Would you really explain that?  It seems like you're saying, well it seems like you are saying several different things and I'd rather ask you what you mean than try to interpret it, since you're online now.  Would you mind explaining it as if I am an idiot, so I'm sure I understand? thanksPedant
 * Okay, and I'll do it here so that we can have the conversation in one place.

Most information about the style of ships' pages can be found at WikiProject Ships. Index pages are discussed in section 2.1, but for brevity, it says ''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." '' So, instead of an article entitled "Ships named Nautilus", to be in line with what every other ship article in Wikipedia looks like, it would be "USS Nautilus" (Moving the current page to one with this title is now on my list of things to do, after I noticed the problem.) See USS Enterprise for an example of what a ship index page looks like. Then each ship goes into the proper category based on the type of ship it was/is (destroyer/sloop/aircraft carrier/gunboat/tug, whatever).
 * Hope this helps. Jinian 18:50, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Maybe WikiProject Ships needs some discussion, however, Ships named Nautilus is not a part of WikiProject Ships, and I think that WikiProject Ships needs some attention regarding systemic American-centric bias, if every ship is supposed to be listed under the designation "USS". Pedant.


 * One, Ships named Nautilus is not intended to be an index page, it is about all ships named Nautilus.  Pedant


 * Fine, but it's pretty redundant with the individual ships' pages.[unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * No, it is not redundant. Several of those ships pages are merely copied from Ships named Nautilus.  USS Nautilus is not a likely page for me to look for HMS Nautilus or Nautilus (Fulton) -- neither of which are or ever were referred to as "USS Nautilus", or or USS O-12 (SS-73) which was USS Nautilus, but was not originally named Nautilus. Pedant


 * Two, not all ships named Nautilus were US ships.  Pedant


 * Your point? [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * My point is that USS is a designation for United States ships. USS is not the designation for other nation's ships, nor for merchant ships, nor fictional ships. Pedant


 * Three, not all ships named Nautilus that were US ships were Navy ships.  Pedant


 * Yes? [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * No. USS is a US naval designation, generally. Pedant


 * Four, not all ships that were Navy ships with the name Nautilus were named USS Nautilus. Please do not move Ships named Nautilus to USS Nautilus. Pedant


 * I was planning to break it into several pages, to properly disambig it. Obviously it's not as easy as just moving it, which is why I didn't just do it.  [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * You "didn't do it because it wasn't easy". You actually said that? Then you say, 'to properly disambig it', but there is no ambiguity in the article whatsoever.  Ships named Nautilus is not a disambiguation article, but it serves the function of one far better than USS Nautilus, as it has a broader scope, and disambiguation articles should have the broadest scope possible.  Pedant


 * USS Enterprise is not the name of HMS Enterprise, however, HMS Enterprise is a "Ship named Enterprise. Pedant
 * And therefore has it's own page. [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * Lots of pages actually, the point of categorisation is to simplify searching and cross referencing... how would you navigate from HMS Enterprize (1709) to USS Enterprise (1799)? Pedant


 * Five, Ships named Nautilus is not as you term it, a problem. It was written by 2 experts on the name Nautilus, the Officer-in-charge of the Historic ship Nautilus, and the curator of the United States Naval Submarine Force Museum, Groton, Connecticut.Pedant


 * It's completely different format and structure than every other page about ships on Wikipedia. That's the problem, not the text. [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * It's not about ships. Its about the naval history of the name Nautilus in fiction and the real world.  Pedant


 * Six, There are however problems with USS Nautilus, it contains innaccurate data and weasel words as presently written.Pedant
 * Fix it then. [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * I don't intend to. I had 'fixed' it by changing it to a redirect.  However, you pointed out that the structure that is in common use at this point is to have an article with that title.  So I reverted to the earlier version.  It doesn't however serve the purpose of, or have the scope of the article Ships named Nautilus.  It links to less pages.  I don't think the article serves the purpose it's intended to, as disambiguation pages should have the broadest scope possible.Pedant


 * Seven, These two articles are separate articles each of whose existence does not depend on the other's.Pedant
 * Huh? [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * Ships named Nautilus is a good article and is accurate, NPOV, has room for expansion and serves a purpose. USS Nautilus does not adequately serve the purpose it is intended to, and because of its name, is limited in scope, and can never adequately replace Ships named Nautilus.  Except for it being as you say: "in line with what every other ship article in Wikipedia looks like" USS Nautilus is an inferior article, in terms of scope only, ie, every fact in USS Nautilus, can be (and probably is) in Ships named Nautilus, but the same does not hold true in reverse.  HMS Nautilus, Captain Nemo's Nautilus, and USS O-12 (SS-73) are not likely to be looked for at USS Nautilus


 * Eight, there are more than one ways to categorize articles: articles and categories may be part of more than one categorization scheme. If you were going to look up for example the Nautilus whose keel was laid down in 1916, you can go to Category:Ships>Category:Ships by name>Category:Ships named Nautilus>Ships named NautilusPedant 21:36, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
 * This is the only category in the "ships by name" category. Look for my request to delete it and make your case to the community on that page. Jinian 19:50, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC) [unsigned comment User:Jinian]
 * It is not the only category in Category:Ships by name. You listed it for deletion while I was still populating it. I won't be doing any work on any categories until we get this straightened out.Pedant 21:36, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification
Thanks. So the Lady Washington wasn't ever the USS Lady Washington? Did you find some reference where she was referred to as the USS Lady Washington? That's the one question I asked several times. If you did, where was that reference? Thanks again.Pedant 16:41, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
 * No, there is no reference for her as "USS Lady Washington". The article is titled that to be in line with the naming conventions of ships in Wikipedia, which I thought I had referred you to earlier. The prefix clarifies that she was a ship of the United States (even though it was before there was a United States). US ships didn't carry the appellation of "USS" until 1909. However, in Wikipedia, we use "USS" in the title of any ship that served in the United States Navy or Continental Navy. Jinian 16:58, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I disagree that "in Wikipedia, we use "USS" in the title of any ship that served in the United States Navy or Continental Navy" I think you are mistaken as to the convention: using your reference: Naming conventions "Convention: Articles about ships that have standard prefixes should include them in the article title; for example, HMS Ark Royal, USS Enterprise."


 * It does not say ships that don't have standard prefixes should have them added whether or not that is accurate. This is about the article title of an article about a ship.


 * That reference also points to this reference reference as being for "Rationale and specifics:" (Naming conventions (ships)) includes"


 * "Some authors use invented prefixes for consistency with "USS", "HMS" etc. It's not a mistake to do that, but at Wikipedia we choose not."


 * It says at wikipedia we choose not to use invented prefixes. (like calling a ship USS Something when it was never USS anything)

and


 * "Make an index page that lists all the ships with a name:


 * USS Enterprise lists eight Enterprises
 * HMS Vanguard lists ten Vanguards"


 * It says that an index page should "list all ships with the same name", not "all ships from one navy listed under an invented prefix", it says all ships.

So what I get from that is that
 * There should be a list of all ships with the same name.
 * Invented prefixes are not used by those following the ship article naming conventions.
 * There is no mention that "an article about the naval history of an oft-used ship's name is a bad thing". (or anything close to that)

comments welcome. Pedant 17:36, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

(You have to interpret the naming convention in the light of its practical application, and not in a legalistic fashion. I didn't write it for interpretation by a court, but by sensible people.) Re "USS Lady Washington": We have a convention at Wikipedia of putting ship prefixes in article titles for ships that historically weren't always referred to with that prefix. For example, "HMS" was first used in the late 18th century, but we still have articles like HMS Royal Charles (1655). This is because (1) it makes it simple to title the article; (2) avoids the many disputes that would arise when there is doubt over how the ship was named by its contemporaries; (3) Royal Charles was His Majesty's Ship, so the title is right. In the case of Lady Washington if we disallowed "USS" because of the anachronism we would probably call the article "United States Ship Lady Washington". But then why not abbreviate that rather cumbersome name to "USS Lady Washington"? Gdr 20:30, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)


 * I am a sensible person, and my reading of the project page in no way led me to an understanding that using the misnomer prefix was the standard way of doing things, in any case. If it has become the custom to do so, it should be discussed on the project page to avoid misunderstandings, and also to allow a real consensus process to occur, as I am sure the wikipedia community at large would like to know why one project has taken it on itself to subvert the established policies of the wikipedia in general.  (in other words it looks to be a contravention of the clearly stated wikipedia conventions regarding disambiguation, that has been done in secret, by a subset of editors) Pedant


 * Remember, Lady Washington was thrown in my face as being proof that the category "Ships named Nautilus" was bad, because there "was only ever one" Lady Washington which is demonstrably untrue, at a mere glance. And so we use USS Lady Washington as a disambiguation for all the other ships also not named USS Lady Washington as well? Including ships that are not and never were United States ships? Why is this better than Lady Washington or Lady Washington (disambiguation?... but then I didn't bring up the subject of Lady Washington.  Pedant


 * And my point is not to remove or to replace USS Nautilus. Regarding USS Nautilus, I'm not trying to delete or complain about USS Nautilus at all! I just don't think redirecting Ships named Nautilus to USS Nautilus is appropriate or defensible, Ships named Nautilus has more content than and is more accurate than USS Nautilus, and I'm quite certain the convention is not to delete information in this way. And as I have said before, Ships named Nautilusis not a disambiguation page, and does not duplicate any other page.  Pedant


 * ...regarding the Category:Ships named Nautilus, I just noted how very difficult it was to find the other articles in the Nautilus series, while reading one of the articles. (try looking at the wikipedia from an end-user perspective)...Pedant

I think I'm responsible for at least one generation of the "list all ships" phrase, and at the time it seemed so obvious that it meant ships of a particular navy that I didn't even think to state that specifically. In practice, the most common situation needing disambiguation is an "HMS Enterprise" reference; the next most common might be Enterprise, which you can see is already a disambig that includes HMS and USS forms as "sub-disambiguators". In any case, we now have hundreds if not thousands of articles following the per-navy convention; anybody who wants us to change conventions should at the very least sign up to change them all, so things continue to be consistent. As to whether ships named Enterprise is a worthwhile article in its own right, that is to some extent a matter of taste. Having read thousands of ship histories now, it seems pretty rare that there's any real significance to the reuse of names; it would be like having a narrative article for people named John Smith. Stan 23:24, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * regardless of who said 'list all ships', think about the case of someone knowing the name of the Nautilus, but not knowing what navy it was in. And besides, the general wikipedia convention is to disambiguate -- on one page -- all occurences of an ambiguity.  What reasoning is there to contravene this policy?  How is it helpful to the reader? Pedant

"Having read thousands of ship histories now, it seems pretty rare that there's any real significance to the reuse of names; it would be like having a narrative article for people named John Smith"


 * I agree that it is rare to have a name that has a long tradition associated with it. However, Nautilus is one of those rarities, a ship of that name is visited by a quarter million people each year, and the name is associated with Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Fulton, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jules Verne, Edward Preble, the first submarine, the first fictional submarine, the first nuclear submarine, the first submerged traversal of the polar icecap, the Notrh Pole and polar exploration, Ancient GreeceWar of 1812, Battle of Midway, Nuclear power, a ship with that name won Presidential Unit Citation, the highest decoration for a US naval vessel, and the first to be awarded in peace time... etc. I disagree that this is like people named John Smith".  Pedant


 * and the microcategory Ships by name is intended ONLY for ships whose name is so common as to have a dozen articles with similar names, such as Enterprise and other exceptions to the "John Smith is not notable rule" Pedant

The use of "USS" for Continental ships has been troubling me for some time. There was a statute (turn-of-the-century?) that changed the old USF etc to USS for all vessels; it's possible that the fine print made "USS" officially retroactive for Continental Navy vessels. Many sources don't even use prefixes, but they also don't do hyperlinking on our scale, which makes it a problem unique to WP. I'm certainly interested in the evidence for and against using "USS", and how alternatives would handle the existing body of articles, plus how to inform future editors what they should do. In any case, we should continue on the project and/or naming conventions talk pages, that's why they exist (individual users clean up their talk pages, so not the best place to have an on-the-record debate). Stan 23:39, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Changing things
I see you're pretty new here, but have already gotten embroiled in a bit of a fight. Sorry about that! In the couple of years that WP has been around, we've evolved a number of conventions intended to facilitate construction of the encyclopedia, and to reduce the number of disputes. Almost no one is totally happy with the body of standards and policy, but they support it as an alternative to incessant arguing about the same old things. So if you wade in, tell the oldtimers how they're all wrong, and start doing things in a completely different way, you're not going to get a positive reaction. It would work better to spend your time asking people why things are the way they are first, and fixing existing articles rather than leaving them with mistakes, and creating new articles that duplicate much content. I welcome your ideas and am pleased to have another person interested in naval things, so let's see if we can get started off on the right foot. Stan 02:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, I see, you have been around WP for awhile. In that case I'm puzzled by your behavior with respect to ship articles; you're presumably familiar with the existing consensus for naming and content, and proposed changes are worked on at WikiProject Ships - in fact there are several ongoing debates there, for which I and others have been doing library research before committing to changing lots of articles - but yet you silently chose to work at cross-purposes to that consensus. You see from the recent edit history of ships named Nautilus that it's going to be hard to defend the article from random editors who simply follow the guidelines that they see written down somewhere. That for me is the real underlying reason to develop consensus and rationale for an idea; while you're working on water heater and I'm pruning shrubs, we want other editors to agree with our additions and improve on them, rather than messing them up. Stan 04:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"categories deleted before they could even be populated" - heh, that's happened to me a couple times, it is very annoying! I think one thing that gets a bad reaction is that you do things like characterize "USS Nautilus" as "flawed at it's premise" - the dozen-odd people who've worked a lot on naval articles pride themselves on seeking for accuracy, and you come off as dissing them en masse. When I've done research on ship prefixes and their usage, I've found that it's been very inconsistent - authors are all over the place, navies report their current usage and profess ignorance that it was different in the past, etc. That's why it would have been better to bring it up at the project page first; while you make some good points, I think other editors are apprehensive of the potential for chaos, especially if you're not signing up to fix the hundreds of articles and thousands of links that would be affected. Stan 05:31, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

When I see an article that seem drastically wrong in some way, or inconsistent project rules, but the edit histories shows that a number of people active in the topic must have reviewed and accepted them in that form, I assume that there's a underlying reason and ask on talk pages first. Frequently my questions get other people to realize their mistakes, and they jump to fix the problem - everybody wins. Stan 17:00, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * again, I didn't set out to get embroiled in a debate on disambiguation, I just added an article and a couple of useful categories. All I'm really interested in discussing along these lines is:


 * As long as we're talking about what you've done. As I recall, and as the history page shows, you redirected the disambig page USS Nautilus to Ships named Nautilus. Otherwise I would have never even stumbled upon your work. Thanks for changing it back, by the way. Not trying to by nasty or rude, just trying to ensure that we're all clear that I don't troll the 'pedia for people to attack. Jinian 00:35, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * What is wrong with adding an article on the history of a name?
 * How do the new categories harm or impede the wikipedia.


 * as these reflect on things that I have done.


 * I specifically am not inclined to be interested in Lady Washington or The name John Smith any other red herrings thrown in my path that distract from the present discussion on the above two topics. Telling me that Ships named Nautilus is bad because Ships named Lady Washington would be bad is a non sequitur, I didn't create Ships named Lady Washington.  Bringing up Lady Washington or John Smith is like saying "Dogs on a leash is a bad idea because there are so many ducks that won't tolerate wearing a collar".  Pedant


 * I am only peripherally interested in USS Something and the ship project's apparently different-from-wikipedia-in-general policy on disambiguation pages, and only because it slightly relates to the above two topics. Pedant


 * Anything that doesn't bear on articles I've written, proposed or edited, or categories I've added, populated, proposed or deleted, really doesn't bear on me personally and should be discussed as you suggest, on the talk page of the article in question. There's only so much I can do.  Once topics directly bearing on me have been resolved, perhaps I will have some time to suggest improvements in other areas.Pedant


 * I'll leave this full discussion here, until the issues above are resolved, or there is no discussion, and anyone is welcome to copy text to or from this page that bears on the discussion, no matter how cluttered the page gets.Pedant


 * If any one editor who is a participant listed on the Ships Project page tells me to just stop adding anything that relates to seagoing vessels at all, to just entirely butt out, I'll do so. I have other things to work on.  However, if any of the participants do tell me to butt out, I will require a group consensus and invitation before I add anything more to anything that might impinge on the project.Pedant 17:58, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)


 * Speaking for myself, I don't want you to butt out, I just want you to work with the rest of us. Stan 07:08, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't want you to butt out either, but I'd prefer we discuss relevant issues. If you don't like the way we've done things, recommend a change on the projects page. I'm going to stop discussing abuptly again, since I don't care to spend me time on this types of interactions. Jinian 11:44, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I didn't even know that we were doing things like putting false information into articles, until you told me that was the way "we" do it. The project page says nothing near the way you say that we do things.  I don't think discussing it on the project page is going to do any good, since no matter how many times I refer you to the pertinent part of the project page, you persist in saying that the Ships Project does things differently from the entire rest of the wikipedia, although I see no evidence to that effect. The Ships Project page has what seems to me to be correct instructions on classifying ships, but apparently you and perhaps several others have developed your own custom of doing things your own way, without any reference to either the Ships Project page or wikipedia guidelines.  I think that this maybe needs to be brought out into the open, in the community at large, as it seems to be a dirty little secret some subset of the community has foisted upon the wikipedia. You have never pointed me to anything on that page that says that ships that are not USS ships are to be called "USS" or that disambiguation pages for ships should start with "USS".  If that's the way "we"''' do things, I can't in good consciensce participate in it.  I'm intend to gather more information and submit this for a Request for Comments.

Pedant 22:38, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

MacGyverMagic for adminship
I've decided to take the plunge and self-nominate for adminship to make the work I do a lot easier. Please head over to Requests_for_adminship and let your voice be heard. There's no hard feelings if you oppose, just make sure you let me know how I can improve. -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 10:38, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)