User talk:TomTheHand: Difference between revisions

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List of German battleships

I posed a question relating to the Gneisenau class on the talk page, and I'd like your thoughts, please. Thanks. Parsecboy 17:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

ASSessment

Ooops, thanks for catching [1] my dumb ASSessment mistake. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Haha, no problem. I was just doing stuff like making sure all the featured and good articles have importance ratings, and making sure NA-class stuff had an NA-importance and vice-versa. TomTheHand 02:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

SSC

excuse the 'it is' comment, i was in the middle of typing " it is road legal, it was tested as fully road legal, for the UK site pistonheads " but I hit return a little too early. I didnt want you to think i was being arrogant/rude.Sennen goroshi 16:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

knots and nautical miles

Tom, I'm not sure whether you consider this matter closed, but it's certainly gone quiet. You will have noticed the changes I made to knot (speed) and to nautical mile. Until you give me the nod I will leave the SHIPS articles as they are in this regard, but unless you ask me not to I plan to tackle some aircraft articles. [I have made a start with Boeing 747 :)]. Thunderbird2 21:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I wish the discussion could have reached a definite conclusion, but my last post to the topic was to say that I'm alright with using nmi if everyone else is. I've used it a couple of times already, though I've also used nm because I often copy and paste from old edits I've made. I'm going to try to use nmi more in the future. Please continue to edit ship articles if you want and use nmi. TomTheHand 21:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My edits on aircraft pages have sparked this discussion. Just thought you may be interested :) Thunderbird2 16:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In Reference to Whitest Kids U' Know: The Skits

I checked the site you refered to, however, if you'll check again, I believe you'll notice that the track info matches the atricle Whitest Kids U' Know (album), and not the afore mentioned "Skits". I believe the Skits article is an inaccurate double of the Album article. Also, the Album article is the one linked on the Whitest Kids U'Know. I'm still a little unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Wikidom. Should I instead purpose the two be merged? I appreciate any help on this matter.

---Leodmacleod - 10:23 24-09-07 (UTC)

A merge would be a better idea, or a regular "Articles for Deletion" discussion, which is the usual way of deciding whether or not an article should be deleted. Articles are only immediately deleted for a very specific set of reasons. On the site, I was referring to this page, which is the set of tracks referred to in Whitest Kids U' Know: The Skits. TomTheHand 22:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Stumped by a template

Could you take a look at {{WikiProject Ships}} for me? I tried to shift it from Category:WikiProject Ships to Category:WikiProject Ships templates by updating the specified line in {{WikiProject Ships/doc}}, however it is not working as expected. While the banner template looks like it is now a member of Category:WikiProject Ships templates, it is actually showing up as a member of the parent Category:WikiProject Ships. --Kralizec! (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I can't figure it out either :-/ TomTheHand 02:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

CNS Almirante Lynch (1913)

Hi Tom, hope you are keeping well. I've been moving a few Chilean ships about, in that they were being disambiguated by their type (e.g. CNS Almirante Lynch (destroyer)) rather than year of launch (since the pennant number is not known). The user seems to have got the wrong end of the stick, and has moved this from CNS Almirante Lynch (1912) to CNS Almirante Lynch (1913), thinking that we disambigute by year of commissioning. I've dropped a note correcting him on this, but could you move the page back over the redirect? Thanks, --Benea 12:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Just FYI, moving over a redirect is trivial. If the creation of the redirect is the only thing in the page's history, it works the same way as any other move. However, after you commented on Mel's talk page, he copied and pasted the content from CNS Almirante Lynch (1913) to CNS Almirante Lynch (1912) and made CNS Almirante Lynch (1913) a redirect, thus making it necessary for an admin to fix the mess and make sure the page histories were in the proper places :-P TomTheHand 13:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I wondered that too. The user who has made the changes from 'Chilean battleship such-and-such' to 'CNS such-and-such' has done so with the explanation 'To standardize CNS denomination in current use by Chilean Navy)'. The Chilean Navy is called the 'Armada de Chile', so I can't really see why they would be using the prefix 'Chilean Navy Ship', and as you say, there really isn't any evidence so far for it. It seems more likely that this user is trying to work in a chilean specific version of HMS/USS in good faith, but it does go against our conventions. Benea 18:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The prefix CNS is not real. Saludos --190.44.8.241 19:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC) (Carrilano from es.wikipedia)

Thank you! We'll change the articles back soon. TomTheHand 20:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Several of these articles were apparently moved back to their "fake" CNS names on 12/10. I have re-re-moved them back to their WP:NC-SHIP-compliant names. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

good character

Your apology in the RFCU which showed that a user was unrelated is a very kind note! Most people don't have the courtesy to do that. After all, a RFCU may be possibly interpreted as "I think you're a thief and a bum". Archtransit 15:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the compliment. I have been involved with blocking Copperchair and his sockpuppets for some time now, but he is getting harder to find each time. This is my first false accusation and I feel guilty about it. I had a good track record in the past and will try to be more sure in the future before launching an RFCU. TomTheHand 16:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Happy Birthday, secret agent man

What is this deceit? We had an hour-long conversation yesterday and you never let on that it was your birthday? I had to go to the lengths of accidentally clicking on your User page history instead of discussion to discover this willfully withheld fact!

Hope you had a good day, in spite of my snarking :) Maralia 15:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and the real reason I was coming here: in {{DANFS}}, could you add a space between the "old" content and the "new" sentence? Thanks! Maralia 15:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, sorry about that ;-) My birthday was actually on Sunday. As far as the template goes, there's already a space between the first sentence and the second, but the combination of italicized and non-italicized text makes it look really small. The space is inside the "if" statement, because I only wanted a space to appear if you supplied a link. Adding more spaces won't help the issue, because Wikipedia trims extras. I could use a pair of non-breaking spaces to force some extra room, but... they'd be non-breaking, which isn't a big deal but isn't actually desirable. What do you think? TomTheHand 15:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally wrong. There's no space in there. Give me a few minutes to figure this out. TomTheHand 15:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, got it. And figured out how to insert extra spaces that aren't non-breaking. Err, are breaking. Check it out now. TomTheHand 15:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Speedy speedy! Looks good, thanks. Maralia 15:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62)

Tom: Would you put on your admin hat and look at Special:Contributions/TheTruthDude and especially the edits to the page titled above? The user is a single-purpose account insistent on adding disturbing gossip to the ship's page and has taken to task an IP user who reverted it. I did not go to AIV as full warnings have not been given, but I'm not sure they're needed for a block given the nature of the edits made. Thanks. Kablammo 18:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've left a note and I'll keep an eye on the situation. TomTheHand 18:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Now fully protected. And thanks for the help on SS Christopher Columbus. Kablammo 17:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, some proselytizing on that article last night caused me to dig through its history; 'disturbing' is right. I pointed User:Neil at it this morning and he's cleaned up spurious edits and blocked the users/IPs involved. Maralia 18:08, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Woops

Didn't know we couldn't do redirects to user pages. Thanks for the info. ShinraiTS4 20:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Date links

Thanks Tom, but someone told me the exact opposite a couple of weeks ago - that all dates should be linked throughout articles. I haven't done that, but I do link all first occurences of a particular date, month and year.

I may have made a few errors in my recent spate of wikilinking tho, because quite frankly it's a rather labour intensive job and I had a lot of articles to get through. I figured it wouldn't matter a whole lot if I accidently made a couple of repeat links. I will probably be doing more cleanup on these articles eventually anyhow, so even if no-one else fixes it, I probably will. I'm a perfectionist ya know :)

Since you've brought up the question though, I am now a bit confused as to the prevailing guideline on this. Can you point me to the appropriate page? Because what you're saying is the exact opposite of what I was told, so I'd like to find out who is right. Regards, Gatoclass 17:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: Okay I've checked the guidelines and the date link guideline says there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a year) should be abandoned, although most Wikipedians disfavour that habit currently.

Since there is no consensus, it is really up to individual preference whether or not one links to year dates. I don't think there's any harm linking to years the first time the year occurs. However, the guideline also says one shouldn't link to months, so I might avoid doing that from now on. Also I'm not sure if I was linking more than once to years as I was previously told was the right thing to do, but if I did I will avoid doing so from now on. Thanks for the heads up. Gatoclass 18:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

In my post on your talk page, I provided you with a link to the relevant section of the Manual of Style for Dates and Numbers, which deals specifically and in detail with the date issue and says that years should only be linked if it really helps the reader to understand the topic. The guideline that you read is rarely updated, especially by comparison with the MoS for Dates and Numbers, and is out of date. Whoever told you that all years should be linked is absolutely incorrect, though all month + day and all month + day + year combinations should be linked (even if they appear more than once) so that they format properly. Please definitely don't link to months; it doesn't help someone's understanding of HMS Smiter (D55) to be able to go read about November. TomTheHand 18:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

doesn't help someone's understanding of HMS Smiter (D55) to be able to go read about November.

Look, I totally agree with you about that in principle, in fact I have always been totally mystified as to the reasons for date linking at all. When I first began to use Wikipedia, it took me quite a while to figure out the date wikilinks I was clicking on provided no information whatsoever on the topic in hand, and I found it quite irritating.

However, date wikilinks are a standard feature on Wiki and the question then is one of consistency. I see no reason why month + date + year strings should be wikilinked but standalone years should not be. It simply doesn't make any sense. The guideline gives qualified support for year wikilinking (your assertion that it is "out of date" notwithstanding) so it's a matter of user preference whether or not years are wikilinked, and I prefer to link them for the sake of consistency.

Also, as it happens, while I think wikilinks for individual dates are perfectly useless, year wikilinks are actually quite useful because they give you an overview of events that occurred around the immediate event in question, through which that event can be contextualized. So I think there's a very good reason for including them, particularly in articles relating to war. I have actually found year wikilinks on a number of occasions to be extremely useful, so I intend to continue linking them.

However, as I said I will no longer be wikilinking standalone months and I will no longer be repeat linking years. It was actually an admin who told me all dates throughout an article should be wikilinked, so I assumed that was correct and didn't check the guidelines first, which is what I usually do. That was obviously was mistake, and unfortunately it means I will now have to go back through a substantial number of recently wikified articles to remove the excess links. Gatoclass 06:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

In your preferences, there's a tab for "Date and time" where you can choose one of four date formats. Month + day and month + day + year combinations which are wikilinked will be automatically displayed in the format of your choice. That's why all month + day and month + day + year combos should be linked. It has nothing to do with letting people read about October 27; it's so that I can see "October 27" and someone in Europe can see "27 October".

Per the guideline, if a link to a year really helps a reader understand a topic, it should be linked, so please continue to link years when there's a good reason to do so. However, linking every year on principle is against linking guidelines. Feel free to discuss it with the folks at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). TomTheHand 14:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so that's why they are linked! Thanks for the info, that had me completely mystified. But I must say that if day + month or day + month + year must all be linked, then it would only seem sensible to wikilink all the standalone year links as well for consistency. So we're sort of back to where we started :) Gatoclass 15:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Depth

It looks like depth of hold in a man-o-war (or in a merchant ship) and moulded depth (depth) are different figures. [2] (under Depth, Moulded). Two template fields may be needed. Regards, Kablammo 14:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't actually able to find the specific form of "depth" that I had seen for warships, so I'm just going to add "depth" and people can specify something more specific in the text field. TomTheHand 18:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. I'm sorry about the delay. I've had a very, very disorganized week. TomTheHand 21:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Ship Career

Hello,

Do you think that it would be possible to have a field "namesake" in Template:Infobox Ship Career like in Template:Infobox Ship ?

Cheers ! Rama 13:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that template isn't categorized for WPSHIPS - Tom, can you add that? I don't want to mess with a multiple-part template. Thanks. Maralia 14:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added the namesake field. Let me ponder on the categorization issue for a bit, because it seems to me that I really ought to do something along the lines of the /doc subpages that so many other templates use these days, and I should incorporate the categories into that. TomTheHand 21:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Category Ships by Navy

Hi Tom, I notice you've taken an interest in ship categories before, in this discussion you started last year.

I've just noticed over the last couple of days what appears to be major problems with ship categorization, with not only a lot of duplication between Category:Ships by navy and Category:Naval ships by country, (under the "Ships by country" cat) but also a lot of gaps. Essentially, these two cats are trying to list the same thing, and the result is that there are now essentially two separate "universes" whereby some users are contributing ships to one universe and some are contributing to the other.

Basically, I'm thinking that the whole "Ships by navy" master category should go, it's not only duplicating the subcat Category:Naval ships by country but it's also a pretty awful mess with all kinds of nonstandard miscellaneous listings within itself. I started a discussion on Wikiproject ships which you can find here if you'd like to participate. Gatoclass 04:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's WikiProject Military History, not WikiProject Ships, which may be a better place for the discussion. Anyway, I agree with you completely, but enough people don't that nothing will get done. Believe me, I've tried. If you put anything up on CFD, let me know and I'll vote to merge, but that's about all I can offer you. Dual categorization is a long-standing compromise. TomTheHand 10:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. Naturally, for a major change like this, I want to try and organize some support for it first, there's no point in getting halfway through the job and then finding someone objects. So I think some sort of consensus would be helpful first. Any chance you could point me to earlier discussions you've had on this topic where you tried and failed? I'd like to read what the previous objections have been and so on. Gatoclass 12:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to dig them up. Give me a few hours. Sorry I'm not very enthusiastic, but I'm kind of disheartened about the whole thing. You do have my support. TomTheHand 12:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_29#Category:Cruisers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive03#Rationalizing_ship_categories
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Problems_with_Ships_by_Country
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Royal_Navy_battlecruisers
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Royal_Navy_destroyers_to_Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_Kingdom
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_States_Navy_to_Category:Destroyers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_17#Category:Chilean_Navy_ships_to_Category:Naval_ships_of_Chile
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_17#Category:United_States_Navy_aircraft_carriers_to_Category:Aircraft_carriers_of_the_United_States
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Category_merges.2Frenames.2Fdeletions
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Further_discussion_on_categorization_of_Category:Ships_by_country
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Naming_navy_categories
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#Proposal_for_ship_categorization
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive_11#Category_confusion
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Maritime_warfare_task_force#Which_set_of_categories.3F

Well, at least no-one can accuse you of not trying :)

Thanks for taking the trouble, I will work my through those a little later. Gatoclass 14:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Those are by no means all cases when I've argued passionately for the abolition of navy categories ;-) They're just a bunch of times the topic has come up, from lengthy discussions to CFD debates to short little incidents when people say "Why are there both country and navy cats?" and I say "Because we can't make up our minds!"

I don't think the pro-navy category crowd ever really wants to get into a debate about it, because they don't want country categories removed, they just don't want people to delete the navy ones. They've tended to just briefly say where they stand and then vote in CFDs, and there's more than enough people strongly against deleting navy categories to make any CFD close as "no consensus". TomTheHand 21:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I read through those, but I found it rather hard to figure out exactly what the objections were. And in fact I didn't see that much in the way of objections.

It looks to me as though you did make some progress but then got sick of trying at a certain point, which is understandable. But maybe it's time to try again? Wiki is constantly evolving, experience is gained and consensus changes, so perhaps there will be less resistance now.

One minor point I noted as I went is that I very much disagree with the "Unique" label for classes with only one ship or ex-class ships, because "unique" is a totally misleading label that leads one to the assumption there is something special about these ships. I think "Miscellaneous class" would be a much more suitable term for such vessels. Gatoclass 02:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, essentially, I proposed the merger and we discussed it a little. Several people were for it, so I posted some merges on CFD, and they got slapped down hard. Then I tried to discuss it with the people who opposed it, and there was no real back-and-forth, just flat-out opposition to touching the navy cats. Honestly, I imagine you're going to run into the same thing. Note that there really aren't any people arguing with you on your post at MILHIST. However, if you try to propose a merge on CFD, I guarantee people will come out of the woodwork to oppose.

I didn't and don't especially like the term "unique", but "miscellaneous class" makes no sense, because it implies that they have a class, which they don't. "Unique" is short and sweet, while "Ships that are not a member of a class" is rather long-winded :-) I wouldn't be opposed to a change if you can come up with something better, but I strongly prefer "unique ships" to "miscellaneous class". TomTheHand 03:23, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd argue that a ship with no class is a miscellaneous class ship. That's how such ships are listed at Navsource and similar sites, I see no reason why we can't do the same here. But as I said, that's a minor issue.

As for the Navy thing, I'm now thinking that maybe it would be better just to get all the missing categories into the "Ships by country" category first. Maybe then we can open a debate about what to do with the Navy cat. Because my chief concern is that users have a complete tree that is viable, at the moment we have two trees that are both only half finished and that I think is the main problem. Gatoclass 06:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the 'unique' cat name - I do not interpret it to mean 'special' but rather the only one. This is consistent with the first meaning given on wiktionary, as well as the French and Latin from which it is derived. Maralia 14:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think filling out the Ships by Country category is an awesome idea. I myself am kinda-sorta still working on that project, but the thing is, as time has passed I've found more and more things to do to each article I touch. I used to spend about five seconds on each article, adding categories. Now I spend five to ten minutes making assorted fixes, and my attention span isn't long enough to keep that up for an extended period. I should probably switch back to straight categorization for a while, just to get a bunch of stuff done, and go back to detail work later.

WP:SHIPS has a categorization guideline: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Categorization Here are some important points:

• These days, we prefer to put a country (or navy) category on the class category, if possible. Therefore, Category:Submarines of the United States belongs on Category:Gato class submarines, and not on USS Gato (SS-212). If you find a country or navy category on the class cat, and also on the individual ship article, feel free to remove it from the ship article.
• However! If a ship was sold to another navy (like USS Barb (SS-220) was sold to Italy), the country cat (Category:Submarines of Italy) needs to go on the individual ship article, and not on the class category.

TomTheHand 14:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think they were part of the rules you yourself worked out, weren't they? Actually, that's partly why I decided that eliminating the "ships by navy" cat is perhaps not so urgent. I was initially very concerned that, for example, every US Destroyer was going to end up with a "Destroyers of the United States Navy" cat alongside a "Destroyers of the United States" tagged alongside it, which can only bamboozle users. I think it's a little less glaring a problem when those categories occur one step higher in the tree. Also since ships are basically only being categorized by class, it makes duplicating them in different trees a lot easier.

I know what you mean about having trouble finding the time. As time goes on I too find more and more things I want to do - there must be fifty things on my "must do" list already, and quite frankly I've found myself suffering burnout over the last day or two having spent a lot of time recently getting the Bayfield class attack transports up to speed. So I am probably not going to be doing a lot myself over the next few days. But I think from this point I will start at least incorporating a cat class addition or two into my Wiki routine, because the incompleteness of the "by country" and "by navy" trees means that neither are very useful right now. Gatoclass 00:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've played a big part in organizing our categorization guidelines. They've been adjusted quite a bit over time. For example, we used to but country cats on every single ship article no matter what.

Guess what's on my to-do list right now? The Gato class ;-). I was initally working through Category:Submarine classes alphabetically, but I hit the Balao class and wound up deciding that the best thing to do is cover all the fleet boats first and then go back to the other classes alphabetically. The fleet boat articles are kind of poorly sourced and a lot of them have completely incorrect information in their infoboxes, so I'm pasting in new boxes and tweaking them for each ship. It takes a lot of time. TomTheHand 13:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's an almost total coincidence that I have a nick which just happens to coincide with the topic I'm currently editing, but that's a rather long story :)

Since you've been working with cats for a while, perhaps you can help me with a problem I've recently encountered? I've got a class of ships which were built during WWII but one of which only entered service after the war. Would it be wrong to include this class under the "World War II naval ships of the United States" category? I'm thinking I should tag the ships individually and not just drop the entire class into the WWII parent cat, but what do you think? Is there an established procedure for handling such situations? Gatoclass 13:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't put era categories on any class categories, because of the issue where the range of service won't be the same. Era cats are for articles only. Even if all ships entered service in WWII, some of them served in Korea while some didn't, some were retired in 1946 while others had significant Cold War service, etc. TomTheHand 13:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, seems that this guideline isn't well known, because there are already a stack of class subcats in the "World War II naval ships of the United States" category (I'm afraid I may have put some of them there myself). I'm not sure I agree with the guideline, but I can see it might have advantages. It's certainly going to make my current job of duplicating the US seaplane tenders from the "Ships by navy" to the "Ships by country" master cat easier though, because I had a go at doing this earlier today and I couldn't believe how many unforeseen complications I ran into! Gatoclass 14:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The ones I've actually been able to touch look pretty good (carriers, battleships, destroyers, and submarines). I'll probably work on frigates next. I'm not sure how to make the guideline better known; I post a link to it when I can, and under the "ship class categories" guideline I explicitly state that era categories shouldn't be put on them. TomTheHand 14:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Parentheses

You might be interested to see the new comments at: Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Convert_.28_and_.29_to_parentheses Lightmouse 14:55, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up! It's good to know it's going to be incorporated. TomTheHand 21:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

User Jwillbur

Hi there Tom. I notice that User:Jwillbur has been making a lot of changes to ship cats lately, and I'm not persuaded he knows what he's doing. For example, he's been removing all the submarine class articles from Category:Submarines of the United States and putting them in Category:United States Navy submarines. IMO these articles should be going into both categories, since they are in different master cats, not one or the other.

I've had a look through some of his diffs and left a couple of messages for him, but you might like to have a look youself. Regards, Gatoclass 03:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hood

Yes, you're right, of course.... silly me! i'm sure I would have picked my mistake up when referencing but thanks all the same! The Land 19:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Austro-Hungarian Navy categories

The BOLD! but ultimately misguided category changes by IZAK (talk · contribs) look like they are going to take a lot of work to sort out, especially since all the ships by navy and ships by country sub-categories appear to have been cross-connected at every level in the category tree. Unless you have a clever suggestion for an easier way to do it, I think I will just start at the bottom (Category:Naval ships of Austria-Hungary and Category:Ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy) and rebuild the complete category structure from the ground up. Thanks, --Kralizec! (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't have any good way to go at it :-/ I think the Austria-Hungary articles were undercategorized in the first place, so it could definitely use some TLC. TomTheHand 19:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USS Watseka (YT-387) follow-up

Hi. You participated in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USS Watseka (YT-387) which has now closed as "keep". I think it's worth having a more general discussion as to the notability of small noncombatant auxiliaries such as harbour tugs and I have raised this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force#Follow-up. I'm inviting all the AfD participants, both pro and con, to join in with their thoughts on the topic. --A. B. ^(talk) 17:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing era categories from ship articles

The only ship articles from which I removed era categories where on those in which the entire class fell within the period and therefore could be neatly placed in a sub-category, thus none of the articles I changed are actually affected by the reason you give for placing the era categories on individual ship articles. By moving these categories, the ship articles themselves are made tidier and more importantly the overstuffed cats become far less unwieldy. It also neatly sidesteps the ridiculous situation of Wikipedia having seperate Category:Royal Navy battleships and Category:Battleships of the United Kingdom on every battleship page despite the fact that the contents are exactly the same. Finally, I am actually not convinced that there is a need for era categories for battleships (with the possible exception of WW1, but even then subdividing by class would make things neater). What value is there in knowing that XX battleship was built duing the life of Queen Victoria and XX battleship wasn't? A properly formatted timeline (Which I am currently if slowly working on) would do the job much better.--Jackyd101 17:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

By moving era categories for some ships from the articles to the classes, and not moving others, the Category:Ships by era structure becomes less useful: there's no consistent way of finding what you're looking for, because it may be in a class subcat or it may be in the era cat itself. I'm not complaining about moving Category:Royal Navy battleships and Category:Battleships of the United Kingdom to the class categories: that was great and needed to be done.

I don't disagree with you about the Victorian era thing, and I've tried to delete Victorian-era categories for ships from countries other than the UK before, but I wasn't successful in doing so and haven't attempted to reorganize things in any other way. I agree that a properly formatted timeline would be great, but please discuss it on WP:SHIPS or WP:MARITIME before making sweeping changes. If hundreds of articles are categorized in a particular way, there's probably a reason for it. TomTheHand 17:46, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair point, and on reflection I do think I got carried away with the removal of the WW1 cats. I'm mainly looking at revamping the List of Royal Navy . . . articles, to include more information in a tider and more useful format rather than make huge chages to the cat structures (which as I have discovered elsewhere, can come crashing down like a house of cards if you fiddle too much). I was just trying to tidy things up a little.--Jackyd101 18:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! At one time WP:SHIPS put country cats (like Category:Battleships of the United Kingdom) on every ship article, in order to provide a comprehensive list of all the ships of a country, but... that's what lists are for! You'll run into many ship articles that still have country and navy cats, but they should be removed and stuck on the class cat instead. TomTheHand 18:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Something new?

I saw the formatting changes that you've done to ship names in Bogue class escort carrier. What's it about? Folks at 137 21:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, all the categorization discussion has gotten me to feed a gigantic list of articles into AWB and categorize them as necessary. I also perform some automatic formatting stuff whenever I touch an article, and that's what you've noticed on Bogue class escort carrier. It's {{USS}}, which is a template that J Clear (talk · contribs) cooked up to make it easier to read and write ship names while editing.

Instead of typing this:

[[USS Enterprise (CVN-65)|USS ''Enterprise'' (CVN-65)]]

You can type this:

{{USS|Enterprise|CVN-65}}

and the result will be the same: USS Enterprise (CVN-65). There are different options for formatting described at Template:USS/doc. There's another one, {{HMS}}, that works exactly the same but for RN vessels. If you'd prefer that I stop making these automatic conversions, let me know and we can talk about it. TomTheHand 22:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely no problems with the conversions - just curious. Is there a central reference point for these useful templates, including the "USN flag" one (and any others)? Speaking of the USN flag, I've been replacing USN jacks (as per consensus), manually, when I see them - is there an automated method? I have no experience with bots, and what does AWB stand for. Y'see, even at my age, there's lessons to learn. Folks at 137 22:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know of a good central reference point for our templates. Category:WikiProject Ships templates is supposed to contain all of them, but it's missing some, I imagine: I just added USN flag to it. WP:SHIPS would really benefit from a reference page.

AWB is short for AutoWikiBrowser, a program you can read about here. Basically, you can get it to generate a list of articles for you, and it will give them to you one at a time. You work on it, click "save", and it gives you the next one. It's good for keeping track of where you are.

It's also able to make automatic changes to articles. It has some typo-fixing features built-in, and you can write regular expressions that it will automatically apply to articles. I can't really give you a quick-and-easy rundown of regular expressions, as it's something I picked up working as a software developer. If you decide to use AWB, I can provide you with some of the regexes that I use, and if there's a pretty simple find-and-replace operation that you want to be able to perform on every article, I may be able to write a regex for you.

I don't have an automatic way of applying the USN flag template, and I think it'd be difficult to develop one because of the year component: you have to look through the infobox or article and decide when the ship finally left service. However, AWB is pretty helpful in applying the template nevertheless, because you can get it to generate a list of articles that use (for example) Image:US Naval Jack 48 stars.svg and then go through them one by one fixing their flags. TomTheHand 22:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

RE: Page moves

Last time I moved a page, people moaned about leaving obsolete redirects, I had misunderstood 'double redirect' to be a link -> redirect -> Page as well as Redirect -> Redirect. As you will notice, I realised this as I was doing the redirects, I simply decided it was even more of a waste of time to go back and revert my edits to the non-redirect pages that were heading to redirects to Navy of the Argentine Republic. Narson (talk) 00:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

UK escort carriers

I notice that unlike the US, the UK doesn't have a subcat for WWII escort carriers, ie all their carriers are currently going into "World War II escort aircraft carriers of the United Kingodom". I don't see any reason why the UK shouldn't also have a subcat for escort carriers, do you? Gatoclass (talk) 01:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think Category:World War II aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom is really large enough to make the split necessary. The US only has an escort carrier subcat for WWII and for the overall US carriers cat, because those cats would be pretty big otherwise, but categories like Category:Cold War aircraft carriers of the United States and Category:Korean War aircraft carriers of the United States aren't separated because they've got well under 100 members. I have no problem with you making the split if you want. TomTheHand (talk) 01:52, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Iowa class battleship

Your welcome. I like to help out here where I can to dispel the myth that all anons are vandals :) Regarding the long lance torpedo numbers: I did not see a cite for the information, but I assumed that TomStar got the info from the same place as the other cites referenced in the section, and on the page in question the number they give is 891 pounds. The only way I could get 891 pounds to show was to change the kg input to 404. It seems odd to me that the numbers should disagree so much, is there any way to correct them so they read right? 76.211.107.97 10:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Our article on the Long Lance says 490 kg. Navweaps.com agrees. Combinedfleet.com says 1080 lb, which is 490 kg. military.com says the warhead weighed "a shade over half-a-ton", or a little more than 1000 lb. I see no online sources which say 891 lb, and have never read that figure offline either. I don't think the 891 lb/404 kg figure is correct. TomTheHand 14:37, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

yo!

hey! finally decide to visit your page. ANOMALY-117 04:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC) what can i do for ya? i need work on this cite.ANOMALY-117 04:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC) post a messeage on my talk page because the note was a little confuseing. ANOMALY-117 04:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC) I'M ALLWAYS WATCHING... [O][O]

 <>     ANOMALY-117 04:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello Anomaly. As I said before, on the right side of the WP:SHIPS front page there's a list of things you can do. Also, a few months ago I wrote up a page listing some tasks that people could help out with. If you have any specific questions about how to accomplish a task, let me know. TomTheHand 05:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Admin help

Tom, since you're active at the moment, I thought I'd run a problem by you: Image:CRJ1000.jpg is copyrighted, and not a valid FU image per the Bombardier website. I posted the Bombardier links to the their legal notices on the image file page. I and anotehr user have added CSD tags several times, but user:Downmight10 keeps removing the tags, and reposting the image on the article page. Given that, I'm not sure the correct course of action to take at this point, be it WP:IFD or WP:CV. Thanks for any assistance. - BillCJ 02:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• ANother editor has reported user:Downmight10 to AIV as a sock of User:Roadcrusher. Hopefully this will help. - BillCJ 03:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I am not very good with fair use stuff. The copyright notice on Bombardier's web site is irrelevant: nothing a company can say removes the right of fair use. All that matters is if the image meets the non-free content criteria. Since the CRJ1000 is still in development, there is no way to replace the image with a free alternative. However, as Kelvinc said, the Bombardier CRJ700 article has many pictures of related models, and the CRJ1000 isn't drastically different.

Here's what I recommend: establish consensus at the article talk page about whether or not the image belongs there. If consensus is that it doesn't, it should be removed and slapped with an orphaned fair use tag, which will cause it to be deleted a few days later. If someone continues to add it against consensus, they should be warned against violating the 3RR rule, and then blocked if they continue to edit war.

Please don't let the copyright notice on their web site affect your opinion, though. Again, they cannot take away the right of fair use. What matters is if it's so important that the new model be illustrated that it justifies having non-free content. TomTheHand 03:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the response. I've sen other admins remove FU images because of similar copyright restrictions, so I wasn't clear on how it worked. But as you asaid, the differneces aren't that great with the new model. I'll ask on the articel talk page for a consensus on it. - BillCJ 03:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

There is great hostility to fair use images on Wikipedia. I understand why, so I guess fair use images should only be used when it's important. In this case it's probably not important. However, if someone deleted a fair use image solely because of a copyright message on someone's web site, that wasn't right. TomTheHand 03:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ship articles, flag

Thanks for the heads up. Was not aware of that. I had been putting the first flag, but will switch to putting the final one from now on. — Bellhalla 15:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Metric and English units

I try to create consistent style. First three Japanese warship articles I saw listed English measurements first followed by metric in parentheses. Probably done by Americans. But I follow their style. All articles about similar subjects should be consistent style. Do you agree? Shibumi2 (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but articles about ships should use the builders' units first, followed by the converted units. Ships engineered with the metric system should have metric as their primary units, with English conversions following. TomTheHand (talk) 23:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to expand on that thought by saying that consistently specifying the builders' units is more important than consistently using the same units throughout the article. For example, Yamato's guns should be specified as 46 cm (18 in), but when the article compares them to the Iowa class, the Iowas' armament should be specified as 16-inch (40.6 cm) guns. TomTheHand (talk) 14:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ship template confusion

I'm sure this has been discussed; but I've been unable to find it in the multitude of archived talk pages. For someone relatively new to the ship articles on Wikipedia, could you help clarify information on the multiple ship infobox templates?

I was under the impression from WP:SHIP that the format outlined at Template:Infobox Ship Example should be the standard used for all ships. But, I notice that none of the others I've seen have been deprecated, such as Template:Infobox Ship, Template:Infobox Ferry, and Template:WAFerry.

I'm just looking for a little background to understand before I wade into something unknowingly ... is there some debate on which to use that I've missed? Is there objection to merger that is still ongoing? Or are the templates just used in so many places that it hasn't been possible to merge them as yet? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Template:Infobox Ship Example was developed through consensus and intended to be used for all ships, but there's been no real effort to replace existing infoboxes. I believe people still use Template:Infobox Ship, because it's simple, looks almost exactly like the new multi-template box (because the multi-template box is based on it), and is on thousands of ship articles already. No other box is really used by more than a few dozen articles. I don't think anyone would object to replacing all existing uses of old infoboxes, but it's a hefty task. I especially don't see Infobox Ship going anywhere any time soon. There are hundreds of articles with no infobox whatsoever, and thousands which don't use a templated infobox. TomTheHand (talk) 01:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand which one should be used per consensus. My concern is that because none of the other templates are marked as "Deprecated", "Replaced", or "Superseded", the other templates continue to be maintained and propagated to additional articles. My initial question here was because there's no mention on the other templates indicating that an alternate template should be used going forward. Because of this, my concern is that if I begin replacing some of those templates with the one at Template:Infobox Ship Example, I may inadvertantly trigger renewed debate. I do not want to get in the middle of such a debate, so I'll avoid replacing those templates for now. Perhaps this thread should be moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships - feel free to move it if you feel it should be over there. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, after you posted this I started a thread at WP:SHIPS to discuss deprecating and deleting old templates. I think we'll probably work on them one at a time, removing all uses and then putting them up for deletion. TomTheHand (talk) 16:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Heading cases

Tom, could you look at this diff, and tell me if I'm off base here? It's my understanding that sentence case applies even to infoboxes. Perhaps it would be best to convert the table to a template, but I'm not very familiar with the new multi-template as yet. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 04:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, you're not off base at all. Wikipedia uses sentence case. TomTheHand (talk) 14:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like user:Maralia has already updated the infobox. She's relentless! :) - BillCJ (talk) 16:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No joke! Not only did she update the infobox, but she found some bugs in it in the process and got me to fix 'em! TomTheHand (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

A (distant) relative of mine served on USS Essex (CV-9) during Apollo 7 recovery, and I've been meaning to work on that article - your note here about LHD-2 pinged my memory purely by name association, so I got started out of guilt :) Maralia (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Help me Please!

I'm new here and is there anyway you can help me get started? --The Mind's Voice (talk) 04:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --The Mind's Voice (talk) 04:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

yo!

--ANOMALY-116 (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC) relation to anomaly-117

Yo! TomTheHand (talk) 05:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Admin help

Tom, could you look at the discussion here on my talk page, and see if you can help answer the question? Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus

Hi there Tom. As I said on the RfA, I am quite frankly rather mystified by your comment that I "don't compromise or seek consensus well" as I have supported you 9 times out of 10 on your proposals and never made an issue out of any of the small differences of opinion I have had with you or anyone else at Wikiships. Would you mind providing an example or two of these alleged flaws? I would appreciate that. Gatoclass (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I want to say off the bat that I think you're an awesome editor and Wikipedia's a better place having you around. However, I don't think you would make a good admin at this time, and since you've asked me for details about why I feel that way, I owe it to you to tell you.

I was very bothered by the whole barnstar issue. During the nomination process, you had many criticisms of images submitted by others, but you didn't contribute any images yourself. You didn't bother to read Kralizec's proposed decision process and objected after nominations were closed. Kralizec explained that he had laid the process out very clearly days in advance, and you stated that you hadn't read it, but still felt that the nomination process should be reopened for several weeks. The winning image had overwhelming support, but afterward you still felt it necessary to say that you didn't like it and were planning to come up with a better one... someday. Overall, your actions struck me as disrespectful to Kralizec, the initiator of the barnstar proposal, to Dual Freq, who produced twelve of the fifteen candidates, and to everyone who voted, because their decision wasn't what you wanted.

You've said that you feel I'm 'confusing a clearly expressed opinion with "inability to compromise or seek consensus."' My issue is not that you ignore or resist consensus, but that the way you discuss issues isn't conducive to coming to a compromise. For example, here, saying "I can't imagine why it was changed" and referring to the the Class in the Characteristics section as "the wrong place" makes people defensive. In general, I feel that this is the way you approach many issues: if you don't understand why something is done, or if you weigh alternatives differently from someone else, you give your opinion in a way that makes others feel you don't respect theirs.

Admins have to deal with a lot of prickly situations, and how you come off is important; I feel that you don't actively seek compromise and the way you speak about issues is not likely to diffuse a disagreement. TomTheHand (talk) 01:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation. But I think you are being hypercritical.

I don't think I'm going to reply to all your accusations in detail, so I will just say I think they are pretty darned pernickety. I will concede you are probably correct on the "I can't imagine why it was changed" and "it's in the wrong place" comments. I mistakenly assumed that the infoboxes were some old legacy things that had been around for years, had I realized I was referring to the work of current members I would have been much more diplomatic, and simply asked why the changes were made. So that was a bit of a faux pas on my part. I do sometimes forget that all the features I'm inclined to take for granted on Wikipedia were built by individuals and that sometimes these individuals are still around.

I don't consider that my comments in the barnstar section were out of line. If these were works of art that people had spent hundreds of hours putting together, naturally I would exercise tact, but they were being knocked out in literally a matter of minutes as I was posting. In those circumstances I see no reason not to speak plainly about my likes and dislikes. Nor do I see a problem with volunteering to try and come up with something better. I certainly don't expect a pat on the back for it, but I am a little suprised to be criticized for it. The reason I made the offer to come up with something "someday" is because I have no paint program skills and it is something I will have to go to the trouble of learning - again on behalf of the project.

Admittedly I'm not always the most tactful person in the world Tom, and it's relatively easy to tread on toes when you only have text to get across your message. But in general I think you'll find me pretty reasonable if there is ever an issue you want to discuss with me. Gatoclass (talk) 04:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

In your RFA, you said that you had gotten the impression that you had upset me in the past and I had stopped responding in conversations. That's not the case. Rather, I felt that we had both said our piece, and nothing further would change unless others chimed in. That's the way I feel about this as well. You requested an example or two and I've given them. You've said that you think I'm being hypercritical; I don't want to argue with you about that. I still feel that the way you deal with people won't work well for adminship. I don't have a grudge against you, and if you run for adminship again in the future I will judge you based on how you deal with people then, not on the barnstar incident of way-back-when. I'm looking forward to working with you at WP:SHIPS in the future. TomTheHand (talk) 03:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

use of the word Tiptronic

You deleted the word "Tiptronic" from Direct-Shift_Gearbox page. I've re-instated it because Volkswagen AG, the Volkswagen brand (and associated vehicles), along with subsidiary companies of Volkswagen AG (such as Audi) are all licensed to use the word "Tiptronic". Indeed, Tiptronic is freely used in official sales brochures, on official VWAG websites, and in official vehicle owners manuals.

Perhaps some clarification of the word Tiptronic should be sought - whilst I accept that Porsche initially coined the term Tiptronic, is is now clearly licensed to other manufacturers. Furthermore, Tiptronic is now commonly used as a "generic" term to describe manual operation of automatic transmissions.

Kind regards, T_T —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teutonic Tamer (talk • contribs) 15:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I didn't realize that Tiptronic has become so generic. I didn't think to even check if VW had licensed the name because I thought "DSG isn't even a slushbox; Tiptronic can't be the right word for it." TomTheHand (talk) 15:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, no worries. I suppose it can be surprising how many "trade" names become generic in use - I suppose "Hoover" must be the most prevalent, but there must be many more too! T_T Teutonic Tamer 18:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

KGV BB edit

Hey Tom, when I looked at the page I had seen the text broken up, when I removed the 1st convert templet it went away. Looking back on the previous edit it is no longer there. I am not certain but perhaps my IE browser was just acting up. Feel free to revert if you like. Tirronan (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are requested to establish consensus

Please see this discussion: Talk:HMS_Vanguard_(23)#Switch_from_.7B.7BWikiProjectBannerShell.7D.7D_to_.7B.7BWikiProjectBanners.7D.7D. Thanks, -MBK₀₀₄ 00:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Warship template

I meant to bring this up some time ago, but forgot until now. The template {{warship}} is at odds with {{USS}}, {{USNS}}, and {{HMS}}, in that (1) standard output does not include the ship designation, and (2) there are no optional display parameters at all. I would like to see it operate the same way that the others do. Thoughts? Maralia (talk) 19:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I can do that. It might take me a day or two; I'm really busy at work this week. TomTheHand (talk) 13:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I would tackle it myself, but that template takes an extra variable compared to the others, so I'd really have to sort through the code; I figured you could do it lightyears faster. Since we'll be changing the default output, I suppose—to be excruciatingly precise—we should alter the syntax of existing transclusions. I can do that when the time comes. Thanks again. Maralia (talk) 15:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Admin help/advice

Tom, could you take a look at my post here, and point me in the right direction on how to handle this group of new articles? Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from. I would first suggest poking around AFD a little to look for similar cases. If you still feel that they should be deleted, I'd go ahead and nominate all the lists in a single AFD (see here). It does seem to me that this data is simply pulled off the given web site; it'd probably be better to just put a link to there on Demographics of India. TomTheHand (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. THe demographics page seems the best place for the link to the original site. I'll bring that up on the "Noticeboard for India" talk page, and see what happens. I'll only use AFD as a last resort, partly because I hate filing them! :) Thanks again. - BillCJ (talk) 23:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Ships Barnstar

		WikiProject Ships Barnstar
		For your sustained commitment to the project, and especially for your hard work implementing and maintaining crucial templates, I'm pleased to present you with this (very long overdue!) barnstar. Thanks for everything you do! Maralia (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Era categories on class articles

Sorry. I didn't know about the distinction between era categories vs. era articles. Thanks for letting me know. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. It was a long discussion with a lot of changing opinions, but I think it's felt that eras on class categories imply that every ship in that category served in that era (not necessarily true), while eras on class articles don't imply that to the same extent, and it's kind of nice to see what classes served in an era instead of just seeing a list of ships. TomTheHand (talk) 14:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up about my country vs. navy flub. I looked at Category:United States Navy ammunition ships and saw that it was a grand-child of Category:Auxiliary ships of the United States Navy, and thought that I was deleting a parent category. Thanks to you, I now see that, indeed, Category:Auxiliary ships of the United States Navy is not Category:Auxiliary ships of the United States.

By the way, I do appreciate the notices about things I may not be doing per consensus, project guidelines, etc. I enjoy helping out, but don't want to end up making more work for others (as I seem to be doing for you lately). — Bellhalla (talk) 15:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I honestly think your work is invaluable; I haven't been able to edit much lately but I've been stunned by the amount of high-quality categorization work you've been doing. I'll let you know if I have comments on anything else, but please keep up the good work! TomTheHand (talk) 15:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Templates et al

Saw your note. Sorry to hear things are rough. If there's anything I can do to help, drop me an IM (I'm usually on but invisible) or a note on my talk—consider me available for anything from listening to random ranting (lord knows you've tolerated enough of mine) to picking up template work. If I can't do it myself, I'll find someone who can; you're certainly the best at our templates, but you needn't feel responsible for the entire burden. Hope things get better for you soon. Maralia (talk) 18:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Maralia! I... don't actually know how to IM someone who's invisible ;-) Please IM me some evening and teach me; we haven't talked in a while. TomTheHand (talk) 20:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No content in Category:Ahn Yong-Bok class destroyers

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Ahn Yong-Bok class destroyers, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Ahn Yong-Bok class destroyers has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Ahn Yong-Bok class destroyers, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Tom

Thank you for your question Tom. I have answered your question on my talk page. Shibumi2 (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Edits to Template:Infobox Ship Career

Sorry, but I thought those fields would be useful. --  Denelson83  22:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka 3

Thank you for your participation in my RfA. It was definitely a dramatic debate that landed on WP:100, but ultimately was deemed a successful declaration of consensus, and I am now an admin. I definitely paid close attention to everything that was said in the debate, and, where possible, I will try to incorporate the (constructive) criticism towards being a better administrator. I'm taking things slowly for now, partially because of the holidays and all the off-wiki distractions. I'm working my way through the Wikipedia:New admin school, carefully double-checking the relevant policies, and will gradually phase into the use of the new tools, with my main goals being to help out with various backlogs. I sincerely doubt you'll see anything controversial coming from my new access level. :) I also fully intend to keep on writing articles, as there are a few more that I definitely want to get to WP:FA status. If you do ever have any concerns about my activities as an administrator, I encourage you to let me know. My door is always open. Have a good new year, --Elonka 00:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Ship infobox

Hi there Tom, could you check that I have got all the key components of the Ship infobox protected and then check the post at WT:SHIPS to make sure I have done what was requested. Don't want to miss anything! Thanks. Woody (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67)

Show me where the Navy lists her as a Kitty Hawk-class. Neovu79 (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A question for you

I have question regarding Japanese Navy ships of World War II. This is personal project of mine to make all articles of this class conform with standards of WP:MILHIST and WP:SHIPS. You say all Infoboxes should have metric measurement first followed by English measurement. But some destroyer Infoboxes refer to hidden table of armaments for destroyer class. See example Ushio. Hidden tables do not conform to your standards. They list English measurements first. How do I change them? Shibumi2 (talk) 00:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The hidden tables are in the Template namespace. You can find them by preceding the page name with "Template:". For example, to reach the displacement template, go to Template:Fubuki class destroyer displacement, and to reach the propulsion template, go to Template:Fubuki class destroyer propulsion. Please let me know if this isn't clear and I'll try to explain it better. Good luck! TomTheHand (talk) 01:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much Tom. I changed templates for Fubuki-class. Please review my work. Also I wrote answer to your question about metric measurement of speed on my page. These are ships used in World War II. For that period metric units (km/h) appear first on books and ship blueprints published in Japan. Earlier books and diagrams ~1920 used traditional Japanese units of measurement first. I will continue my work on Japanese Navy ships articles as my schedule will allow. I am very grateful for your help. Shibumi2 (talk) 23:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

A duty of disambiguation

Hi Tom,

I just posted a message on MOSNUM that you may wish to comment on, as I quoted you on the use of 'ton' in ships articles. I hope I got my facts right, but please feel to correct me. Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've commented. I like your proposal, and I think it'll be a good addition to the MoS with a few examples of how it applies to various situations. I posted one situation where I think your suggestion looks awkward, and I welcome your input on how to clean it up. TomTheHand (talk) 22:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. It does look awkward. I'll give it some thought. I should explain that I picked 'ton' as an example in the hope that it would be relatively uncontroversial, compared with (say) the megabyte. Do you mind if you attribute the quote to you? (at present I've left it anonymous) Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind if you attribute the quote to me. TomTheHand (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Luftwaffe as a generic term

Tom, I noticed that you are involved in a discussion whether or not the word Luftwaffe is used in a generic way in German. I added some new and compelling (so I think) arguments to the discussion, you might be interested in. I would like to invite you to share your point of view and to facilitate the decision making. -> link. Cheers, MikeZ (talk) 05:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

ship class template revamp

I hadn't seen any activity with WT:SHIPS#Ship_class_template_-_merge? in a while, and was wondering what the status on that project. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, totally forgot about it. I'll work on it more tomorrow. TomTheHand (talk) 18:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Commission/decommission fields

I seem to recall that these fields are supposed to be duplicable so you can record more than one commission/decommission date for a ship, but when I tried on USS Menard (APA-201) it didn't work for some reason. Any chance you could fix the problem there so I can see what I'm doing wrong? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 07:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The way it works is that you have to close the Infobox Ship Career template, and then open a new one with a hidden header. I've fixed the above page so you can see; if you have any questions, please let me know. The method is kind of confusing but it's the only way I could figure out to be able to repeat fields any number of times. It's the reason why the infobox is made up of separate templates: you can repeat them to really get it to look however you need. TomTheHand (talk) 14:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I get it now, thanks for the explanation :)

But I can't help thinking - is this really the best way to represent commissioning/decommissioning? Would it make more sense perhaps - with ships which have been commissioned/decommissioned more than once - to just list the periods of commission under the commission heading?

So for example you'd have something like:

Commissioned: 1/5/44-20/7/46; 12/6/50-10/8/55.

Or maybe:

Commissioned:

1 May 44 - 20 Jul 46

12 Jun 50 - 10 Aug 55.

It would certainly be a lot more concise, and a lot less clumsy IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 16:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point, and something that we should bring up on WP:SHIPS. I'll make the post. TomTheHand (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

RfA thank-spam

TomTheHand, I wish to tender my sincere thanks for your support in my successful request for adminship, which ended with 37 supports, 2 opposes, and 2 neutral. The results of the RfA are extremely bittersweet because of the recent departure of my nominator, Rudget. Hopefully I can live up to his and your expectations. I would especially like to thank Epbr123 and TomStar81 for mentioning that they were preparing to offer me a nomination. The past week has been one of the most stressful weeks in my life, and I appreciate your vote of confidence in me. If you ever need anything, just get in touch. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)