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Community Projects => The FreeSpace Wiki Project => Topic started by: Goober5000 on December 09, 2006, 11:02:29 pm

Title: Capital ship naming
Post by: Goober5000 on December 09, 2006, 11:02:29 pm
Is there any reason why the capital ship names are being partially italicized?  For example:

GTD Intrepid -> GTD Intrepid

As far as I can tell, only TopAce is making these changes, but I wanted to get everyone's opinions.  In my opinion this change is unnecessary; it appears nowhere else in the FreeSpace literature, and it looks awkward to have half the phrase italicized and half not.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Turey on December 10, 2006, 12:04:22 am
It looks fine to me ether way, yet for some odd reason, GTD Intrepid looks slightly better.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: karajorma on December 10, 2006, 02:15:08 am
As far as I can tell, only TopAce is making these changes

If he doesn't have enough to do I can find him a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be ported to the wiki which I haven't had the time for ;)
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Sesquipedalian on December 10, 2006, 02:15:41 am
Shouldn't be italicised.  But for heaven's sake, if one is going to do so, at least italicise the whole thing, not just half of it!  GTD Intrepid or GTD Intrepid.  ::)
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Herra Tohtori on December 10, 2006, 02:34:00 am
AFAIK it is a common practice to write the descriptive "ship-type" in normal capital letters and the ship name in italics. Like this:

HMS Victory
RMS Titanic
USS Enterprise

etc. etc. ad infinitum... and by this practice, it should indeed be GTD Intrepid.


Personally I don't see it as any kind of an issue here. The informative content is pretty much the same either way.


If you want to stick to the canon, you should have to use green bold text for ship names, like in the briefing text...
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: aldo_14 on December 12, 2006, 03:35:57 am
I find it tremendously annoying, myself.  The difference is that, AFAIK, HMS, USS or RMS don't really denote anything beyond ownership - IMO the likes of GTD, by denoting type as well as owner and indeed species, are the 1st part of a 2-part ID.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Goober5000 on December 12, 2006, 07:58:13 pm
I find it annoying.  Both to read (because it looks odd) and to write (because it requires extra work).

I vote we keep ship names in good old fashioned plaintext.  Does anyone seriously object to this?
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: aldo_14 on December 13, 2006, 08:02:01 am
I find it annoying.  Both to read (because it looks odd) and to write (because it requires extra work).

I vote we keep ship names in good old fashioned plaintext.  Does anyone seriously object to this?

Me!

Well, not all that seriously.  I do find italicisation easier to read sometimes, though, particularly because it makes them stand out as ship names.  Vote?
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Mefustae on December 13, 2006, 08:22:12 am
I vote for a third option: we bold the names!
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: NGTM-1R on December 13, 2006, 02:47:23 pm
ALLCAPS

Amusingly enough if you ever go read actual naval communications/action reports they really do put ship names in all caps.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Admiral Nelson on December 13, 2006, 03:01:48 pm
Yes, I would write a ship's name in ALL CAPS, hence IOWA, NIMITZ, etc...
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: spartan_0214 on December 13, 2006, 03:24:02 pm
the reason they italicize it is to make the name more distinguishable from the class.

Which is easier to read:

GTD Galatea

GTD Galatea
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Snail on December 13, 2006, 03:33:07 pm
I vote for PVD Utannu, SD Isana, GTD Tethys!
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Herra Tohtori on December 13, 2006, 07:44:56 pm
Make them underlined/differently coloured links to wiki page about that particular ship, or if the article is not yet written, to a page that urges people to write it.

 :D
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Axem on December 16, 2006, 08:44:58 pm
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064g.html

Quote
3. Names of Vessels, Aircraft, and Spacecraft

Italicize the names of aircraft, vessels, and spacecraft. Missile and rocket names are not italicized. Do not italicize abbreviations such as USS or HMS preceding vessel names.

      USS Enterprise
      Spirit of St. Louis
      Voyager 2
      F-18 Hornet
      Yankee-class submarine

Personally I don't find them annoying, and the work to add them is trivial. They wouldn't have to be added all at once, just as people see them.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Bob-san on December 29, 2006, 01:35:25 pm
An individual ship that is named the same it the name of its class should be in italics.

GTVA Colossus (Colossus-class Juggernaught)
GTVA/GTVJ Hayburner (Colossus-class Juggernaught)
NTF Iceni (Iceni-class Frigate)
NTF/NTFg/NTFf Avenger (Iceni-class Frigate)
USS Nimitz (Nimitz-class Carrier)
USS George W. Bush (Nimitz-class Carrier)

Normally the first ship built in a given class is named after the class... or rather the class is named after the first ship. Either way, it's basically military tradition to name only the first ship in a class the same as the class.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: aldo_14 on January 19, 2007, 04:31:22 am
Isn't this getting absurdly complex?  Just have all-italics ala GTD thingy if you need italics; nice, simple and easy to pick out.  Following any sort of naval military tradition is pointless, because it's not like the ship classes do (as well as many various other reasons of common sense).
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: spartan_0214 on January 19, 2007, 09:28:32 am
I see that this is pointless. In Freespace, you can't italizice or underline, you just put it like:

GTD Aquitaine
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Taristin on January 20, 2007, 01:03:28 pm
Welcome to the GVD Psamtik, pilot.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Dark Hunter on January 20, 2007, 06:20:59 pm
I see that this is pointless. In Freespace, you can't italizice or underline, you just put it like:

GTD Aquitaine

They're talking about for the Wiki, not the game itself.
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Aardwolf on January 22, 2007, 07:42:05 pm
Yes, but why should the Wiki have formatting that isn't in FS?
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: castor on January 23, 2007, 03:16:43 pm
Just have all-italics ala GTD thingy if you need italics; nice, simple and easy to pick out.
Yep. Actually, it's canon, too *judging by the backside of my FS2 retail box*
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: aldo_14 on January 25, 2007, 08:58:05 am
Yes, but why should the Wiki have formatting that isn't in FS?

Clarity of reading :)
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: Dysko on January 25, 2007, 09:28:46 am
Yep. Actually, it's canon, too *judging by the backside of my FS2 retail box*
If we had to consider canon the box:
1.) The Lucifer is encountered also in FS2 (there is one just at the right of the first Deimos' top turret)
2.) The Deimos is a destroyer (the nameplate on the corvette says "..D Deimos")
3.) The Deimos is also an AWACS ship (on the backside of the box there is written "GTA Deimos)
4.) Beam weapons can be used also by fighters ("Learn to use beam weapons...")
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: castor on January 25, 2007, 11:13:23 am
Indeed :) But in this case, we're in lack of any better source of information..
Title: Re: Capital ship naming
Post by: TopAce on February 16, 2007, 03:17:13 pm
I only follow the way Wikipedia does it, and it's the way it's considered proper English. It's complex, yes, but it's the proper way. Why FreeSpace doesn't italicize these names is simply because FS's engine does not support italics.