[Goober5000]

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.

[Turey]

It looks fine to me ether way, yet for some odd reason, GTD Intrepid looks slightly better.

[karajorma]

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

[Sesquipedalian]

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.  :

[Herra Tohtori]

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...

[aldo_14]

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.

[Goober5000]

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?

[aldo_14]

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?

[Mefustae]

I vote for a third option: we bold the names!

[NGTM-1R]

ALLCAPS

Amusingly enough if you ever go read actual naval communications/action reports they really do put ship names in all caps.

[Admiral Nelson]

Yes, I would write a ship's name in ALL CAPS, hence IOWA, NIMITZ, etc...

[spartan_0214]

the reason they italicize it is to make the name more distinguishable from the class.

Which is easier to read:

GTD Galatea

GTD Galatea

[Snail]

I vote for PVD Utannu, SD Isana, GTD Tethys!

[Herra Tohtori]

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.

 

[Axem]

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064g.html

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.

[Bob-san]

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.

[aldo_14]

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).

[spartan_0214]

I see that this is pointless. In Freespace, you can't italizice or underline, you just put it like:

GTD Aquitaine

[Taristin]

Welcome to the GVD Psamtik, pilot.

[Dark Hunter]

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.