Talk:List of largest cruise ships

Definition of "Largest"

I would like for a moderator to officially clarify that "largest" goes beyond mere gross tonnage, as largest is defined as "of considerable or relatively great size, extent, or capacity." Length is therefore a factor in determining the largest cruise ships, and to omit such a factor would make Wikipedia a less accurate source to the millions of teachers, students, and populace that rely on it everyday to be as accurate as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.28.18.138 (talk) 16:45, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"Largest" depends on the context, and this context is about volume, not linear dimensions. This article is about cruise ships, and when most readers and sources talk about the sizes of cruise ships, the metric they think of is interior volume (gross tonnage), because that is essentially synonymous with a cruise ship's "business space", just as how the largest containerships are ranked only by their TEU capacity. A slightly longer but narrower/shorter cruise ship with the same gross tonnage is meaningless to readers, and makes for needless make-work.

Accuracy is not at all affected because the lead section already makes clear that the only metric considered in ranking is gross tonnage, and all other dimensions are still provided in the additional columns, should readers want those statistics. —Madrenergic^talk 17:28, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Readers should not be forced into the columns of "Largest cruise ships" to determine which cruise ship is actually "Largest." You agree that the context is about volume, and volume is literally described as "the amount of space that a substance or object occupies." A longer ship occupies more space. Your previous issue with the methodology was resolved when the introduction specified length would be included as a factor to improve the accuracy of the list, which previously relied on a single factor which proved to be inaccurate when multiple ships shared the same measurement. {{Help me}} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.28.18.138 (talk) 20:34, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Once again, I must stress that most readers do not care about a 50mm difference between the length of cruise ships in deciding which ship is the largest - most sources that comment about the relative "sizes" of cruise ships focus on interior volume.

It is also incorrect to claim that a longer ship must have a larger volume, because ships are complex shapes, not rectangles. Assuming the volume must be bigger amounts to WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH which is not allowed per Wikipedia policy. Furthermore, this article ranks cruise ships by gross tonnage, which is an actual measurement produced and published by a classification society as the official reference for all technical measurements and data for that ship. We are not talking about theoretical spaces here - we are talking about actual measurements given by the organisation whose job it is to document and publish every single measured dimension of a ship.

Lastly, I have corrected the articles which you claimed as the source of your statistics. —Madrenergic^talk 21:38, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to clarify with you, and thank you for your determination for accuracy in the specific ship articles. The way the Oxford dictionary views it is, whether the difference is fifty millimeters or one nanometer, the objective definition of "Largest" does not state that such small sizes are excluded from consideration. Unless both items are exactly the same volume and tonnage, one ship will inevitably be larger and one will inevitably be smaller. I noticed your updates on the cruise ships in question and acknowledge them, however I see that while the numbers have been edited the "50mm" difference remains officially documented and mentioned on the article page. As these are the official numbers, the fact that "Allure of the Seas" is larger by any margin makes it, technically speaking, a larger ship. To prevent inconsistencies within Wikipedia's information, I must insist that these edits remain until both sources display the same information. If you disagree, please clarify your views on how you believe 50mm is not an objective difference in size, extent, or capacity, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.75.28.18.138 (talk) 22:12, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a stupid list as it's not a record of largest cruise ship by time period but a list of cruise ships over an arbitrary threshold. Given that the GT recorded by the classification society is the only valid measurement Lyndaship (talk) 21:44, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Lyndaship, it sounds like your concern is regarding the cutoff of the list in regards to the minimum requirement necessary to make the list. I'm sure you would understand that not every cruise ship could be included due to the sheer number, and for practical purposes only the very largest ships would be included (Very few people would, for example, be interested in the 74th largest cruise ship). While gross tonnage is indeed a factor in what makes a ship large, the most accurate possible way to measure a ship's largeness is to consider the definition of the word, the word that surrounds the entire article: Largest. Largest relates to "size," "capacity," and "extent," and the word size makes specific and clear reference to "dimensions." Therefore, at the very least, a ship's dimensions should be used to determine which ship is "larger" if both ships were the same gross tonnage. You are free to look up and verify these definitions yourself. Unless the page is changed to "List of largest cruise ships by gross tonnage," this fact will remain.75.28.18.138 (talk) 22:24, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

No my principal concern is your attempt to change the criterion which has been used to determine the content of this article without discussion. I think it's a silly article to have as it's merely a list of ships over an arbitrary tonnage. You are correct that a better title would be list of over 120,000 GT. Ask yourself why choose length as a secondary criterion rather than breadth, height, draft or depth? Lyndaship (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Lyndaship. In this case, length is the only differentiating factor between the two ships. Therefore, the lengthier ship is the larger ship. The criterion of the article is the ranking ships by the matter of "largeness." Adhering to this criterion is not changing it. Changing the criterion would be attempting to alter the contents of the page to reflect it as "List of largest cruise ships by gross tonnage" rather than accurately edit the page to reflect the current title: "List of largest cruise ships." Additionally, I believe cruise-goers may find this Wikipedia article useful for a multitude of reasons. If Wikipedia can benefit them with such a list, I am happy to be a part of it.75.28.18.138 (talk) 22:42, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Just to get this out of the way, because the failure to recognise this is going to make further discussion very difficult: You are attempting to change the criterion of this article by adding the line "with ties being won by the longer ship". The current criterion is not "largeness" (in all its possible interpretations), but specifically gross tonnage. This is because, in lists on Wikipedia, the list criterion is not dictated by the article title but determined by the body of the article, specifically the lead section (which explains that "ships are ranked by gross tonnage"). This is described by Wikipedia's guideline WP:LISTNAME, which states that the detailed criteria for inclusion should be described in the lead. The title of the article, on the other hand, is meant to only briefly outline the content, and is not expected to contain a complete description of the list's subject (see WP:LISTNAME as well). This is why the article is called "List of largest cruise ships", not "List of largest cruise ships larger than 120,000 GT ranked by gross tonnage and divided into ships in service and ships under construction", and this is also why "List of largest container ships", for example, is not "List of largest container ships larger than 140,000 TEU ranked according to twenty-foot equivalent unit capacity and divided into completed ships and ships on order".

Now, this does not preclude you from proposing changes to the criterion, and you can implement it if you are able to obtain community consensus that the new criteria is a better way of constructing the article, but we need to recognise what is the current criterion first before proposing a change to it, and I feel misunderstanding what the current criterion is may be at least part of the reason why you feel I am the one "changing" the criterion. Once again, if you feel there is a need to change the criterion, you are certainly free to propose it; if, on the other hand, you feel that it is the title that needs to be changed, you are also free to propose it; the discussion will follow accordingly. I hope this explanation helps. —Madrenergic^talk 16:24, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

For those reading this in the future, let it be known that "Allure of the Seas" and "Oasis of the Seas," the subjects behind this discussion, were proven to be different sizes. And despite multiple edits and even malicious reports to try to revert this fact, the page now finally reflects the truth that they are indeed different. Wikipedia writers, let this show that no matter how hard some people may try to oppose the facts, the truth is a battle worth fighting for. -75.28.18.138 (talk) 06:33, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand. It looks like you may be attempting to spin a defeat as a victory. The earlier quibble was about length. The list continues to reflect the fact that both Oasis and Allure are officially documented by their respective registries as being of the same length, so there's no change there. The only difference in measurements I see now between Oasis and Allure is that the former has a larger gross tonnage, which only increased because Oasis added additional cabins during a October 2019 drydock. That means, at the time as of December 2018, the conclusion was correct that Oasis and Allure were of identical sizes according to the official ship registry measurements, despite boastful claims to the contrary. Epistulae ad Familiares (talk) 12:17, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

last Edits of User:Ahecht

In my opinios it would be the best to delete the last edits comltetely. This isn't an article about Cruise ships generally, we have the article Cruise ship. Now the arcticle seem to be a big chaos. Companies, propulsion and a lot more have nothing to do with it's size. HenSti (talk) 11:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

@HenSti: See Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of largest cruise ships/archive1. To bring this article to the level of "Featured list", it needs to have a lead section that summarizes the content (although most of this will go in the introduction text for the "In Service" and "On Order" sections), provides background information, and gives encyclopedic context (including linking to other pages). I'm still tweaking the text, but all the content is designed to either relate to the ship's sizes, or provide some background information on the data in the table (which includes things like which company ordered the ship). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Size threshold

When this list was first started, there were only 37 ships larger than 100,000GT, and 8 under construction. Now, however, there are almost double that number in service (71 ships) and almost 50 more that are planned. These days, ships under 100,000GT are the exception, rather than the rule. Therefore, I am proposing that, in order to make this list more meaningful and to differentiate it from List of cruise ships, that we increase the threshold to 120,000GT. If you graph all the current ship sizes, there seems to be a breakpoint between 116,000 and 121,000, so 120,000 seems like a logical place (looking at future ships, it seems like in a few years the logical breakpoint would be 165,000). This will trim the list to 44 ships right now, and it will be 50 ships by the end year.

Comments? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:12, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Trimming list

The list has been expanding nicely over the last few years, and we're currently sitting pretty at 61 entries (rank 59 is shared by three ships). However, with the large number of large cruise ships that were launched in recent years, I think the list has gradually bloated beyond its earlier size. In addition, it will continue to grow - the 'On order' section has 38 more entries that will only add to the main list as time wears on and these ships enter service. To keep it at a relevant and comfortable size, we should probably continue to maintain the 'In service' list at roughly 50 entries, and periodically trim it by raising the GT threshold and removing the entries of smaller ships that don't meet the raised threshold.

Currently the threshold is 120,000 GT, but given that the list is about the largest cruise ships, I doubt most readers of this type of list will be looking for or interested in the ships rated at between 120,000 to 130,000 GT, seeing as they are considered fairly mid-sized in the industry. The remaining ships larger than 130,000 GT would provide more than sufficient context for readers to compare the truly large ships. Therefore, I propose raising the threshold to 130,000 GT for now, which will trim 12 ships from the bottom of the 'In service' list to leave 49. What does everyone think? Epistulae ad Familiares (talk) 12:55, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@Epistulae ad Familiares: I wrote about this a bit above in the #Size threshold section when I trimmed it to 120,000. 120,000 was chosen because there was a large gap above and below it, so it seemed like a more meaningful dividing line than 130,000 (where the Disney Fantasy is just 0.2% too small, which is essentially a rounding error). 135,000 might be a better number, since there is a larger gap before it, and it brings the list down to 43 entries, which is about where it was the last time the threshold was raised. It also, coincidentally, is the size of the smallest "on order" ship in that list.

However, if the goal is to maintain the "in service" list at roughly 50 entries, why not just set the limit at 50 entries instead of an arbitrary size threshold? The "on order" ships could be ships on order larger that would be large enough to be in the top 50 if they were in service today (e.g. larger than the 50th largest ship in service). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:11, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ahecht: Here it is over a year later and the list is still for anything over 120K, so 65 entries. I agree that it should be limited to 50 entries, if not less. The list is for the "largest". I would be happy to do that, but in my experience, Wikipedia pages always have people that think they're in charge and revert any good changes that they didn't do. Also this talk page really needs to be cleaned up. Someone else can do that. :) Jbw9 (talk) 14:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jbw9 I went ahead and trimmed it to 135,000GT. Still unsure about whether there is consensus for a hard cap of 50. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:08, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jbw9 @Ahecht Just noticed this discussion. There are now 67 ships in service and 19 on order over 135,000 GT. If we raise the threshold to 150,000 GT, we will have 41 ships in service and 15 on order totalling 56. Way to go? IlkkaP (talk) 16:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

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