Template talk:Empire ships

Sandbox version

I've created a sandbox version of the template that takes the information and presents it in, I hope, a less complex manner, by breaking the ships into sections of related types, like cargo ships, troopships, etc. Please feel free to critique/amend/ignore as you wish. Using collapsible subgroups in the template you would invoke a shortcut parameter to allow it to display only the section that pertains to the ship in question. For example, on the SS Empire Penryn article, you type {{Empire ships|troop}}, which would display as this:

The parameter shortcuts (subject to change, if desired) are:

Abbr.	Type
cargo	Cargo ships
lsi	Landing Ships, Infantry
convoy	Convoy rescue ships
mac	Merchant Aircraft Carriers
troop	Troopships

— Bellhalla (talk) 16:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The link Empire ships probably ought to go to something like list of ships of the Ministry of War Transport? GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

it s probably "merchant and escort aircraft carriers" to include Activity. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've actually been pondering on the justification for a template for a while. These ships really don't tend to have much in common beyond being managed by the Ministry of War Transport (and not all Ministry of War Transport ships were renamed with an 'Empire' prefix). They came in all shapes and sizes, and served under all sorts of names in different periods of the war. I've no issue with a list, but trying to build what will become a template that will eventually hold many hundreds of ships as disparate as landing craft, MACs, cargo ships, troopships, tankers, tugs, heavy lifting ships, coasters, colliers, water carriers, etc seems to be trying to squeeze these all ships into a classification that just indicates that at one point they were operated by a certain government department. It might be manageable perhaps if the numbers are reasonable, but this will be a bit of a monster. Just a thought... Benea (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we divide the template into one or more. Eg the Convoy rescue ships and MACs are all convoy-related ships "template:Empire convoy support ships" while others are chiefly troop-related "Template:Empire troop ships". Others would be linked together only as notable ships operated by the MWOT.GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Benea that the size of this could spiral out of control. Dividing the template into separate templates sounds like a sensible plan. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:18, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments above appreciated. Seems to me there are two ways to split the template, either by type of ship as mentiond above, or by the first letter of the ships suffix, thus creating 26 templates - "Empire - A" to "Empire - Z". Whatever way is decided upon, the templates need to have links to all other templates to enable easy navigation between them.

Re the "List of ships of the Ministry of War Transport", I've made a start on something that could be turned into such a list. See User:Mjroots/Empire Mjroots (talk) 07:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

D'oh! Just realised, if the ships were split by first letter of suffix, that template could then be split by type of ship! Mjroots (talk) 07:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Split by suffix

I've made a start on splitting the ships by first letter of suffix.

I'm not sure how to link each template though. At the moment, the Empire Ships A template would need to be linked to the Empire Ships template and vice versa. Eventually there could be 26 templates with a link to each of the other 25. Mjroots (talk) 10:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to split by type?GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. How many different types of ship are we going to need and what is the maximum number of groups you can have in a template? At least splitting by suffix letter should keep the individual number of groups quite small per template. There are no Empire A ships that were passenger ships when they were Empire ships, for example. Mjroots (talk) 02:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

There were some 1,370 ships of the MoWT that bore the "Empire" prefix. Mjroots (talk) 12:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

How about this sort of a set up:

By putting each ship on its own line in the template code (which also eases future editing), the lines are slightly more compact. I changed the wording at the top, and added an A to Z index that links to the index pages. How does that look? How is the wording?

Some notes: The A to Z index is in "list9" rather than "below" because it gives a white line separator from the footnotes. If the A-to-Z index setup is agreeable, I'll be happy to code a template that could be transcluded into the "list 9" field. Also, I've added <span> tags around the superscripted text that add a bit of padding between the italic text of the ship name and the superscript to prevent the crashing of the text. From comparison, it looks like a space (used in the first sample in this section) makes the superscript too far away. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:02, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked the links, there were no Empire ships suffixed Q, X or Z. C and S have had to be split, T may have to be but I'll see what it looks like once I've written it. Mjroots (talk) 07:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I've set up Template:Empire Ships index. I went ahead and added Q, X, and Z back in but unlinked. I think it helps someone looking at the template to realize that there were none beginning with those letters and not that they were either forgotten or whatever. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It's looking good. What do you say to starting to implement it? Call the templates "Empire n" where n represents the suffix letter. Use first two letters of first suffix if appropriate to do so. Mjroots (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking something like that but with the word "ships", so: {{Empire A ships}} (which I took the liberty of creating already) or {{Empire Ca ships}}. I didn't want to go start transcluding the A template in case it needed updating, but if it's already up-to-date, it can be put in place. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) The Empire A is ready to go. Suggest for other templates to just list ship names where there are redlinks on the corresponding list (those with redlinks are almost certain to be notable enough to justify an article). This is because the eventual article may not be under the ships Empire name, and I hate seeing a sea of red in a template. Mjroots (talk) 19:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Template rewritten

Following discussion at WT:SHIPS I've completely rewritten the template for use in the Empire ships article. It's original use has been superseded by the individual templates split by suffix letter. Mjroots (talk) 08:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

What about changing the displayed title (i.e. what's passed as the 'title' parameter) to just the simple Empire ships? Presumably someone who encounters this template will encounter it on the Empire ships article where the ownerships, etc., is explained, so there's no need to re-explain everything in the navbox. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)