Shipspotting Complete List Of Vessels ?

[DanEarl]

Hello everyone,

A quick question, is there anyway that I can see a list of names of every photo on this website ?

It would enable me to save time searching for specific vessels and maybe even print out a list each month to help me with my databases ?

If there isn't such a facility would it be possible to create one ?

Many thanks in advance,

Dan.

[DanEarl]

Thank you for your reply Ken, I can imagine it would be a major task to list every name but not being a computer wizard I wasn't sure how easy it would be.

Just something along the lines like when I go to my own uploaded photos I get a complete list of what I have posted,

I won't hold my breath but hopefully in time something may appear !

Thanks again Ken,

Cheers, Dan.

[Dеnis]

Maybe something like an alphabetical list of ship names?
Like you click on R it gives you a list of all ships in th photo database with name starting on R.  Maybe even like pointing at any ship name in the list, a small image of the recent photo of that ship appears.
Somehow such feature would help randomly discover new vessels/photos.

[DanEarl]

Exactly Denis !

Cheers,

Dan.

[itsfoto]

I doubt that it is very complicated to generate such an alphabetical list, all data are filed in a database anyway, so it should be possible to extract that kind of information without being awed by staggering numbers. Whether anyone could be bothered is another question. Still, I would like to see it happen, too.
There is a very different problem though, and that is the far from uniform understanding among members of what a ship's name is.
One of the most recent examples is "USCGC SPENCER (WMEC-905)" (http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1727502). The name should be nothing other than "Spencer" I dare  say.

Once you start looking, you find names preceded by HMS, HMAS, CGC, USN, AHTS, MV (motor vessel), SV (sailing vessel), STS (sail training ship), etc. etc., followed by just about anything one may find proper, possibly all but short of "Esq." (as in Stavros S. Niarchos, Esq.).
Talking of whom, that particular "STS" can be found as "Stavros Niarchos", , Stavros S Niargos", "Stavros S Niarchos", "Stavros G Niarchos", Stavros S Niachos" and "Stavros S. Niarchos"...

Oh well.

cheers

Uwe

[Richard Paton]

I've always wondered what with the thousands & thousands of ships ever to sail the seven seas how many of these ARE NOT represented on this site by way of a photo! 

I bet it's a mind boggling amount...furthermore can you imagine just how many ships have ever sailed full stop? 

Richard

[Dеnis]

I doubt that it is very complicated to generate such an alphabetical list, all data are filed in a database anyway, so it should be possible to extract that kind of information without being awed by staggering numbers. Whether anyone could be bothered is another question. Still, I would like to see it happen, too.
There is a very different problem though, and that is the far from uniform understanding among members of what a ship's name is.
One of the most recent examples is "USCGC SPENCER (WMEC-905)" (http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1727502). The name should be nothing other than "Spencer" I dare  say.

Once you start looking, you find names preceded by HMS, HMAS, CGC, USN, AHTS, MV (motor vessel), SV (sailing vessel), STS (sail training ship), etc. etc., followed by just about anything one may find proper, possibly all but short of "Esq." (as in Stavros S. Niarchos, Esq.).
Talking of whom, that particular "STS" can be found as "Stavros Niarchos", , Stavros S Niargos", "Stavros S Niarchos", "Stavros G Niarchos", Stavros S Niachos" and "Stavros S. Niarchos"...

Oh well.

cheers

Uwe

That's very interesting situation you put on with ship prefixes.  Imagine in such ships names list there would be tons of names all starting with HMS or USS or USCGC, etc.
What then if when uploading a photo of some "HMS [name] F234" in ship's actual name bar the author types only that name while the prefix will be typed in a different bar just like currently for pennant numbers & IMOs?   So at the end it will be automatically displayed as "HMS [name] F234"...  And maybe an option in ship list to exclude prefixes from the list?

As for avoiding various name typings of a certain ship, maybe something like typing a name & picking the one that was found in the database - same as currently when you're inputting the location where the photo was taken.

[Tony des Landes]

Producing an alphabetical list would be very simple and all it would take would be to write a SQL query like.

SELECT DISTINCT VESSEL_NAME FROM DATA_BASE_TABLE_NAME;

As has already been alluded to, the results will only be as good as the data.

There would also been the issue of instances where the same name has been used for different ships.

This could be resolved by something like

SELECT DISTINCT VESSEL_NAME, IMO_NUMBER FROM DATA_BASE_TABLE_NAME;

which would return separate rows for each vessel with the same name but differentiated by IMO number.

In an ideal world, a relational database structure would deal with these more efficiently as you would have a table containing details of all the vessels and another table linking all the photos to the vessel table.

Tony

[Henrik Soderberg]

Hi,

We are looking at identifying unique ships in ways you're mentioning here. There are a few tricky things for all ships that doesn't have IMO's. Most of the identifiers can change frequently, like MMSI, name etc. When it's good enough it will be published.

Regards,
Henrik

[DanEarl]

Thank you for your replies regarding my initial question,

Just another quick thought of mine, when I start to enter a ships name into the Ship Photo Search tab at the top right of the page, it normally takes at least 3 letters to bring up ships names starting with these letters, could it be possible to make it so that as soon as any letter is entered all the ships names beginning with it appear then all I need to do is scroll down the list ?

Like I said before, I am not computer buff and do now know how much effort of time it will take but the thought came to me today while wallpapering the kitchen - I think I put more effort in to the thinking then I did the wallpapering !

Cheers, Dan.

[Dеnis]

could it be possible to make it so that as soon as any letter is entered all the ships names beginning with it appear then all I need to do is scroll down the list ?

That would be a lot of scrolling.
Actually those ship names suggestions come from how the uploaded photos are named.  So if I'm searching for, say, Neftegaz-51 it would give suggestions of available photos under the names like Neftegaz-51, NEFTEGAZ 51, neftegaz         51, etc.   Really, that's a big problem here because many of uploaders aren't that much responsible for the accuracy of inputs. So if I'm searching for directly Neftegaz-51 - it won't give me photos if the name is written differently or especially with a typo unless those can be found via IMO...  But what if the photo named incorrectly + doesn't have IMO?

[DanEarl]

Hi Denis, I would have thought that by typing n in first then scroll down (yes that would be alot of scrolling) then you would find the ne then further the nef etc etc but it shouldn't really matter if caps or not but definitely if the name was spelt incorrect ?

Having been watching very closely to all new photos posted over the past five months then most incorrectly spelt names are commented on but not necessarily corrected, this is a shame but what can we do about that ?

Like I said, it was just a thought but maybe a poor one on my behalf.

Thanks for your reply and I will continue to search the supply / anchor handlers & tugs that is my main interest in the way that I have been doing so, I just thought there would be an easier way.....

Cheers, Dan.

[DanEarl]

Thanks Ken for your reply,

Maybe I will stick more thought in continuing with the wallpapering tomorrow !

Like you said before, I won't hold my breath !

Kind regards,

Dan.