ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Site related news, functions and modules => Topic started by: davidships on February 28, 2020, 12:52:36 AM
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Unsurprisingly this has arisen afresh in the context of the website upgrade, and in particular whether, if there were agreement on one style, software could ease the change and future uploading. That technical aspect is the only thing that makes it necessary to review this question now.
In my experience, auto-alteration from lower to upper case can work, though when this site introduced it in c2014 it did not work well enough and was soon abandoned - mainly, I recall, over treatment of non-standard letters, which we no longer use, and punctuation (hyphens, apostrophes, full stops etc) as well as those categories which are not ship names (eg ports, funnel logos). It does not usually work at all properly the other way around, because the software cannot identify where the capital initial letters should go. The grosstonnage-based vessel identification box under every photo uses this, producing logical abominations like "Cma Cgm L'etoile", "E.r.camargue", "Xxvii Syezd Kpss", "P&,osl Picardy".
Since 2014, each time it has been discussed it has just revealed a lack of willingness to accept a change to a common approach by one side or the other, even though that would look more professional and serious for the site.
For the record, the following is copied from yesterday's thread on Members' suggestions for improvement of the website
Pieter InpynSuggestions for improvement of the website:
1) Conversion of all vessel names of all the posted photo
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In the title box I typically insert the ship name in either CAPITALS and/or Title Case, consistent with how it appears on the bow/stern of vessel. To add to Allan RO's comment, there are quite a few upper/lower case examples "floating" around out there. i.e. Celebrity Cruise vessels/B.C. Ferries, etc., etc.....More examples below....
Regatta/Insigna
Celebrity ECLIPSE/SOLSTICE/SUMMIT
Bahri ABHA/JEDDAH/TABUK/YANBU
Queen of Cowichan / Oak Bay
Queen Mary 2
I've noticed from time to time, moderator(s) will change name from "title case" to all "capitals".
As indicated in one of David's comments, whether a name has capitals or not makes no difference to a name search. At the end of the day I prefer seeing a title that is consistent with how name appears on bow/stern (foreign names/letters, etc.,the exception).
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Since the vast majority of ships have their names painted in capitals and the registers use capitals (regardless of how the name appears on the vessel, eg AIDAbella on the ship/AIDABELLA in the registers), it follows logically that using capitals for ship names should be the mandatory "house style" on this site.
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Ships names in capitals is my preference.
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CHANGED ALL MY PICS TO CAPITALS
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In my opinion, for a comprehensive site standard it can work out three ways, only one of which is straightforward.
1. All Caps: Easy, everything is converted.
2. Leading first letter capitalized, except acronyms and other various situations: Complex situations such as finally having to sort out whether this tug is a name or an acronym...
http://www.shipspotting.com/ships/ship.php?imo=5107982
3. By Appearance on Hull: Complex situations such as having to adjust for every yacht owner that thinks they're being funny by alternating caps and lower case, or representing the boat name with a symbol, etc...
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All in capitals for me. We could have a poll, if the site allows for such things.
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I also use all capital letters when I'm using the ship's name, it's more uniformed and more appropriate. Judging by the the other posts I'm certainly not alone.
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I support all caps for consistency.
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I write the ships name in capitals when loading it onto the site, it just looks better in capitals full stop.
That said i can go through my photos and many many of them have been changed to lower case by admins, which i guess is done as a point of reference to say they've looked over that particular photo - but if the poster has taken the time to enter the photo name in capitals it really should stay like that for all eternity.
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I always use capitals in the titles but as Richard says above, some get changed to lower case for some reason, notice this the most in military ships.
Should be capitals.
Regards
Bob
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All new entries will be in capitals and I will slowly get gound to changing existing entries
All the best in these stressjul times
Everybody keep well