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On 28 February 2025, Editor CatFan2 made this edit to USS John Finn without edit summary. I reverted with an edit summary noting that the article was better before. The editor also made similar edits to other Arleigh Burke-class destroyer articles. I reverted all of those that are on my watchlist.

On 1 March 2025, Editor CatFan2 reverted my revert with the edit summary:

More detailed information is located in the first sentence and is useful to anyone who is trying to find information about the certain ship. Knowing the Flight of a Burke-class provides a lot of information from the get-go, so I believe it should be in the first sentence as a descriptor

After, Editor CatFan2's second revert (at USS Forrest Sherman (DDG-98)) I posted a note on their talk page (User talk:CatFan2 § Arleigh Burke-class ship leads) noting WP:BRD and suggesting that they start a discussion somewhere common to all of the articles that I had reverted and linked to this discussion page. Editor CatFan2 then asked that I start this discussion.

Editor CatFan2: Have I described the history of our interaction correctly?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While the overall flow was better before, the Flights of a Burke are pretty significant and should probably be mentioned in the lede. The number of the ship in class ("63rd" et. al.) shouldn't be though, that's merely trivia. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:29, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for creating this discussion here, as I'm quite new to editing.

I believe that having the Flight variant in the first sentence, or at least in the first paragraph, is quite helpful due to there being large differences between the Flight variants. I noticed when browsing through Burke-class articles that many of them didn't even include the Flight version or had them in differing places within the article, so I standardized the first sentence of each Burke-class article. I apologize for not consulting this area first, as what I did was a big edit across all ships. I'd be more than happy to personally go through the articles and implement changes if a consensus is reached here. Cheers CatFan2 (talk) 00:33, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Taking USS John Finn (permalink) as an example, the first sentence markup is:

'''USS ''John Finn'' (DDG-113)''' is the 63rd ''[[Arleigh Burke-class destroyer|Arleigh Burke-class]]'' ([[Arleigh Burke-class destroyer#Characteristics|Flight IIA Restart]]) [[Aegis combat system|Aegis]] [[guided missile destroyer]] in service with the [[United States Navy]].

USS John Finn (DDG-113) is the 63rd Arleigh Burke-class (Flight IIA Restart) Aegis guided missile destroyer in service with the United States Navy.

The purpose of an article lead is to summarize the important parts of the article; not to introduce new detail. See MOS:LEAD and MOS:INTRO et seq. in particular relating to details. A string of ten blue-linked words in the first sentence violates WP:SEAOFBLUE. I agree that 'is the 63rd' is trivia. Nowhere else in the article body is 'Aegis' mentioned; nowhere else in the article body is 'Flight IIA Restart' mentioned. §Design does say that 'John Finn will be a Flight IIA ship' which suggests that the article could do with more of an overhaul than a WP:SEAOFBLUE first sentence. And my last little niggle: '-class' is not to be italicized.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:04, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...the fact that the article doesn't seem to mention Aegis at all raises my eyebrow for sure. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:06, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where should the Flight variant and Aegis be mentioned? In the John Finn article, it can easily be put into the 'design' section, but many of the Burke articles don't have that section, meaning that a complete revamp and reconstruction of many articles may be necessary. CatFan2 (talk) 01:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The term 'Flight IIA Restart' does not appear to be explicitly defined anywhere in en.wiki though I presume it is vaguely defined at Arleigh Burke-class destroyer § Production restarted. It appears that this version of John Finn has 'design' text that has seen relatively few changes in the dozen-or-so years since it was written. That text appears to have been added to the article as filler until something more concrete about John Finn could be written. The link to the Arleigh Burke-class article is sufficient to replace most or all of the §Design section in the article. The article USS John Finn should be about John Finn, not about the Arleigh Burke class.

This search finds about 180 GA-class ship articles where the title has the USS ship prefix. Spend some time studying those articles to see how they are written. Apply what you learn to the Arleigh Burke-class articles.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many of these articles have a link to the ship's class article under the 'Design' header, see USS Massachusetts, and also include a lengthy design section even though a better, more detailed one can be found in the ship's class article, see South Dakota-class. You advise having a smaller design section, and I agree that that would be sufficient in most cases, but the GA-class articles don't have those, and have rather large design sections even when linking to a larger one for the entire class. I'm a tad bit lost on the best way forward CatFan2 (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The way to think of is this: ship articles should prioritize coverage of that ship's service history and have a sort summary of the technical details (and any significant differences from the other members of the class), while class articles should be the reverse: summaries of the ships' service histories and more focused on the design history, context of the ships, and tech specs. In the examples you linked, the design section of USS Massachusetts (BB-59) is significantly shorter than the South Dakota-class battleship (1939). The class article provides some 10 paragraphs on the context and design history of the class, compared to 1 for the ship article. And technical details are covered in 15 or so paragraphs in the class article, compared to 5 for the ship article (and of which, 2 are on modifications specific to that ship). Conversely, the class article has 6 paragraphs of Massachussets's service history, compared to 24 in the ship article. That's the general structure you want to use when writing ship articles. Parsecboy (talk) 18:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As Trappist notes, the purpose of the lede is to summarise the article. There shouldn't really be anything there that isn't in the body of the article - if there is, then the article really needs rewriting to fix this. Much of what is in the lede probably doesn't belong there, and certainly shouldn't be in the first sentence (and there are things that aren't in the lede that should be summarised there - like the ship's service history). Similarly the infobox should be used to summarise information that is already in the article, not as its sole location. The article body should be expanded to include this information (and perhaps the opportunity taken to trim the infobox - an infobox that is longer than the rest of the article isn't really helpful - for one, it messes up image placement. These problems do not seem to be unique to this article but appear to be common to most of the ships of the class.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:03, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with many of the concerns noted by Ttm above. That said, would it not be useful to have the flight noted in the infobox, since there are only four flights for ≈100 ships? Perhaps Aegis should be noted there as well, since it applies to all the ships. - \\'cԼF 17:38, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that the 'Flights' of Arleigh Burke class destroyres probably would have been, in the past, counted as seperate classes (much the same way a lot of modern aircraft are, say, "F-16C Block 60" when in the past there would have been a new suffix letter). They're that different. - The Bushranger (talk) 21:31, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I could see them listed as sub-classes, then or now, considering the differences among the flights, but as it stands now, we have the flights, (just as the Navy does), so like I said, wouldn't there be some benefit to noting that in the infobox? And really, I'm not sure why Aegis hasn't been included in the infobox since the beginning. - \\'cԼF 23:49, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could 'Aegis' be put into the "Class and Type" section of the infobox? Possibly the Flight as well? A small section in each article may need to be added which expounds upon the Flight and Aegis, but it sounds like a possible start in the right direction. CatFan2 (talk) 00:41, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that to show the flight in the infobox one might do this:

{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Hide header = 
| Header caption = 
| Ship class = {{sclass|Arleigh Burke|destroyer}}
}}
|-
! Subclass
| Flight IIA
{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Hide header = yes
...
}}

As for Aegis, that's part of the ship's armament so perhaps a modification to the various armament templates in Category:Arleigh Burke-class destroyer infobox templates. Both of those things should be mentioned and sourced in the article body.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The HMS Belgol article has been nominated for deletion. Please do not move the article while discussion is ongoing. Feel free to comment at the AfD nomination. Mjroots (talk) 05:55, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone help me on this? There was confusion between this ship and Tavistock which was renamed Albany in 1747. I've used the information from Colledge to change the erroneous redirect but now I think Colledge is wrong and I don't have Winfield to check. There's even more potential for confusion as there was another Tavistock in 1747 and both Albany's had the same Captain! Lyndaship (talk) 11:05, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added some detail on her capture. - Davidships (talk) 01:42, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion of interest to this project is taking place at Talk:USS Pueblo (AGER-2)#class type?. - \\'cԼF 11:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have put a {{better source needed}} on "Destroyers Before 1918" in HMS Paragon (1913).
Is this source as bad as I think it is, and does anyone have anything better for this article? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 20:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ThoughtIdRetired: I imagine all of the info from that URL could probably be sourced from the relevant Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships? Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 21:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a source to which I have access. This is me editing outside my normal time period. I tend to focus on anything from early prehistory up to the 17th century at the moment, with just the occasional departure such as this one. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 22:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Through the magic of the internet archive, I have checked Conways All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 and there is a very brief account of the careers of this class. The current article content is a misreading of that information, it appears. I will have a proper look at this in the cold light of dawn. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 22:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]