Forum:CT Archive/Updating MoS: Starship class names

Manual of Style does not completely follow the formatting standards established by official Star Wars source material. Rather, this section seems to have been originally adapted from Wikipedia's real-world style guidelines. While no doubt reasonable for real-world standards, Wikipedia's style is not properly reflective of Star Wars material.

For starship classes, both Canon and Legends have established a consistent formatting style, which I will detail here using multiple examples. Some of the following runs directly contrary to our current policy.


 * 1) When used as a compound adjective, the name of the ship class is italicized.
 * 2) *Canon: "Several CR-ninety corvettes, two Carrack-class light cruisers, a couple of Victories, and a Venator-class destroyer —the Liberator."
 * 3) **"...simplicity of the Delta-class model ..."
 * 4) *Legends: "Embodying Emperor Palpatine's power and ruthlessness, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer came to symbolize the Empire during the Galactic Civil War."
 * 5) **"The Sentinel-class starship also makes an excellent..."
 * 6) When used as a compound noun, the name of the ship class is italicized. In Canon, the term is hyphenated; in Legends, it is not hyphenated.
 * 7) *Canon: "...and many fear that the Resurgent-class is not the largest..."
 * 8) **"...before the facility began producing the Imperial II-class, the Devastator is still..."
 * 9) *Legends: "...unusually fast for a craft of the Acclamator 's class ..."
 * 10) **"A modification to the effective Imperial I class, the Imperial II class carried a crew..."
 * 11) **"...originally known as the Imperator class ."
 * 12) **"A related design, the Tector class ..."
 * 13) **"...the Enforcer, Interdictor, and Vindicator classes ..."
 * 14) When used as a noun without the accompanying term "class," the name of the ship class is not italicized.
 * 15) *Canon: "Several CR-ninety corvettes, two Carrack-class light cruisers, a couple of Victories, and a Venator-class destroyer—the Liberator."
 * 16) **"Are any of the Venators within range?"
 * 17) *Legends: "Because of its competency, the Lambda shuttle is favored by Imperial officers..."
 * 18) **"The Imperial I had an X-shaped array while the Imperial II had a flat one."
 * 19) **"...including Imperial Star Destroyers, Venators , and a handful of Lucrehulks ."
 * 20) **"The Venator was joined by other ships in the new Star Destroyer class."

Using much of the preceding text, I am proposing replacing the aforementioned "Class and ship names" subsection of the Manual of Style policy page with the following excerpt. I will here note further specific changes going into this proposal:
 * Firstly, the overall subsection will be renamed "Vehicles and vessels," as to some degree this policy will also reflect formatting standards for planetary vehicles
 * In addition to starships, this policy will now extend to space stations as well, which essentially follow the same basic standards
 * This proposal will remove the following clause from the current policy: "Preceded by the full technical designation in the first instance, and may be referred to solely by type name or common name in all succeeding instances." That clause is effectively requiring articles to use the full, formal class designation for "starship, missle, and other craft types" on every first mention and then more common names on subsequent mention, which is just silly. We've never followed that, for one, and our writing style shouldn't be so heavily controlled by policy that we're forced to use rigidly specific language in every single article. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 22:44, March 21, 2018 (UTC)

Official policy proposal begins here. {{Excerpt|

Individual starships and space stations

 * Names of individual starships are capitalized and italicized (example: Millennium Falcon), unless source material explicitly differentiates (example: Ship, the Sith Meditation Sphere).
 * Names of space stations are italicized or not, according to formatting in source material (examples: Death Star, Tarkin, the Wheel).
 * Refer to individual starships and space stations by "it"/"its" pronouns rather than "she"/"her" (example: "The Executor fired its turbolasers.").
 * Refer to individual starships and space stations using the definite article (example: "The Devastator pursued the Tantive IV."), unless source material demonstrates a clear and consistent departure from this standard (example: "Home One served as Admiral Ackbar's flagship at the Battle of Endor.").

Starship and vehicle classes
In certain situations, Star Wars canon and Star Wars Legends follow different formatting standards for starship classes. Adhere to the following, noting any differences between Canon and Legends: }}
 * When used as a compound adjective, the name of the ship class is italicized.
 * Canon: "Several CR-ninety corvettes, two Carrack-class light cruisers, a couple of Victories, and a Venator-class destroyer–the Liberator."
 * Certain exceptions apply in accordance with source material formatting (example: qaz-class Star Destroyer).
 * Legends: "Embodying Emperor Palpatine's power and ruthlessness, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer came to symbolize the Empire during the Galactic Civil War."
 * When used as a compound noun, the name of the ship class is italicized. In Canon, the term is hyphenated; in Legends, it is not hyphenated.
 * Canon: "The Resistance has limited intelligence of the First Order fleet, and many fear that the Resurgent-class is not the largest of the new Star Destroyer designs."
 * Legends: "...while a trio of six-hundred-meter cruisers&mdash;the Enforcer, Interdictor, and Vindicator classes&mdash;were common sights on the galaxy's star lanes."
 * When used as a noun without the accompanying term "class," the name of the ship class is not italicized.
 * Canon: "Are any of the Venators within range?"
 * Legends: "...including Imperial Star Destroyers, Venators, and a handful of Lucrehulks."
 * All other starfighter and vehicle classes are to adhere to the preceding rules while following source material formatting respective to each continuity (examples: Nantex-class territorial defense starfighter, T-65 X-wing starfighter, TIE/LN starfighter, T-47 airspeeder, Seraph-class urban landspeeder).

Support proposal

 * 1) Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 22:44, March 21, 2018 (UTC)