Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SS John Stagg

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 02:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SS John Stagg

SS John Stagg (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

No offense to people (or relatives of people) who may have served on this ship, but I can find nothing notable (in a Wikipedia sense) about this ship. It was one of some 2500 liberty ships built in WWII, but was neither attacked nor sunk. It participated in several convoys but none of which came under attack. News archive searches find the following:

  • 6 mentions (1946–48) in The New York Times reporting only the ship's arrival or departure in New York (under the name John Stagg).
  • 1 mention (1954) in The New York Times when it was one of 15 ships under consideration for transfer to a foreign flag (under the later name of "Takoil")
  • No mentions under the other two names, National Servant or Yianna.
  • One passing mention in the John Gorley Bunker book "Liberty Ships" (OCLC 164624038) reporting it as one of 6 liberty ships operated by the Mar-Trade Corporation — Bellhalla (talk) 14:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Users might want to read the creator's edit summary and WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As the article creator, I feel I should explain my comment. My grandfather's service on these ships led me to do the research on them. I posted what I found in hopes that it would be helpful to others. The only memorial I intended to leave was in my edit comment; for the article to be a memorial of my grandfather, I would think it would need to mention him, right? I'm not a ship enthusiast, so I'll certainly bow (pun intended) to the judgment of those who are. But I hope you'll decide to improve it, and I hope someone with an interesting story about it comes out of the woodwork. Tad (talk) 20:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(Reply for Mjroots) I believe the article was nominated over concerns on being non-notable. Notability cannot be "improved", instead you have to find proof of it. I haven't voted in this discussion, but the reason I pointed out the creator's edit summary was to perhaps shed some light on why a non-notable ship article was created. Although in hindsight I agree that this article is not attempting to be a memorial, and have struck out the claim. Ryan4314 (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep. The questions raised about the notability of this ship are significant, however, this was a ship that sailed under the charge of the US Navy, not a barge on the Mississippi. Overall, ships seem to me to be like bridges (which I am interested in). People with an interest in a particular subject consider the mere existence to confer notability. WP:WikiProject Ships needs to begin this discussion. Sometimes it's easier to think in terms of what ships are not notable and start from there. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 22:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Clarification: There is no evidence to support the contention that this ship was ever under the control of the U.S. Navy. During World War II it was owned by and under the control of the War Shipping Administration, a wartime civilian agency that handled all U.S. merchant shipping during the war. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • As the WSA administrator was an appointment of the president, the ship sailed under the command of the President of the United States, exercising his duties of Commander in Chief as authorized by the Constitution and the war powers act. Same level of notability to me. This was no banana boat, but an element of the US war effort. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 02:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete (with regret) I note the Hull number 1737. Does WP need perhpas 2000 articles on individual liberty ships, let alone on every cargo ship. On the other hand it might be possible to merge some of the content to Liberty ships, by way of example. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:37, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has about 2.7 million articles. Even if a article was created for each individual liberty ship, another 2,000 won't make much difference. Mjroots (talk) 06:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Nothing notable found and nothing notable portending. Compare to SS Jeremiah O'Brien for WP:notability.-- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 23:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep All ships are notable. (as distinct from boats, barges, ferrys, etc.) There has always been enough material, and there is here also. given the fate of this one, all the more so. DGG (talk) 01:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the benefit of those following this debate, DGG, can you point out where the claim that "all ships are notable" is stated? I'm not familiar with such a guideline. — Bellhalla (talk) 04:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
empiric observation of the fact that articles on them are essentially never deleted, though sometimes challenged. That's one of the ways in which policy is made. If you prefer, it can be worded "In practice in WP, all ships are considered notable, as they should be." And I gave the reason why I think it's a rational practical policy--that information can always be found--as is the case with this article. DGG (talk) 05:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for explaining further. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —J.Mundo (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The ship was rebuilt twice, each time gaining more tonnage, and lengthened once. I believe that the rewritten article demonstrates the ship has sufficient notablility for Wikipedia. Mjroots (talk) 06:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the good work, mjroots, but I'm still not seeing any notablity in the improved article. Can you elaborate on what made this ship notable? — Bellhalla (talk) 13:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Notability:- Most ships are not substantially rebuilt in their lives, some get re-engined, a few are rebuilt. Very few are rebuilt twice! I'd say this makes John Stagg notable enough. Mjroots (talk) 13:58, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm not sure I buy your contention. Can you provide reliable sources that indicate the uniqueness of a ship being rebuilt twice? — Bellhalla (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I didn't say it was unique. However, it is quite rare. Compare with listed buildings in the UK, only 1.4% make it to Grade I status. I'd say that a ship being rebuilt twice is probably rarer than that. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Forgive my improper choice of uniqueness, then. Since your assertion is that two rebuildings of a ship is of sufficient rarity that, hence, makes this ship notable, can you provide a reliable source that indicates the frequency or rarity of such an event? — Bellhalla (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • No, I can't provide a reliable source for that. However, a search of the thousands of ship articles on Wikipedia will show that a ship being rebuilt twice is quite rare. It's not like every third or fourth ship got rebuilt twice, is it? Mjroots (talk) 20:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Notable. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Could you please explain why you think this? Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well documented warship. Played a significant part in naval history. If people decide later to merge it to an appropriate list of ships, that would be okay with me, but including historical information on a naval warship seems like a good idea. How many sailors served on it? ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for elaborating. I would like to point out that this and the majority of all liberty ships were civilian cargo ships and not warships. But to answer your question, a typical liberty had a crew of about 40 with a Naval Armed Guard (gunners) of usually 15–20. (Compare to a typical destroyer, a small warship with a complement of over 300) — Bellhalla (talk) 13:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Correct that it was not a Warship. It was not built to make war. However, I agree with the intent of ChildofMidnight's comment. That is, this ship was a ship of war. It was built and operated by the US as part of their war effort. The same person that commanded the US military might commanded this ship. It can be called civilian because it wasn't military. I would emphasize that it was a government ship, not a private ship for hire. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 02:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete There is no guideline or convention which states that civilian ships are automatically notable; they need to meet WP:N. I don't think that the available references are sufficent to meet this requirement as none of them appear to be specifically about this ship - it only appears as an unremarked entry in lists of ships taking part in convoys and as a brief entry in massive databases of ships - I don't think that this constitutes "significant coverage". Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Ignoring Wiki-policies and guidelines and just looking at the article as a worthwhile addition to the encyclopaedia I say the answer is yes. Okay, the ship was no more notable than all the others, but a well cited article describing the life of one of these ships, just as a random sample is surely a good thing. MortimerCat (talk) 07:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are other articles which cover "typical' liberty ships:
    • These are apart from many other liberty ships with articles that were taken into the U.S. Navy, or bombed, or torpedoed, or blew up, etc. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep The nominator themself mentions multiple mentions in reliable sources (NYT), which is a sufficient condition of itself.
As to the creator's "tribute" comment, then that's more to do with their effort in setting it up as being a tribute, not that the article itself has no existence beyond a tribute.
Do we need an article on every Liberty ship? - maybe not. But we certainly do need some articles on them as examples, and this seems like a good one. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While the The New York Times is indeed a reliable source, the mentions of this ship are trivial — as part of a regular feature that listed the arrivals and departures of all ships into New York area ports, and one article that mentions the ship in passing. These all fail the first criterion of WP:N in that they do not provide "significant coverage". The one book reference suffers the same shortcoming. (I know I'm not notable, but I'm pretty sure one could find at least six trivial mentions of me in my local newspaper.) — Bellhalla (talk) 12:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - per WP:Notability (vehicles), this article meets the criteria of "vehicles that are generally treated by secondary sources as distinct entities are generally notable in and of themselves. (Examples: Large ships such as the RMS Queen Mary II)" Scapler (talk) 12:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • That guideline essay is instructive, Scalper. Thanks for pointing it out. One point, though, the guideline essay says "large ships". I will point out that the tonnage, one indicator of size in ships, of RMS Queen Mary II is some 20 times larger than that of John Stagg. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also note that just above that point, the same essay states "Almost all individual vehicles are not notable …" (empahsis as in original). — Bellhalla (talk) 15:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - while the current refs are meagre, there are at least two books which cover the history of every single Liberty ship ever built - they are The Liberty Ships: The History of the 'Emergency' Type Cargo Ships Constructed in the United States During World War II by Leonard Sawyer and William Mitchell (1970), ISBN 9780715349076, and The Liberty Ships from A (A.B. Hammond) to Z (Zona Gale) by Walter W. Jaffee (2004), 978-1889901251. On that basis I would say Liberty ships are inherently notable. Gatoclass (talk) 13:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not have access to either book so I could be wrong about this, but if you take the Jaffe book, presumably the more comprehensive book, it is 722 pages (per Worldcat.org). Even if we ignore the table of contents, index, and illustrations, that equals on average a fraction more that ¼-page for each ship (722 pages ÷ 2,751 liberty ships). Without seeing the book, it's hard to know, but that would not seem to be any more comprehensive than, say, the LIBERTY SHIPS - Joaquin - Johns source in the article currently. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Amazon summarizes the book as follows: The result of over five years of exhaustive research into government records, published works, professional contacts, libraries and the internet, this encyclopedia contains everything known about Liberty ships -- every single one of the 2,710 ship built during World War II: who each was named for, where built, when launched, when delivered, type of ship, engine manufacturer, ship operator, wartime history, postwar service, every name they were subsequently known under, what ultimately happened to them -- all cross-referenced and indexed so readers can find any ship they're looking for. This is truly "the last word" on Liberty ships, and the most complete, including diagrams, specifications, special chapters on the last two Liberty ships still active, and over 400 photos, on high quality stock. It is a reader-friendly book, avoiding codes and setting forth the information in clear language.
Sounds pretty good to me! I might buy it myself it is wasn't so expensive :) Gatoclass (talk) 16:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep-- Research for historical topics can't be done only with a Google Search. This kind of research is tedious, but sources are available. --J.Mundo (talk) 15:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: No one said that this was "only a Google search". I've consulted many of the sources that I use in writing ship articles. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Note that we have an entire category devoted to Liberty ships. And before you go quoting the contested essay about "other stuff exists", the existence of an entire category devoted to naval ships constructed by a government during a major war counts as a strong precedent, and proof of editor interest. Most importantly, deleting individual entries on the grounds that a nominator finds an article about any one ship less interesting than he thinks it ought to be is both subjective and random, and creates inexplicable gaps. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: As nominator I didn't say it was boring, uninteresting, or unexciting. What I questioned was the notability of this ship. Yes, there is a category for liberty ships, as there are quite a few that are indeed notable either as commissioned naval vessels (which this one wasn't); being attacked (of which there is no evidence; for example, no mention in Browning's definitive U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II); or being sunk or a wreck (which obviously doesn't apply here). All we have are sources that confirm the existence of this ship and its specifications and characteristics and name changes and changes of registry. It was neither the first nor the last liberty ship built. It was neither the quickest nor the slowest built liberty ship. It was neither the longest- or shortest-lived liberty ship. It was not the first tanker-style liberty ship nor was it the last. From my searches of the ProQuest newspaper archives between 1942 and 1970, I can find nothing but the trivial mentions noted above. It all seems to boil down to this question: Is a liberty ship inherently notable because it existed or must it otherwise meet notability requirements? — Bellhalla (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • What you're suggesting here seems to me to involve some kind of reorganization of the way we deal with all of these ships. Most of these articles seem to have enough information to support a separate article about each, and this one seems to have such as well, including US government images. I have no opinion on whether some ship articles should be merged, and if so how: saving only that all the data we already have should be preserved. Your argument apparently boils down to a claim that this ship is just average, not exceptional enough to be an article subject. And nominating individual ship articles as an attempt to force a major reorganization of the existing Liberty Ship material is not helping. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm not suggesting any sort of reorganization at all, nor am I intending on being WP:POINT-y (and my apologies if it comes across that way). I'm not one to nominate articles for deletion willy-nilly, and I would not call myself a deletionist by any stretch. There are two extremes to notability
          • One extreme says any ship (whatever may be the definition of ship) is notable (as is expressed above in this discussion).
          • The other extreme, is like the case of the B-29 Superfortress. I can only find one named vessel, Enola Gay, included in Wikipedia, though I'm sure quite a few were named. (Even though the comparison of airplanes to ships is a stretch, there were comparable numbers of each produced.)
        • An AFD discussion, like case law, helps to establish a precedent. By discussing the appropriateness of an article on a ship that, in my opinion, fails to otherwise meet notability guidelines, we help to establish where between the two extremes the median is located. If the decision is keep, that, to me, will speak to the inherent notability of all liberty ships (which is the only point intended from my previous reply to you). — Bellhalla (talk) 19:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • We have been through this recently within the last month; see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SS Timothy Bloodworth (2nd nomination). It strikes me that Liberty ships are particularly at risk of this particular controversy, since by definition they represent one of a large number of very similar, mass produced ships. To me, that counts as a precedent that Liberty ships don't have to have done anything particularly memorable to merit an article. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • As hard as you might find it to believe, I was one who worked on 'saving' SS Timothy Bloodworth. In that case there were multiple sources that noted that Timothy Bloodworth was the first ship to be hit by a German V-2 rocket, which, in my view, established a higher level of notability than has been done for this article. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There are enough sources available to write an informative article and there are interesting pictures. Jehochman Talk 17:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: The quantity and quality of sources for this ship, however, are not the reasons mentioned in the nomination. What is in question is what makes this ship sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia? — Bellhalla (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment: If the decision is to keep this article, then the precedent is set as mentioned above for all Liberty ships to be added to Wikipedia, should someone so desire. If suitable information and external sources could be found -- aside from database-type entries -- then the ship's notability could be supported. But if the SS John Stagg is mentioned relatively as often as many other Liberty ships, either they are all notable for the mere presence in a listing of all such ships, or they are not. What's the appropriate criteria here? -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 22:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Support "there are interesting pictures" as a reason to keep. The Liberty ships as a whole are notable, and an individual ship for which meticulous individualized documentation can be found should be a worthwhile article. This article does not overstate or embellish the importance of this particular ship; it just tells it like it is. If the worst consequence of this decision is that we wind up with 2,751 articles on Liberty ships, that might be OK. (Very unlikely that even a fraction of that will be realized, since it is so much work to create a ship article as good as this one). EdJohnston (talk) 20:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - amount of information available on the subject betrays its notability (roughly, per WP:N) Valid encyclopaedic topic, with notability demonstrated. How much more do you need? WilyD 21:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The subject of inherent notability of ships is under discussion here. These proposed guidelines are open to further discussion and revision to enable a consensus to be obtained re the inherent notability of ships. Mjroots (talk) 14:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mjroots' link is to the draft version of ship notability guidelines. The link to the discussion is here. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep article provides reliable and verifiable sources to establish the notability of the ship. A thorough, well-researched article. Alansohn (talk) 15:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep- Good article, good sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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