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I'm in full agreement with all of eswube's points above -- uploaders, please make sure you follow his rules when uploading. eswube has the final say for formatting of ALL uploads, regardless of scale (SB or FD) and author.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Re: the years or dates in the title: I would always add this if known, for the simple reason that we don't know if other artists (or the same, at a later date) is going to add another 'date' of the same ship. In addition, never build designs often have 'as described in 19XX' while the year as drawn is different (for example, the ship is drawn as 1961 comissioned, but the proposal was 1957)

In case of the licence class, how this is handled should be based on how different these are. Van speijks are not leanders, but they were modified from the leander class design, just as the australian, indian etc variants were. In essence, there is no right or wrong here, and the exact use should be looked at in each individual case.

The date window on the never build ships: yes, this is arbitrary and possibly awkward, however to be able to compare real life ships and never build ships accurately (as was for example shown by the search function with example ships for the recent DD challenge) the dating methods of both the real life and never build designs HAVE TO BE THE SAME. Keep in mind that even proposal dates are far from ideal, as that is sometimes the publishing date and not the date of design. (for example, my 1947 class drawings were all drawings of the same ship, in the different design stages, in different years and different publications, slowly taking shape until the final real design.) For that reason I would like to keep the method used before.

One issue that I would like to raise, is that we might be able to keep a bit of an log, of who uploads what, so if there are issues or errors we can speak person to person and not in general terms. I will slowly be uploading my own works and we will have to see after that, the parts wiki has priority for me at this point, as has the crazy thing called real life.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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There is no type for tugboats that I can find any more (MV Liberty Star in this particular instance), and clicking on the Ship Types under staff just gives me a 404.

Edit: I'm also having a hard time adding D. Briedis to the list of authors for Big U.

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@Acelanceloet

Years in the title - well, IMHO if some other Artists will add more drawings of said ship later, then the title of the already existing drawing can be simply amended accordingly. On the other hand, when there will be no more drawings of that ship, the title would remain 'uncluttered'. Anyway, initial idea was to not add dates there unless there's some specific point to do so.
Regarding the mention of never-weres - it's exactly the discrepancy I mentioned and You're discussing in the "The date window..." paragraph.

I understand that Van Speijks aren't carbon copies of Leanders. But they are, so to speak, "part of Leander family" - so adding the "source class" in brackets would IMHO help with search. Similar situation is with MEKO family ships, which can differ greatly (within one group, like MEKO-200, for example), yet they are broadly related.

There's a point regarding comparing accurately the real-life and never-weres of the same period, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how many people would like to make such direct comparisons (without realizing that they should take such time difference into account) vs. how many would look for "our" rendition of a given project version, from particular year (especially when there was significant evolution of variants during the design process). As for now, somebody looking for a, say, 1957 project of ship XXX, has to make a guess that it's actually titled "XXX 1962".

But of course I'm not saying You're wrong, so I'd be keen to hear more opinions about these raised points.

@TimothyC

I'm afraid that tugboats were split between Utility Boats and Naval Auxiliaries. But frankly I'd be all for creation of separate category for them.

No, I don't agree on the never build designs date. Without the ability to compare designs, we would not need the database driven archive. The title would always show the design date, but the year in the database would represent when this ship could be operational. Sure, that is a bit harder on the people who upload said drawing, but it is only uploaded once and searched for many times.

Somebody who searches for ship xxx will see ship xxx with in the title the design years in the title, one who searches for a ship that could be operational in a certain time era uses the database year.

On the modified classes, sorry for not being clear, but I meant that we have to take a good look when to apply it. Listing the van speijk as just an Leander would be wrong, but as 'van speijk Leander modified' or as 'van speijk' would both be fine. I just meant this should be judged on a case. By case basis, as for example an Ticonderoga is an modified spruance but never listed as such.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Re: never-were dates.
Well, what Yoy just wrote puts whole matter in slightly different light. I'm ok with having 'design date', in the title and 'depiction date' in the window. Point is, that so far more often than not, the design date was NOT included in the title. Generally it was present in titles like '1955 destroyer study' but essentialy never in, say 'CVA-58 United States'.

Re: modified classes.
I am aware that Tico uses Spruance hull, but never seen it described as simply a modification of Spruance. What I meant were relatively close 'relationships'.
I assume that use of (modified) bracket is generallt npt causing controversies?

Generally never-weres are the hardest to draw because of their incomplete nature. I try to draw them to how they would look on commissioning, for example early study drawings may have quite generic weapon mounts and radars, especially for new model items undergoing development alongside the ship.

I try to avoid giving a commissioning date and stick with the proposal date as far as possible. If there are multiple designs during the same year then it makes senses to label them clearly 'initial design', 'design 2' 'final design' etc. in the title along with the date of that design, preferably with a month if known, e.g. 'Type xx Destroyer 2nd Design March 1955'.

Modified classes are tricky, especially with major rebuild changes like the Courageous class from battlecruisers to aircraft carriers. It makes sense to have a new class entry if the change is major and irreversible (i.e. its incapable of reverting to original role). I do like the idea of '(Modified)' though for smaller changes like gunboat to minesweeper etc.

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yeah, using the modified bracket or something like that is fine, I just mean that these should not be rules set in stone, but looked at what is good to do on case-by-case basis.

My personal rule for the years in the title was include it if it is included on the ships image or if I was familiar enough with the drawing to recognise which year was represented (my personal works for example ) Never build designs are always a hard thing to date, but if the design is of a certain year and known as such it can be included. The design year is sometimes even more of an problem to find then the year the ship would be comissioned, so you cannot always include it....... but yeah, if we are doing the upload again from scratch, we can try to always include it

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I don't have time right now to help with the upload, sadly, but I do happen to have most of the IJN drawings saved to my desktop. If anyone wants to upload them, I'll be most happy to send them to you.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Re: Design dates vs. possible commissioning dates of Never-weres.
Well, my personal preference was, and remains, more in line with what Hood wrote. But I am aware that some other Users (not only Acelanceloet) seem to prefer the other option, so I would be happy if we could find (and rather quickly! ) some solution acceptable to all sides.
One idea I got - although bit inconsistent (and I don't like inconsistencies) - is to accept two parallel ways of applying dates to Never-weres:
1) Date given in "Depiction Date" being the "date of the design" - in such cases no further info is needed (and it would be considered a "default" way of dating never-weres).
2) Date given in "Depiction Date" being the "possible date of commissioning/further modernization etc.", but in the title the "date of the design" would be in such cases always clearly and explicitly stated (for example: "CVA-58 United States (1947 design)" - or something like that).
Sounds ok?

Re: Modified classes, license-built derivatives and other stuff in brackets.
I would like to once again reiterate my idea:

If the single ship is converted to some entirely different set of tasks (that completely fall outside the original role, like minesweeper converted to survey ship) on a one-off basis, I suggest adding (modified) to original class name (and new role).
Examples: Jaskółka class minesweeper converted to survey ship or one of Daring class destroyers converted into sonar trials ship.

If the whole group of ships from a given class is converted to some other tasks, according to more-or-less standardized design, then I suggest giving new class name and adding (modified "original class).
Examples: Casco class of Coast Guard cutters modified from Barnegat seaplane tenders, WW2-era APD's converted from DE's.
Re: Courageous - carriers kept both the class and individual ship names of battlecruisers, so I guess that adding brackets in such situation would be superfluous )

If the ship is built under license (even with serious local modifications), or is otherwise direct "relative" of some other vessel (except for use of just the hull, like Ticonderoga ), or is part of a known "family" of designs (like MEKO), then the name of "original class" would be added in brackets)
Examples:
- Van Speijk (Type-12I Leander)
- Brisbane (Oliver Hazard Perry)
- Hydra (MEKO-200)
- Shishumar (Type-209/1500)
Note, that if the names are part of the same sequence, there's no point in adding the brackets, like for example no point in adding to "original" Type-12M Leander that it's descendant of Type-12 Whitby and Type-12M Rothesay, as their relation is somewhat self-explanatory through the Type designation (same with Russian Project numbers).

To me, purpose of all of this is to make the database as searchable as possible, even - or maybe especially - for those that may not be necessarily aware of all the local names, renamings etc. etc.

@Emperor Andreas
Drawings themselves were generally salvaged from the wipe-out, but if You have Your own backup copy, that could be used for verification, I'd be happy to use it.

EDIT:
I just looked into the Archive.
PLEASE!
"Tribal" or "Type-15" are NOT sub-types of destroyers or frigates, they are classes.

And one more thing: anyone remembers what we were doing with Destroyer Escorts - were they under Destroyers or Frigates (my preference)?