Talk:Admiral

Admirals
Is it just postulation that Rear Admiral Jr. Grade = Commodore? Should it just be stated as fact as it is here? There is no TNG Commodore is there?


 * I believe there are mixed opinions on the rank of Commodore TNG and onwards. Some people accept the term Commodore, while some use Rear Admiral Lower Half (Not Jr. Grade BTW). - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 02:04, 18 Sep 2005 (UTC)

The list of Admirals which this page links to, should probably be only the four-star admirals, like this one: File:AdmiralStrickler.jpg. There aren't actually that many of them ever seen on Star Trek. Zsingaya Talk 08:39, 19 Nov 2005 (UTC)

What about Admrial Paris...where is he on the page? He was Lt. Paris' (VOY) father.
 * Owen Paris is listed on the Vice Admiral, Admiral (Starfleet), and Starfleet admirals page, as his ranks were seen. This page has a list of admirals with an uncertain grade (could be rear, vice, full, or fleet admiral).--Tim Thomason 08:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Full Admiral
The term "Full admiral" sounds completely made up. If we have a problem with two articles named Admiral, they should be followed by a parenthesized qualifier. Jaz talk |undefined 05:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe the term is legitimate. The articles have been separated like this for a long time and no one complained.  Federation 05:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * external reference to use of full admiral
 * Yes, but an external source isn't really a valid citation. To use the terminology "full admiral", that term would have had to have been mentioned on Star Trek -- and it hasn't. -- Captain M.K.B. 13:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Neither has the term "Admiral (rank)" or any other such variation. I think the real life term does provide a good enough basis for the name given that these ranks are based on actual naval ranks and given that we need a separate article for full admiral than abstract admiral.  I think its awfully confusing to have the full admiral article deal with the abstract rank of admiral, unless you want to name this article to "admiral" and the other one to "admiral (abstract)" or something along those lines.  Federation 00:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If you read the naming standards in the manual of style you'll notice we prefer to use qualifiers over made-up names. Jaz talk |undefined 00:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps move info about one to Admiral (Starfleet) and use it to refer only to the Starfleet officers specifically referred to as "full" admirals (TNG 4-pip) as they are the smaller group. Any other admiral could be referred to by the "admiral" article, which would contain a disambiguation about the 4 or 5 specific admiral grades, as only Starfleet has used them. -- Captain M.K.B. 00:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yikes! This is getting pretty ugly.  Are you sure that full admiral was never used in canon?  I'd had preferred if this article were called admiral and the general one was qualified.  Federation 00:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Commodore in the US Navy is not a rank
It is a title. Commodores hold the rank of Captain. If you read the Hornblower novels, you can see the difference. In Commodore Hornblower, Horblower becomes a "Captain with a Captain" under him, or a "Commodore 1st Rank."

The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_%28rank%29 mentions "The rank of Commodore was at first a position created as a temporary title to be bestowed upon Captains who commanded squadrons of more than one vessel. In many navies, the rank of Commodore was merely viewed as a Senior Captain position, whereas other naval services bestowed upon the rank of Commodore the prestige of flag officer status. In the Royal Navy, the position was introduced to combat the cost of appointing more Admirals - a costly business with a fleet as large as the Royal Navy's at that time."

The US Navy did for a while have Commodore as a seperate rank, but that was later dropped. That rank was actually a contraction of Commodore Admiral. Currently, Commodore is only a job title and not a rank.--Will 05:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, we already know that, but when the original series was created Commodore was still a rank not a title. And since most of the writing staff had been a member of the military service, it is very certain they knew what they were doing. -- Kobi 09:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge
I would like to see this merged with Admiral, since both pages have information about admirals in Starfleet on them, and getting everything together on one page would avoid a lot of back and forth between them. - Archduk3 talk 03:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * One is supposed to describe all the ranks of admiral as a whole, while one is describing the specific rank in Starfleet that is in between "vice admiral" and "fleet admiral" -- so it would be necessary for there to be back and forth between the two articles involving the two separate things they describe. -- Captain MKB 03:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a problem with every other Commissioned officers and Flag officers pages sharing, I don't see any reason to treat this one differently. We already have a page to cover all admirals, the aforementioned Flag officer page. - Archduk3 talk 03:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see what the similarities with those examples is. The articles shouldn't be merged because "admiral" is a range of ranks and "admiral" is also an individual rank that is part of that range. This rank has also been called "four star admiral" in the Star Trek Encylopedia, and is a separate entity. -- Captain MKB 04:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

All Flag officers are admirals, Commodore being the "rear admiral (lower half)." Therefore, there is no need for another article about flag officers. A simple disambiguation link at the top of the page would suffice after a merge. - Archduk3 talk 04:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * But there is the frequent occurrence of vice admirals and rear admirals being referred to as "admiral" and the overall page should explain that four-star admiral is only one of the possible ranks referred to when the word "admiral" is mentioned, meaning linking to the article about the four star ranks would be inappropriate in those cases. And no, not all flag officers are admirals, some are commodores


 * The discussion to separate these articles still exists on the talk page, without contest for years, it's not really appropriate for you to make any changes merging the articles when some parties call for further discussion. -- Captain MKB 04:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * He didn't merge anything. He's brought it up for discussion, which is what is happening now. &mdash; Morder (talk) 04:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The use of the word "admiral" in those instances is the same as "Commander" to a Lieutenant Commander, see Chakotay, and is just a informal, or shortened if you wish, name for their rank. This is because usually we only see one admiral at a time and the formal rank would only be used to distinguish between the Flag ranks. As it is right now, one page defines the rank, historical, the other defines the rank, in canon, then both present Starfleet admirals, one a list of the people who may be an admiral, along with actual admirals that are non-Starfleet, the other people who have actually had the rank, on screen, with this warning:
 * Flag officers, regardless of title or grade (possibly excepting commodores), could be referred to as "admiral", meaning that many admirals referred to in dialog or other references where they were not seen could possibly hold this specific grade.

Since the page already deals with the issue of the word "admiral" I don't see how this could be an issue in a merge, which would require a rewrite anyways. I also don't see any reason to have a separate article for this, a disambiguation page would be too much IMO, but better than this two page style.

I really wasn't expecting this to be such an issue, since normally when I suggest a merge I've forgotten about it by the time I get a response. ;) - Archduk3 talk 06:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Captain M. that a merge here would be a bad idea. The Starfleet rank of Admiral has several items about it that can only be properly addressed in its own article.  We might even want to consider making a new artcile called Captain (Starfleet) for the same reason. -FC 10:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering that most of the information on this page is actually repeated on the other page and the other page includes a list of "unknown" admirals - the list here could easily be moved to that page as well. The only thing that isn't on the other page are the images located here. So a merge would be quite acceptable as both pages, basically, contain the same information. It's possible that we might want to reconsider what we put on the Admiral page. I'm thinking we move the "unknown" admirals here and just keep the link at the top of the page as it is currently. Admiral includes lists from other races - but obviously they're short lists and don't need their own page really to link to while the Starfleet list is quite long... &mdash; Morder (talk) 11:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty good argument for the article in its current state, but I am against a merge for what this article may eventually become. If it is ever expanded, having it on the main Admiral page would be very confusing and overlapping.  For another thing, I think the original idea about this article being only for the "four star" or "full" admiral rank is invalid.  It should in fact cover the entire history of the rank of Admiral in Starfleet with links to the Rear and Vice admiral pages as well as one to the main Admiral page.  When and if the article ever reaches that state (which i guess I will one day attempt to write) having it on the main Admiral page would not be the way to go. -FC 17:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible merger template
I've been going over all the admiral pages we have and it seems like this subject, as a whole, needs some attention. I still think that all the rank pages should be a one stop deal, along these lines:
 * explanation of rank with the insignia sidebar
 * Starfleet version
 * other versions
 * lists

I can say that the list of admirals, which lists all admirals by their rank, making a list on the pages redundant, needs work by itself, mainly to deal with "costuming errors" and the such, but since there already is a list for this, the lists should be the last thing stopping any merge. I still support it, but I now think there needs to be better interplay between Flag officer, which is under utilized right now (and should have the list on it if any page does), and the rest of the admiral pages. I'll throw up some mock-ups on my sandbox page later to show this, since the english language seems to be failing me (IMO). - Archduk3 talk 02:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

This is rough and dirty, but shows how this page could be merged with the Admiral page, along with how Flag officer and Starfleet flag officers could be merged as well. As a side note, it seems most admiral links go to the admiral page, not this one (admiral (starfleet)) - Archduk3 talk 02:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * While all that seems pretty fine, I would point out most strongly that right now, there is no consensus to merge this article, much less two more into one. I would recommend keeping those pages you made handy but not to attempt some kind of grand merge until you have at least three to four users agreeing with you about this.  Right now, four people have chimed in and two are for a merge of this article and two are against.  There has been no discussion at all about those other two articles until this point.  Not that your ideas arent valid, just that we need to follow the procedure here. -FC 03:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not doing anything until we reach a consensus here, that's why I didn't put the other two up for a merge yet, as this seems to be a bit of a bigger issue then i first though, and that anything said here would most likely be said there as well, and I don't want to be the guy who started that. I do think this is part of a bigger issue than these two pages, or four, though, and based on what is decided here, we can go forward and address that. - Archduk3 talk 03:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have not sided either way - I've only pointed out options for both sides of the fence. &mdash; Morder (talk) 06:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Redux
This should be merged first and foremost because having these as separate pages simply isn't working. There are over 1,500 pages linking to Admiral, and only about 50 linking here. Second, the current Admiral article covers all Flag officers, and that's a separate page with a much more accurate title. Having three pages for two topics is simply confusing, and that's evident in the rank nav boxes as well as pretty much ever where else. A simple disambiguation at the top of a combined Admiral page would be enough for the few pages that might link to admiral instead of flag officer. Third, the current setup seems to be for incorrect links, not correct ones, as the rational is that a "Rear Admiral" might be referred to as simply an "Admiral", and we shouldn't have an entire article that evidently confuses everyone simply for incorrect links. That's exactly what a disambiguation is for, not an entire article. - 02:05, September 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Support merge given your reasons.--31dot 07:59, September 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: Why hasn't this being merged before? After looking over other rank articles, they include references from numerous different species or organisations, not just Starfleet. I don't see why Admiral should be any different. --| TrekFan Open a channel 17:32, September 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. Support.–Cleanse ( talk 06:20, September 15, 2011 (UTC)