[Platforms] Case of Ship Names

[Roy Lowry]

Dear All,

Mitch threw a bit of an issue into the ring with the case to be used for Dom Carlos I. I'd love to hear peoples' views on this.  In BODC we actually hold a local copy of the ICES code list with the ship name in mixed case, mainly because mixed case is more aesthetically pleasing when displayed.  However, when one actually visits a ship then the name is written on her side in upper case.  A walk around the web shows 100 per cent inconsistency in the case used - sometimes upper and mixed case appear in the same paragraph!

Does anybody know of a respected authoritative view on this?  If not, can we as a group reach a consensus?

My personal view is that we should aim in the long term to STORE names in mixed case.  This is because it is much easier and more robust to convert from mixed case to upper case for DISPLAY than it is the other way around, particularly when some names can include acronyms that should be maintained in upper case (e.g. CEFAS Endeavour, possibly???).

Cheers, Roy.