Thanks, to Eugen Simion 14 for writing the initial article! I archived the third press release, which states passenger names, identification methods, and airport origins. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Presumably he was Argentinian too. However, if we're not really sure, better to omit nationality; there's always the possibility of some confusion after an event like this and we should avoid any risk of muddying the waters further. Plus I don't see why it's essential to note every person's nationality anyway - they're individuals first and foremost. bobrayner (talk) 20:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Typically nationality breakdowns are noted in aviation accident articles (Air France Flight 447, Swissair Flight 111, etc. have comprehensive lists) - Even domestic flights have nationality lists.
Currently the article simply stated that one passenger used a passport as his ID, and everyone else used Argentine national ID cards.
The article says: "Eduardo Musacchio: Era un reconocido geólogo y profesor de la Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco, padre de Sebastián, quien a los 22 años fue asesinado cuando recorría Catamarca como mochilero. "
So he was a professor at an Argentine university, but he could be of a foreign nationality, or he could be of a dual nationality.
In a case where all victims are of one nationality, I don't see that there's anything to be gained from having a table of nationalities. Mjroots (talk) 09:55, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree on that one. If they were of one nationality a simple text sentence like "They are all Argentine" would do WhisperToMe (talk) 06:36, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Currently there is a lack of consensus on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Hawker Siddeley Harrier review page; if somebody could spare the time to look over the article and deliver their opinion, that would be great. I would prefer, if the review if to fail and not pass, to fail because people through it was deliberately not ready, rather than simply because not enough concluding views were arrived at. Thanks. Kyteto (talk) 15:17, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Is the investigating agency of this accident simply the ministry of transport of the Ivory Coast, or is it specifically the Ivorian ANAC? The committee members look like a jumble of civilian and transport ministry people, and the report is headed (in the French version) as simply being done by the ministry of transport
NOTE: I do not think that the American Airlines incident or the Valujet incident had anything to do with fake parts, since the investigations found other causes. With Minerva and ATI, I'm not sure.
It has definitely been an issue in the aviation world and there are lots of refs on both the Transport Canada and FAA websites, usually under the title Suspected Unapproved Parts. The issue takes in new manufacture bogus and unapproved parts and also time-expired parts that are painted and tagged as serviceable when they aren't. - Ahunt (talk) 15:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Why not go at it from the other angle and explain what approved parts are ( who defines them and why) That would segue into a subsection onthe problems and notable instances of non approved parts being used. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:33, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
That approach actually makes a lot of sense and would tie into type certificate as well. It might even make sense to just add sections on approved and unapproved parts to that existing article. - Ahunt (talk) 17:59, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I started the article and stated what "approved" and "unapproved" parts were according to US definitions. I'll see if I can find Canadian, British, and French documents. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Seem to remember a big fuss a few years (or tens of years) ago with iffy parts for Bell helicopters might be in the flight archive. MilborneOne (talk) 18:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I submitted three article requests for articles from U.S. newspapers related to forged parts. If anyone wants copies, please let me know so I can e-mail you WhisperToMe (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
As I said to W.ToMe, it was a huge issue in the '90s and there should be a lot of material out there. Some things to consider working from memory:
Bell considers entire airframes to be counterfeit if they have been rebuilt from destroyed crashed Bell helicopters.
Looking very briefly before I went to sleep last night,, there was a ValuJet aircraft that had a catastrophic engine failure during takeoff, it caught fire and was burnt out after everyone was evacuated; the article I read said it had a bogus turbine disc in the failed engine.
Robinson is so concerned about bogus rotor blades, it mandates that, when the blades for its helicopters reach their life limit, the blade roots which have the part number and serial number marked on them, have to be physically cut off from the rest of the blades and sent back to the manufacturer, then (and only then) Robinson will sell the customer a new set of blades. Thus Robinson ensures that timex blades have been destroyed. This may be related to what is below, or possibly to issues here in Oz with people passing off timex blades as being serviceable.
In New Zealand a helicopter crashed after someone obtained a set of time-expired main rotor blades for a different type of helicopter, cut the ends off to make them the 'right' length, dressed them up to pass them off as new and sold them on. IIRC two people died, and the perpetrator of the bogus blades went to prison. This might have been a Robinson, or possibly a Bell 47, and IIRC the blades were from a Hiller - I can't remember all of the details. There was another helicopter crash in NZ where something went wrong, IIRC over incorrect bolts in the drive train somewhere; again people died and again people went to prison.
As I have said, there is a lot of material out there, but at the moment I am not in the position to go through any of my collection to look for it. Search for "bogus part" as well. YSSYguy (talk) 00:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
When I researched the Lauda Air Flight 004 crash, I found that Hiroshi Sogame (十亀 洋) was the guy who put the English version of the Thai Government final report online. Sogame was a member of the All Nippon Airways Safety Committee.
When searching for Sogame's kanji, I found: "Why Airplanes Crash? - Human Factors Consideration in Airline Safety Management -" (Archive) (Japanese: 飛行機はなぜ墜ちるか─航空安全のシステ ) - It was in Nagare (ながれ - English-Japanese dictionaries says this means "flow/flowing") 21 (2002) 274-279. The article is in Japanese, but it could be helpful anyway to ENWiki (after all foreign language material is used as sources), and it could also help the Japanese Wikipedia
Anyhow, I think the NTSB stuff should teach us a lesson regarding sourcing.
Unless it's a newspaper/journalism document, we should take care to archive stuff on webcitation.org (even if its development is finished) so that we can easily access materials. Also if robots.txt gets put on a site, it won't affect any copies archived on webcitation.org.
Here is an example of one of the archiving drives I did on a particular accident: Talk:Flash_Airlines_Flight_604#Archives - I targeted the Egyptian and French agency websites. I did every page, in every language, in every subject.
My suggestion is, in regards to investigation agency websites, to begin archiving once the final report is out. For airlines and third parties, a good time may be to do the archiving sooner than that...
WhisperToMe (talk) 04:00, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
We have a persistent editor who continuously removed over 100 airline names off flag carrier[1] because he claimed that it failed to meet "the burden of evidence". When a link is provided to back up those facts, he refuses to get to the point and continues to push his personal POV. Furthermore, the entries of those airlines he removed had articles on Wikipedia which clearly stated that they are in fact flag carriers. Can someone take a look? OhanaUnitedTalk page00:47, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Hello OhanaUnited. Although I will assume good faith, I am disappointed that on this page you claimed my edits were disruptive without continuing our discussion on the talk page of the article in question. I stand by my comment that the web site you provided does not back up the opinion that the airlines are flag carriers.
To summarise my comments on the talk page: (1) The web site you listed does confirm that some of the airlines are flag carriers, however it does not do this for all airlines. (2) The web site you listed is not reliable: as per its [about page], it is a travel image web site, not a web site commentating on the airline industry. It should not be used as a source for the entire table, because this then allows anyone to make future edits to the table without citing sources. (3) Yes, entries on Wikipedia for the individual airlines do state that they are flag carriers. However, these articles' statements do not provide sources as to why the airlines are flag carriers. Gfcvoice (talk) 04:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
You keep pointing to the verifiability policy. Fine, I'll use that policy then. It says "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source". Did those 100 articles' statement of being a flag carrier got challenged? Nope. Did anyone else other than you find it to be a problem and demand a citation? Nope. OhanaUnitedTalk page05:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. I strongly disagree with your assertions that the flag carrier table was unchallenged. The talk page for the Flag Carrier article has several discussions regarding problems with the table over many years. I note that following one such discussion (to use just one example), on 17 July 2009, user Colonel Warden removed the table completely. Please refer to the article's talk page for additional examples of similar challenges to the content.
Furthermore, the entire article has been tagged with a "needs citations" banner since December 2009 and the table itself had a "needs citation" banner from February 2010, until I removed the unsourced material.
Regarding the individual articles related to the individual carriers: first of all I don't believe that the content of these individual articles is relevant to the discussion of the Flag Carrier article. The flag carrier article itself should contain verifiable content on a stand-alone basis.
I agree that the content in the individual airline articles has (so far) remained unchallenged. However this does not mean that the content has been actively accepted as encyclopedic content. As you would be aware, Wikipedia is has many articles containing unverified content. This does not exempt other articles (such as but not limited to the Flag Carrier article) from the requirement to verify content. Gfcvoice (talk) 06:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I note that editor "Sunray" has made some constructive comments on the flag carrier [talk page]. In order to keep the discussion in one place, I suggest that all further discussion takes place on that talk page. Gfcvoice (talk) 21:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Ever heard of the Pugachev's Cobra? Ever heard of a Sukhoi, or a MiG? Ever heard of "Foxbats", "Flankers", "Fulcrums", or Fullback"? Do you know what they are? Do you know what the Soviet aerospace industry is like? Do you know who the Americans really fear? Do you know how much headache it caused to the West? Do you know how much attention the fighters are getting? If the answer is NO, then there are clearly some catching up to do. During the next few days, I'll be working on the MiG-29K, Su-34, Su-35 and Su-37. I want to bring them all up to the same standard as the Su-33. If you want to participate, please come along and help out. Don't be hesitant. Give the Soviet aerospace industry the recognition it really deserves. Sp33dyphil"Adastra"11:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
It appears that an editor with (perhaps) personal knowledge is contributing to the editing and changing statements substantially. Can anyone help here? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC).
Gotha question for you.
I was watching Captured! the other night. The bombers used in the mass escape at the end look like Gotha G.Vs (or earlier models) to me, but I'm no expert. Could somebody confirm/shoot down this ID? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't think so. It appears like the S-29 has two sets of two struts per wing, while the plane in the film has one set of three at the end of the wing. Plus the wheels are separate, not part of a single undercarriage like the S-29, and extend out further to just under each engine. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Hiya. Not really familiar with airports and stuff, and came across a problem this morning on Charles de Gaulle Airport#Airlines and destinations. There seems to be a malforemd template instance of {{Airport-dest-list}}. I have no experience in this area and hoped that one of the experts here might be willing to take a look. The article also has a citation error in the references, but I think the ref in question may be located within the malformed template. Not 100% on that, but it looks like it. Could someone have a look please? Thks Fmph (talk) 09:29, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Just like any template, it needs close out brackets, e.g. }}. Looks fixed now. If not sure, one could revert edits to fix table. -Fnlayson (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
... if one was sure that was what had caused the problem. Thanks
I think he meant he attempted to fix the template's problem, and failed. I don't think he was swearing at you, but at himself for not having fixed the problem when he had fixed it. - BilCat (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Sure. I did not take any offense, just did not understand the comment. Maybe he got an edit conflict from my edit. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Apparently it seems to be any flight during which all engines failed - which would make it a rather random and pointless article. Roger (talk) 08:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Like I said, it started out as eliminating this list from Gimli Glider, as it just didn't belong there, and "List of incidents similar to the Gimli Glider" didn't seem to cut it as an article title. I have no ownership stake in this, so if the group consensus is that this list is pointless or whatever, I'm happy to delete it myself. howcheng {chat}10:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
(EC) Well you did well to draw attention to the situation. From looking over the listing as was in the "See Also" I think perhaps someone was building a list based upon two premises - 1) aircraft that ran out of fuel and 2) airliners that glided. Either way, there have probably been too many all told to include in the Gimli Glider so they were better off removed. As a bonus from the attention, I did a bit of copyedit on Varig Flight 254 article (it needed it). GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:14, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Hey, I noticed there are many articles under the aviation section in the infobox watch project that require infoboxes. Any help would be appreciated. The link is provided below:
The task of helping may be lighter than it looks at first. Of the (un-subcategorised) four I just looked at: two were Fleet Air Arm squadron stubs that did need an infobox, one was an airline article that had a infobox but the talk page hadn't been updated (and has been fixed now), and the last was an article that I PRODed. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Anyone advise on how to get the various articles into their subcatgories? I've been scanning for low hanging fruit and even when I haven't found them, if I knew what I could do to help the next guy along be aiding the sorting.... GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I think it has to do with the difference in the tf_2 and tf_3 coding in the assessment template. But I'm not sure. Tf_2 puts the missing infobox in a subcatory while tf_3 does not. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Air crash template format discussion
G'day all, a discussion concerning the formatting of the aviation accidents and incidents templates has been initiated at Template talk:Aviation accidents and incidents in 2011. There is evident confusion over the significance of the current bold smallcaps and italic formatting, as Users keep removing it; and the discusion concerns formatting the templates a different way. YSSYguy (talk) 00:05, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
NTSB website
The NTSB just changed around its website. Unfortunately it meant collections related to various acc idents went down
And they put this robots.txt file on its page: http://www.ntsb.gov/robots.txt
This file is preventing view of archives at web.archive.org
We need to pressure the NTSB into removing or altering the file so archives are not blocked. The NTSB is a US government agency, and all of its documents are in the public domain. It has no reason to prevent the viewing of these pages.
Also if/when robots.txt is removed, we need to archive all of the files related to several accidents so this can't happen again.
Some stuff is still left on Google cache. I would be happy to try uploading some of it onto the Commons.
By "all files", do you mean the accident reports? Since those are PD, most of them are available elsewhere -- most notably the Embry-Riddle university library website iirc. But I suppose WikiSource would be a useful place to keep such things. (Since I understand from other discussions around the wiki that webcitation.org is no longer actively developed/supported?) --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû(blah?)11:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Not just accident reports (I find these on third party sites) but also things like accident animations, transcripts of public meetings, etc. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, they must be aware of some public dismay about this, because they've added the following "not found" page, titled "Where's My Cheese?": http://www.ntsb.gov/info/info.htm. However, I agree that for a U.S. government public website to block access to archived versions at the Internet Archive like that seems like abuse of the system. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 22:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately a lot of other files related to other accidents disappeared. I'm trying to use the google cache to show file locations, once/if the NTSB robots.txt goes away WhisperToMe (talk) 16:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I have come across a few "where's my cheese" messages over the last couple of days, and this evening I decided to do something about it. The old URLs are "ntsb.gov/publictn/[yyyy]/"; if you change this to "ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/[yyyy]/" as in this edit, the link will work. I have tried this tonight in an air crash article, an article dealing with a maritime accident and an article dealing with pipeline accidents, and it fixed the link each time, although in the case of the pipeline accident I had to change ".htm" to ".pdf" as well. However at the moment the NTSB website has a notice that only reports since 1996 are available so far. YSSYguy (talk) 13:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Time for folks to take a look at this article, being significantly improved as of 4 August 2011, but still a looming dispute over whether Foss can be described as the American "ace-of-aces." FWiW Bzuk (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC).
Light sport aircraft
G'day all, the Light-sport aircraft article appears to be in need of rather a lot of work. It is written as if the term is only in use in the USA, except for some changes I have made to the lede; it has only one reference - which I added a short time ago; and I'm not sure about the name itself, I am more familiar with Light sport aircraft rather than the hyphenated presentation used at the moment. If you think there is a different approach that would work better, feel free to revert my edit :-). Cheers YSSYguy (talk) 01:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I found a UK CAA document about Light Sport Aircraft the other day, and it is a term used here in Australia as well by CASA and within the industry. It may have started as an FAA definition, but it appears to be more widespread now. YSSYguy (talk) 01:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, I stand corrected! A UK CAA definition is given here. Looks like a new category (for something that previously existed?), in my defence it's not a term I have ever heard used before. Begs the question whether I can legally fly one as the category does not appear on my license!! Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)09:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
G'day all, I came across 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot-down (renamed to this by me as 'Aeroflot' was in quotation marks) a short time ago. There's an interesting little situation with this; the ASN database actually has this as a Soviet Air Force aircraft and the article is basically devoid of references (those being given having nothing to do with the actual circumstances of the incident), but leaving those issues - which can possibly be fixed - aside, the article's creator has declared a COI here, and the article itself is word-for-word the same as this page apparently also written by him and given as a link in the 'External links' section of the article. Judging from the article history the WarInAngola website article was copied to WP rather the other way around. The WarInAngola website copyright notice states among other things:
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person to deal in this content without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, or sublicense copies of the content of this site, except that content that are expressly stated as subject to copyright by any third parties, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of any content utilized from this site"
which I suppose means that WP:COPYVIO is not an issue, unless attribution to the site is not possible under WP's rules. However IMHO this article basically comes under WP:OR with the 'source' website having problems meeting WP:RS as well. An article on this subject might well be worth having on WP, but IMO this isn't it, and I'm inclined to put it up for AfD and someone starting again under a more accurate name if consensus is that the subject is notable enough for recording outside the Antonov An-12 article. Thoughts? YSSYguy (talk) 01:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Hmm.
Needs better sourcing, above all. Surely there are good non-anglophone sources out there...
The article isn't too badly presented but there is a surfeit of infoboxes.
The line between "soviet air force" and "aeroflot" would have been blurred at the time; Aeroflot ran flights which would, under other governments, have been run by the local air force. Sometimes even strictly military aircraft wore aeroflot colours. Thinking of aeroflot solely like a modern airline could be a bit misleading. bobrayner (talk) 18:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi all,
On Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports, there was a slight disagreement concerning when it's appropriate to mention the year (not just the month) that an airline starts serving an airport with some new route. I provided a third opinion but as the question affects quite a lot of articles, and there was mention of some prior consensus and a suggestion that a new consensus be sought, I think it might be a good idea to have input from others. What do you all think? Is it always/sometimes/never appropriate to say that a route "Starts February" rather than "Starts February 2012"? Please reply over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports#Years for Start Dates (Oh my Lord! Here we go again!). bobrayner (talk) 19:52, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
If you refer to commons:User:Russavia#Aviation-related one can see a list of photographers from whom I have gained permission to upload photos to Commons...there are literally tens of thousands of photos which are now available. Some images from airliners.net such as this have the airliners.net watermark on them, and what is needed is someone who is a paid member of airliners.net who can obtain the image without the watermark. Of course, there are going to be quite a few which will be like this, so I can always create a category on Commons where such images can be placed, and a volunteer can go thru them as needed and replace the images with the non-watermark version. Is there anyone here who is a member and is able to help out with this as needed? --RussaviaLet's dialogue07:20, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Nice work! Have you asked any of the contributors if they can help with obtaining the non-watermared versions? - BilCat (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
As I understand it, the only way to get an unwatermarked image is if the original uploader emails it to you. I am a Premium Member on A.net and the watermark still displays when I am logged in. YSSYguy (talk) 07:32, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
This has come up countless times before and now it is being discussed in a an article review as well. What should be OUR policy of dates, especially when a great deal of American writers insist on only using M/D/Y under the belief in WP:DATE that the first major contributor's "style" should predominate, from that point on and ad infinitum, apparently. Excuse the flippancy, but two articles have now emerged on Zeppelin airships (Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin) that features the New York Times articles cited in M/D/Y and the London Times in D/M/Y, rather than being consistently one style throughout. The rest of the article is uniformly in an US-centric style for dates and presumably spelling conventions. The date convention I understand is to use military style dating (again D/M/Y) for military subjects, US "popular" style, M/D/Y for US civil subjects and the "international" style (again D/M/Y) for all non-US subjects. Please comment and is it time for a clearly-set out statement to appear in our own style guide, to use in instances such as creating a new article, or updating a current article. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC).
See similar issue (names removed): You have been making changes in many volleyball articles with this note: consistent date format (int'l). According to WP:DATE, both the format that I was previously used as first major contributor is correct, and I haven't found any int'l format. What about this? (user name removed)
There are two conflicting guidelines, one is "first contributor", as you mentioned, and the other is that date format should be selected according to context. The August 21, 2011, format is distinctly North American (United States and Canada, although in Canada, there is an either/or in effect), and thus suitable for articles relating to North American subjects mainly. Many articles appear to have been created by editors from North America, and my theory is that they, without giving it much thought, have applied the format that is natural to them, even to articles with no relation to North America. With two conflicting guidelines, one obviously has to yield, and a decision without much thought – my perception, I admit – is worth less that a conscious decision, at least in my world. I could add that most of the articles I've edited recently are small and stubbish, and so there is no distinguishable first contributor.
When there is "international format" dates in an article relating to a North American subject, I of course apply "consistent date fmt (us)".
When it comes to my edit summaries, I admit that there wasn't always inconsistent date format in an article I edited, by interpret it this way: I'm applying consistent date format. ;-) Maybe there's some room for improvement here, the "entry assist" function in the edit summary field makes you lazy, picking the best alternative. I'll see what I can do. (user name removed) FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:59, 21 August 2011 (UTC).
Personally, I could live with American date styles - if what's what writers prefer - as long as the months are spelled out. I would advise against American dates with numerical months as that is likely to mislead readers in the rest of the world.
However, there's nothing special (datewise) about aviation; if there's ambiguity here, a hundred other projects also suffer from the same ambiguity. If in doubt, discuss centrally... bobrayner (talk) 19:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I think one of the major issues surrounding Wikipedia is the perceived connection with the United States, and that there is a US-centric connotation even when authors from England are writing about an English subject and have all their spelling, dates and numerical equivalents changed to a US-style, a very common occurrence, especially with newcomers starting to edit. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:37, 21 August 2011 (UTC).
Dates like 03/03/2011 should be banned as being totally ambiguous unless there is a strong focus in the article to make it clear if this is dmy or ymd. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:33, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I guess 03/03/2011 is ambiguous because it might mean "03 March 2011", or then again it might mean "March 03, 2011" :-) --Trovatore (talk) 07:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
A good point, how to tell in an article if an event given as "09-03-44" occured before or after D-Day. Makes looking for corroboration in sources that bit more difficult. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd agree with that; although WP:DATESNO already covers this ground. However, we can't really rule out all-numerical dates completely, as the ISO8601 style is pretty unambiguous (but it's also pretty ugly). bobrayner (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
My personal understanding is that a topic/region association trumps "I got here first" for date formatting. If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. (italics mine). I believe that the latter condition is to stop edit-warring on articles where there is no national association to the topic (i.e Novel should go by the rule of first, while a Discworld novel should be DMY). -- saberwyn23:03, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Seems a lot of text considering there is already an established WP guideline on the subject?! The aircraft project can not set it's own MoS rules, even if we did it would have to be fixed at GA/FA level. US format in numbers is very confusing to British readers and even August 22, 2011 is confusing (why is the month more important than the day?!!). The principle is very simple, national tied articles have the date format fixed in the national style, no national ties follows the creating editor (unless they were completely wrong!). Same goes for citation style (follow the creating editor). We should not be getting bogged down with this rubbish. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)01:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree wholehardedly with you, now look at the real reason for this issue being brought to this forum: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ 129 Hindenburg articles, that are being edited by primarily one editor who has edited and advocated for only a US-centric style, using wikilawyering and seemingly resistant to any change in style. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:05, 22 August 2011 (UTC).
I find american dates confusing so whatever we have it has to include the month written out. I have to agree with Nimbus that we should not create our own rules but in the case that Bzuk cited a fairly dubious connection with the United States (number of visits) was used for a European subject which should really use the non-american format. MilborneOne (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Having looked at the situation, the Graf case appears to be one arising from ambiguity in the MOS term "strong ties to a particular English-speaking country". The editor identified that the Graf had a tie to the US over other English-speaking countries whereas, I believe, others would understand the Graf article had strong ties to Germany (non-English speaking) and therefore a different rule (eg first format used) should apply. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Graeme is right. The Zeppelins are strongly German, the style used by the article creator should be used (if it can be clearly deduced, sometimes it can't). I create articles on Japanese motorcycles, they are written in British English (as allowed), after fixing carburetor/carburetter etc. many times I had to apply a language template to the talk page. That might be an option for the Zeppelins. Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)21:07, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Here's the fun part, the original author obviously wrote the Graf Zeppelin article as a "foreign"- based article, replete with metric information, foreign word identification but a M/D/Y dating, which has been used ever since as the reason for continuing to call this a US-linked article. Similarly, the Hindenburg article started even farther back in 2002, also has metric information but the darned M/D/Y format. So what to do? The MOS guide is sufficiently ambiguous that clever folks use it to their advantage, don't we need to at least make a clear statement of how things should go concerning the national origin of articles and how they should be written? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2011 (UTC).
WP:MOS §2.4.1.3 and §2.4.1.4 only relate to date formatting (M/Y/D or D/M/Y) and are silent with regard to any relationship that would have to how other information is presented in an article. The cited MOS sections instead state that the formatting used in an article when it was created or later evolves (in this case M/D/Y for both criteria) should be retained unless a "strong national relationship" with an "English-speaking country" using a different format mitigates against that. It says nothing at all, however, about changing (or even originally establishing) date formatting because of any connection, national or otherwise, to a non English-speaking country. The date formatting used in Germany is therefore irrelevant to this discussion as nothing in WP:MOS or WP:DATE speaks to that contention. If anyone believes that there is some such guideline that supports this "international subject" theory, however then (as I have repeatedly asked for in the past) please direct me to it. I have only applied WP:DATE guidelines in this matter the way they are written which is what I thought was the purpose of having guidelines in the first place. (FWIW as I raised this issue originally in the Graf Zeppelin'stalk page after the article's date formatting was unilaterally changed on August 8th (for a second time) from M/D/Y to D/M/Y, it also might have been helpful if somebody had advised me that this thread had been opened as opposed to my serendipitously finding it on my own. Thanks) Centpacrr (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Additional Note: As I stated my position (which seems to have been misunderstood) to Bzuk in my "Talk" here:
"Whether or not the Graf Zeppelin has a "strong national connection" to the United States is a straw man as: a) its WP article was already created (and evolved for years) as M/D/Y, and; b) nobody has shown such a connection to any other Engligh-speaking country using D/M/Y. (I only point out the lack of any such other connections to indicate that there are no grounds to change the formatting to D/M/Y based on §2.4.1,3 either.) That being the case, WP:DATERET (§2.4.1.4) clearly says that the original formatting should be retained. By its terms, WP:DATE also affirmatively excludes any role for changing the formatting of dates based the usage in the language spoken in any non English-speaking country, or, for that matter, English usage that may be found elsewhere in the article.
"To be clear, then, my position is not (and never has been), that the Graf Zeppelin is "more related to the United States than Germany". It is (and always has been) that it is more "related" to the United States than any other English-speaking country, the criteria as stated in the guidelines.
"The position you seem to be advocating is that individual WP project groups should be free to arbitrarily adopt styles that contradict the MOS used by WP as a whole. The result of this approach, I fear, would be to plummet WP down a very slippery slope indeed and leave the project in a state of stylistic chaos. Again I have only followed and applied the guidelines as they are written in WP:DATE. To change those would really need the broad consensus of WP as a whole, not just that of a few editors in just one of its hundreds of projects."
Spelling out the name of the month solves the problem, whichever national style is adopted. Some hidden text can go in to explain why the particular choice was made and prevent constant "corrections." Rumiton (talk) 02:16, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I can sum up my thoughts on this issue thus: does it really matter? Now, 1/2/11 is ambiguous—is it the first of February or the second on January—but if the month is spelt out (as it always should be by my understanding of MOS:DATE), is it really a big deal if the day comes before or after the month? Although the mdy format is only really intuitive to Americans (and some Canadians), there's no ambiguity with the month spelt out, so it's not really worth arguing about. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the last two comments may be the "solution" to the dilemma of how to write about the Zeppelin articles when there is a consistent writing of the article to conform to an international subject with spellings, measurements and other formats written in one style while the date format is written in a US-style. Since the "principal editor" continues with more "related" to the United States than any other English-speaking country canard, screen the article for the first elements of a German-related article, leave the dates in place (unless the "original" editor changes the format) and place a caveat note into the edit file as appears in the Concorde and other articles that explains the use of a particular format. FWiW, there are two date formats in the article and for consistency, all dates should appear the same to a reader. Bzuk (talk) 13:47, 23 August 2011 (UTC).
If I can make a general comment, it could be that the reason some American editors are touchy here is that there seems to be a certain contingent of Commonwealth editors who regard their variety of English as the "international" default, and American English as a mere regional variant.
That's an unacceptable position. An absolute majority of first-language English speakers are from the United States. There can be no "international" English without American English.
That said, I think it's a little silly to take a hardnosed position over date formats. Date formats are not really part of "variety of English". Even if they were, WP:COMMONALITY would arguably apply, given that the little-endian format is known to most Americans (though they may see it as "military").
My personal bias could be coming into this, in the sense that although I am a speaker of American English, I do think little-endian (or consistent big-endian, e.g. "2011 Aug 29") is more "logical" than the "middle-endian" M/D/Y format, and I often use it myself. --Trovatore (talk) 07:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Hello!
I am a member of WikiProject Toronto and I was going through the mentioned article. I honestly believe it deserves more than a Start class. From our side, it is rated as B. I ask you to re-assess the article and to notify me immediately at my Talk Page
Thanks! Ossih (Talk) 15:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I would rate this as a C or a B. There are for me sufficient references for a B. The need to have most points and paragraphs referenced comes into play at GA. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
There's a lot of aviation-related activity lately at Milhist's A-class review and FAC, and I see a lot of different editors making significant contributions in the article histories. That's a great thing, but I notice that there are a lot of little language and formatting issues that you guys haven't developed consensus on yet ... so one person will use a certain word or punctuation, someone else will revert, I'll do my copyeditor thing, and then my stuff gets rewritten when someone adds more material, and we start all over. The best of all possible worlds would be if we had a critical mass of aviation writers peeking in on either FAC or some A-class review process ... judging from what's happened over the last couple of years with Ships and Milhist FAs, consensus would evolve over time. - Dank (push to talk) 13:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, this is just a guess, but I think the linked FAC will probably fail ... it's not any one horrible thing, it's just that the reviewers are being asked to do more than the FAC delegates are generally comfortable with, and problems keep re-inserting themselves ... which is inevitable, given that there has been recent (and continuing) editing by a variety of editors who have different backgrounds, viewpoints and skill sets. As I say, judging from the evolution of Ships and Milhist, these problems will work themselves out over time if a significant number of you insist that articles not pass A-class until you're happy with the results (either your own A-class process, which doesn't see a lot of activity now, or Milhist's A-class review, or both). - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
And I just want to add quickly so you won't think this is some kind of veiled insult ... from an outsider's perspective, you've got a large number of knowledgeable and dedicated editors together in one project ... and there aren't a huge number of wikiprojects that can say that. All you're lacking to succeed at A-class and FAC is people who are dedicated to making A-class and FAC work ... if you want to do that. If you do, you'll crank out FACs like there's no tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I fear you will find that the "knowledgeable and dedicated editors" probably dont have a high regard of the assesment system hence the lack of momentum to create A-class and FAC, probably why we dont have a major problem with Mil-hist doing the reviews for military aircraft. Some editors have spent time and effort to achieve better grades for articles to be drawn into endless arguments over really minor stuff. Most aircraft editors are happy to help improve articles but most dont want the be involved in the assesment process, a lot of aircraft articles can actually be worse after a review! The get points for article assesment system doesnt really help either when lots of articles can be "on review" at the same time to the detriment of quality. That said we are always happy to help anybody wanting to improve articles. MilborneOne (talk) 15:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
In some cases, the obsession with getting the Bronze Star on an article is actually reducing article quality, not increasing it. What should be a collaborative process appears no longer to be such, with editors rushing to get as many done as possible, as if to meet some artificial deadline. Many articles are being put up for review far too quickly, without using the best, most comprehensive sources, with far too much use being made of what can easily be found freely (particularly snippits of what happens to be available from Google books) rather than the best sources. When things are then challenged, much that should be sourceable if the proposer had mede the effort is removed when it should have been kept and sourced. In addition, it appears that review comments are actually causing the articles to be dumbed down.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Okay, let's go with that; let's assume FAC is out. There's still the question of how we handle the many articles you guys submit to Milhist's A-class review. Copyediting your aviation articles has been difficult for me because you guys haven't developed any consensus on language and style ... and even if I had time to try to enforce MOS or style guides, which I don't, I wouldn't want to ... it works so much better if you guys work together to develop your own voice(s), and then let the copyeditors do some final polishing whenever you're ready for them to do that. The same goes for anything else that Milhist reviewers check for. I understand that reviewers are going to say things in review processes that seem wrong, and sometimes are wrong ... the only way to stop that from happening is to participate as reviewers, to make the process your own, to reach and insist on your own consensus. - Dank (push to talk) 15:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
You still need to provide us with some examples as I cant see the problem with language and style that needs a consensus outside of the wikipedia norms. We can help but not if we cant see the issues, are they any examples of when such consensus is required from miil-hist. MilborneOne (talk) 16:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I thought that's what I'd been doing for the past year, for almost all the aviation articles submitted to Milhist peer review or A-class review or at FAC. Check the review page and the edit summaries for comments. - Dank (push to talk) 16:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I would be most disappointed if my efforts upon articles so far has only made things worse, not better. I am sorry, if I have only been one more tool of a 'dumbing down' process. I've always tried to think of myself as open to what people here on WP: Aviation have to add; and I would remark that I respect the opinions of everybody who had participated in this thread so far: They have proven to be most adept accomplices in the tasks mutually undertaken so far. Kyteto (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Naw. If you are adding real info, clarifying & tightening wording, and adding references to an article you aren't dumbing it down. Keep up the good work. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Kyteto, as Fnlayson says you are doing a good job and we will always support your or anybody improving articles, the criticism is over the assesment process not in the individuals concerned. MilborneOne (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Here's another one: WP:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Lockheed Have Blue. Any thoughts on this one? Should it pass A-class? I'm inclined to oppose on lack of readability (because that's my area, not because it's the most important part of the review). The article isn't horrible, but there are problems, and I don't see what the point of A-class is, if it's not a forum where people in a wikiproject get together and hash things out. I don't see aviation editors involved in the review (other than Sturmvogel, and that's only a fly-by), and I don't think the writing comes close to the best writing I see coming out of the aviation project. I guess another way to put this is: it's not my business to be arbitrarily deciding what the best work of the aviation project is, without input from the project ... if I set a high bar, I'll just push people away for no reason, and if I set a low bar, then A-class will be meaningless (which is both the strength and weakness of A-class ... it's not well-defined, so it's whatever a wikiproject wants it to mean). And high bar or low bar, I won't be able to do a good job unless I get vigorous feedback in hundreds of reviews, so that I can learn about aviation in general and your project's consensus on a range of issues. So: I don't think I can justify supporting the nom, at least not without more input from your project, but I'm open to suggestions on how to proceed. - Dank (push to talk) 23:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
We probably dont do assesment because as a small project we are more likely just to go and fix it rather than talk about it. We do a few editors who are interested in driving the improvement of articles and puting them up for review, like User:Kyteto and User:Sp33dyphil perhaps if between them and the MilHist guys somebody can tell us what is required. Normally if we see something wrong with an aviation article we just go and fix it rather than make an assessment but we are happy to help when asked with article content problems. Just somebody tell us in simple words what is required I still have no clue what the language and style issues are and despite the suggestion to go and read old reviews it isnt going happen. The guys nominating article from improvement are good at letting us know what is being worked on and which they need help on, but we are more likely just to improve the content rather than make assessment, so please a simple guide as to what you expect from the project, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 18:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh sorry, I didn't answer the question! All I'm looking for is that a few people participate in a few A-class reviews, at your place or ours, so that we can start to at least figure out what the questions are. I'll review the 767 article in a couple of days. - Dank (push to talk) 02:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
It appears the Have Blue is already a "Good Article", which is surprising as a quick look finds at least one image "not as advertised" so really needs to be deleted from commons! MilborneOne (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I note for those who have articles watchlisted that the Have Blue article has no information or link that it is under discussion or re-assesment. MilborneOne (talk) 19:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Lockheed Have Blue is past the 28-day limit, so it will probably be closed soon without promotion. I don't have any idea if WP:AVIATION's A-class review will give different results, but I'm willing to review it over here, provided Phil wants to put it up here. (I'd also be happy to give it another go at Milhist's A-class review, if people from your project want to participate there.) - Dank (push to talk) 20:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Reno Air Race crash
The P-51 Galloping Ghost crashed into the stands at the Reno Air Races, resulting in 100 casualties, including an unknown number of deaths (one source right now says 12). Nominated for ITN but obviously this is a breaking story and the details aren't out yet. N419BH01:06, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Article wise the nearest we have is airport ramp. Flight line tends to be a military term, probably from when aircraft were parked in long lines. There was a trade in the Royal Air Force known as Flight Line Mechanic (FLM, affectionately known as 'phlegm' and also 'lineys'), their job was general servicing, refuelling etc. 'Dispersal' would be another term for it although a dispersal is slightly different to a flight line. Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)20:44, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
The infobox "South African aircraft by decade of first flight" seen e.g. here: [2] would require an addition with the new decennium (2010s), but the template is a little complicated to edit. Could someone help adding it? --MoRsE (talk) 22:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
The sources never explicitly say; the USAF might request for proposals, where the specs are detailed and companies try to come up with the best offers, but I don't think (or heard of) the USAF/USN/USMC actually writing down their requirements. Sp33dyphil"Adastra"03:45, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
"Spotchecks" are required at FAC, and this article is going to need help, probably from someone with access to at least one of the sources in this article. See the link to Phil's talk page for details. - Dank (push to talk) 23:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Personally I think that the demands being made here that sources be scanned and emailed to the reviewer are entirely unreasonable. If someone asked that of me I would certainly refuse. Also note "In the future, it might be a good idea to include a few sources at least partially available online" - whatever happened to using the best sources? Are we being forced to sail close to the wind on fair use/fair dealing and to replace good quality print sources with poorer quality web sources just to get bronze stars on articles?Nigel Ish (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I am prepared to scan every magazine article for every single source, but, akin to the comment Nigel made above, this is entirely unheard of and absolutely astounding. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 16:37, 1 October 2011 (UTC).
And it comes as no surprise why some aviation editors dont get involved in the assesment process, apart from in the FAC world wikipedia has no requirement that sources have to be readily available or online just that the source is deemed reliable. MilborneOne (talk) 17:01, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
In my defense, I'd like to point out that people (like me) who often get in trouble are not the villains ... the villains know that they're doing something shifty and they act accordingly. I wasn't expecting this reaction because my heart's in the right place ... ask anyone I've copyedited for. I'm not trying to make the process more difficult than it already is, and I certainly don't distrust Phil. "Spotchecks" (as defined at FAC) are not a yes/no, is-he-a-criminal kind of thing. It's very difficult ... and for some people more than others, which is why we have spotchecks ... to change all the words around, keep true to the meaning, make it easy to read, and avoid what reviewers think of as close paraphrasing ... and btw, the standard for "close paraphrasing" keeps moving around, so the reviewers are just as much of a problem in passing spotchecks as the writers are. The reason I made this offer to Phil is that I've got a certain amount of goodwill going at FAC ... if I could look at a few paragraphs from a few sources and see what that turned onto on the page, and maybe do that for one more of Phil's articles, Phil's FACs would probably sail through without (much of a) need for future spotchecks. Did this answer any questions, or is this still unsatisfactory? (Btw, Moonriddengirl has pointed out that asking someone to email copyrighted material may not be the best idea, so for now, I'm back to asking people who have any access to any of the sources to help out here.) - Dank (push to talk) 18:17, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that articles aren't the sole creation of the nominators but collaborative efforts between many editors over a long period of time. In many cases the people who have access to a reference may also be the people who cited from the reference, which is back to square one. This appears to be a problem with the current push to check for close paraphrasing.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:43, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I have nearly all the sources in the article, but even scanning them will end up with over a hundred, maybe hundreds, of pages to be perused. FWiW, I agree with Nigel, in the fact, that this is hardly "anyone's article" but a vast amalgam of many editors' work. Bzuk (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2011 (UTC).
That solves the FAC problem, then. I've seen your work and I trust your judgment ... but I'm not a FAC delegate so I can't make the final call. It would help you'd say something in the FAC along the lines of ... "I've checked, and generally, there was no problem with the information not matching up with the sources or with close paraphrasing ... but there are a few judgment calls to make here, the source says X and the article says Y, does this seem accurate enough? Does it seem like close paraphrasing?" That's just a suggestion ... all the reviewers are asking for is some kind of reasonable effort. - Dank (push to talk) 19:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I understand where Dank is coming from – he wants to preserve the meaning conveyed from the articles and eliminate possible copyright infringements. I'm happy to scan a few pages for him to spot check, but I doubt if my scanner works coz I haven't used it in ages and also per Nigel's comments. Sp33dyphil"Adastra"00:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
BTW, if you haven't noticed, the book reports for Wikipedia books have been extensively tweaked to help editors assess and cleanup articles. See for example Book talk:Zeppelins#Book report. Features include breakdowns of article assessments, lists of cleanup tags found in the article, lists of non-free media, and a bunch of links to tools likes the external links inspector or the disambiguation fixer. Those are automatically updated by User:NoomBot every few days. Many books are created at WP:FTC, but you don't need to way until then to gain their benefits. Just thought I'd let you know. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books}06:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
If this were WT:AIRLINES, it would be obvious which Continental was meant, but this is the paerent project's talk page, WT:AVIATION, and it also covers Continental Motors. You might want to post at WT:AIRLINES also, just in case, as some of the sub-project users are only focused on their particular sub-project as their area of interest. - BilCat (talk) 08:06, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
I discovered Aerospace in Hawaii at the speedy-deletion list, and I thought it might be workable as an article if changed to Aviation history of Hawaii. I've moved the article to that name, but it needs LOTS AND LOTS of work that I can't provide (not being knowledgeable on the subject), so I'm tossing it to y'all to do what you can with it. :) - The BushrangerOne ping only22:38, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
One more review by somebody who's comfortable with aviation articles would help. Btw, I'm putting together a list every week at WT:MHC of what needs doing on Milhist FACs, and there's usually an aviation article in there somewhere. I'll generally do the list soon after the WP:Signpost comes out so I can point to the previous week's success stories. - Dank (push to talk) 18:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm just coming by to apologize ... I opposed this article at FAC, and I'm sorry I didn't have enough time to go back and detail the problems. The biggest problem is that I haven't spent enough time getting comfortable with aviation articles to have a good sense of what trade-offs are possible, or to act as an advocate for your ways of doing things. Btw, I think Sandy's point was pretty solid ... it's right there in WP:V that any text in an article can be challenged by anybody, and if it's not citable, it's toast (with exceptions for the blindingly obvious or trivial, and there's an understanding that the supporting citations will be on the other side of the link for navboxes and such). But my oppose was mainly to back up John's oppose ... he has a very good sense of FAC standards, I agreed with his call, and I didn't see a promotion coming for this article.
A lot of people have put a huge amount of time into making Milhist's A-class a hospitable and productive place, and I really think you'd all be happy with the results if we had more participation there from a broader range of aviation-savvy editors. And if that happens, then eventually, FAC might seem like less of a hostile jungle. (Or not, which would be fine, of course ... I don't know anyone who thinks that every project is supposed to aspire to greatness at FAC, it can be more of a hassle than it's worth.) I should have more time available to tackle aviation articles in more depth in December. - Dank (push to talk) 14:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
This has already been discussed/argued on the FAC page and some at WT:Air. Some are ignoring the guidelines at WP:SEEALSO about "Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible". So whatever.. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't matter that much to me. Just tired of inconsistent review standards. WT:Air is the better place for a discussion on this comparable aircraft thing. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
What is the definition of "manufacturer"?
Please help resolve a problem here. Is the manufacturer the company that owns the intellectual property rights of the design or is it the company that does the physical work of building the plane? Roger (talk) 18:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Well in the past they were usually the same, but in these days of contracting out maybe not! I usually indicate it as the company(s) that actually built the plane and if it is complex then explain it in the article text. - Ahunt (talk) 23:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
This article has been requested to be moved to wiktionary, so some advice would be needed on that talk page. Thank you, Comte0 (talk) 15:15, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
It is one of the items wikilinked from signal square. Each linked item is not notable enough for its own article but should/can be listed at the signal square article, each wikilink also being redirected to that article. Signal squares are still in use at some UK airfields for non-radio aircraft so it shouldn't be in past tense. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)20:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
And I just removed the blogs used as refs and ELs and seconded your prod! Stand by for AfD, next I imagine. - Ahunt (talk) 22:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, not sure. Most people nowadays would think of the tennis tournament as the primary meaning. I'd say that the current situation is fine. Mjroots (talk) 05:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Agreed; just because one name came first doesn't guarantee that it should be the primary topic - I think it should be influenced more by what readers are expecting. We have lots of important articles on subjects which have taken their name from a relatively less-important founder / inventor / discoverer. We occasionally get PRIMARYTOPIC/disambiguation drama over some big new-world city (ie. Boston) which was named after some smaller, older European town... bobrayner (talk) 11:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
It seems that it is just one route from London to NYC using BA equipment and crews under a different brand. As far as I can tell there is no need for the article and it should be redirected to British Airways. - Ahunt (talk) 18:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Just one of several classes offered by BA according to their own blurb. The lead seems to be wrong saying that it is a subsidiary company. Two subsidiary companies are listed here. Agree with redirect unless more solid proof appears that it is a separate airline. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)18:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
An IP editor reverted your redirect, but I reverted and told him to take it to the talk page for consensus if he disagrees. - Ahunt (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
There's nothing about that in the instructions - also use in that wasy seems to be in breach of WP:MOSBOLD - its a child list, not a definition list, so the date shouldn't be bolded.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
There only appear to be twenty articles at most that are using this template. I think I will be bold and edit the code so the date isn't bold. I also notice that the instruction to use this template has appeared in the style guide for the project without any discussion, let alone consensus that I am aware of. Someone jumping the gun?GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
From your own comments, you understand the principle of bold editing… (I've no problem with you unemboldening, if that's the consensus, though I find it improves readability in this case.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits22:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Unbolding would also make the template more versatile - i.e. it could be used within running text (like MOS/FAC erc encourages instead of lists) as well as at the start of an entry.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Merger Process Guidelines Needed
We really need to come up with an established consensus guidelines for how to handle airline mergers. We seem to go through lots of stress, bickering, and edit warring, having the same discussions over and over again every time it happens. We're doing it now with United/Continental, we dealt with it before with Delta/Northwest and US Airways/America West, and we'll do it all over again with Southwest/AirTran. We should address things like (using UA/CO as an example here):
When to change from "Continental Airlines" to "United operated by Continental" to "United" in destination lists, including when to merge into a single list.
What to say durning transitional periods "United operated by Continental", "Continental operated by United", etc.
When to mark the airline brand disappearing as defunct on the airline article. Date of single AOC? Date brand is retired?
Every merger process might still have its own quirks, but guidelines keyed to common events in any merger should help make things easier in the future. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Commons Aviation Wikiproject
Several editors have decided to start a Commons Aviation WikiProject which is going to be devoted to aviation-related content on Commons; Commons:Commons:WikiProject_Aviation. Some of the main tasks for the project include maintaining and sorting aviation content, as well as working on obtaining permission from photographers to upload their photos to Commons, in addition to working on introducing photographers to Commons to get them to upload photos directly to Commons. There is a discussion at Commons:Commons_talk:WikiProject_Aviation at which we are trying to ascertain what the needs of the community-at-large are, so please feel free to join in the discussion. Also, if there are any project members who are willing to do some translation work for us that would be great. See Commons:Commons_talk:WikiProject_Aviation#Translations for more info. Also, anyone with scripting knowledge would be welcome, as there are some ideas which would require such expertise. Look forward to hearing from project members over on Commons with any ideas, etc. Please feel free to translate this message as needed. Cheers, Y u no be Russaviaლ(ಠ益ಠლ)14:19, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Featured article candidacy for Boeing 767 now open
Eventhough United and Continental operate under one single certificate, Continental ceased operations on November 30, 2011 (the date when they got the single certificate). However, Continental was removed as a member on the Star Alliance page. Their website still has Continental listed as a member despite ceasing operations and there is already a note stating that. Snoozlepet (talk) 23:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
As we have a growing trend to turn some articles into image galleries I notice that these tables are populated with images of "example" types that dont actually show the aircraft or air force or operator but just a pretty picture of the type. If we are to use images in tables should we not be encyclopedic and insist on the correct image rather than any old picture? MilborneOne (talk) 20:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
While it doesn't seem to violate any policies or guidelines that I know of, it does seem a bit "unprofessional" doesn't it? I would say it is better to leave no image than one that is misleading. - Ahunt (talk) 01:20, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree that there's nothing wrong with a column of images in a list, e.g. per the various lists of windmills, but the image must be of the subject under discussion. Failing that, the entry should be left blank. Mjroots (talk) 06:31, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps we need to add something to one of the guidelines that if you use an image in a table it should be the right one? but it may be seen as a bit of instruction creep. MilborneOne (talk) 09:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Hi there AVIATION folks, just to let you know that there's a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rocketry#Project abolishment? regarding the abolishment of WikiProject Rocketry, with the suggestion being that its duties be divided up between WP:SPACEFLIGHT, WP:MILHIST and WP:AVIATION. As such, input from editors in this project would be appreciated to determine whether consensus is for the project to be abolished and if so how its duties should be divvied up between the projects. All views welcome! :-) Colds7ream (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
A balloon crash in New Zealand has killed eleven people. This is very rare for a balloon crash. Is there consensus among members of this WikiProject that the accident is notable enough to sustain a stand-alone article.
I know the ASN Wiki-base is not a reliable source, but those linked from it are. Mjroots (talk) 23:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
It seems to have got quite a bit of coverage from media around the world (the Guardian called it "New Zealand's worst air accident for more than three decades") so I think it's likely to pass the GNG. bobrayner (talk) 23:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, is this some kind a joke that we can't upload to the Commons the RSAF's two roundels (or one)? [5][6] I can't use them in the Hungarian wiki. A few years ago I used the RSAF Roundel.svg file, but I see it's gone. It is on the list, but we can use it only here in en.wiki. Can we do something (could use any other laguages)? --Gyantusz (188.142.193.35 (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC))
Copyrighted images cannot be loaded onto Commons. It was probably deleted. The two roundels on en.wiki have fair-use-rationales. If the Hungarian wiki allows fair-use images, then you can upload copies there. Fair-use images are supposed to be uploaded to each language separately (kind of weird... there should be a fair-use repository, where using an image from it requires a FUR on the file page, instead of duplicating images all the time) 76.65.128.132 (talk) 08:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
The whole point of Commons is to provide a repository of images which can be widely reused in many different circumstances. This is not entirely compatible with FUR, which is about "OK, this image is copyrighted, but I think have a really good excuse for using it in condition X in location Y". bobrayner (talk) 13:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not saying that Commons should take fair-use templates, but that there should be a fairuse.wikimedia.org or something, that would reduce the amount of duplicated files across all Wikipedias/otherWMF that use fair-use files, which would require FURs for any file that is loaded there, and requires the file be used. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 05:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it does any harm. Might be more relevant to this project if there were something really interesting/unusual about the ship's complement of aircraft or how it gets used. bobrayner (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
A carrier is a place to land and take-off for aircraft, so is an aerodrome, so is an airport, IMO, so all carriers should be covered by aviation, since they are a major element integral in a type of aviation (naval aviation). The only reason these ships exist is to service aircraft... the same as any airfield. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 09:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
A carrier is a place to land, store and take-off aircraft, so is an aerodrome, so is an airport, IMO, so all carriers should be covered by aviation, since they are a major element integral in a type of aviation (naval aviation). 76.65.128.132 (talk) 09:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
To a sailor a carrier is a ship (that carries aircraft), to an airman a carrier is a (mobile) airbase. Both views are correct so carriers belong under both vehicle and infrastructure categories. Pretty much every facility provided by a land airbase (fuel, ordnance, maintenance, aircrew accommodation, ATC, security, rescue etc) is also provided by a carrier. Further discussion might be better at Category talk:Aircraft carriers. DexDor (talk) 10:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussions in category talk pages are not the best choice. The number if editors who watch categories is extremely thin so the project pages would gather much more attention and input. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I noticed something:
The English Wikipedia has Command Airways, a US airline - Even though it has an ES link. The ES link leads to a different airline:
This es:Command Airways (Sudáfrica) is a South African airline. Seemingly unrelated. Its only interwiki link is to the American airline
I think the interwikis should be removed, since they're not actually the same topic.
If somebody were to create a new article for South African one on enwiki (or for the American one on eswiki) then that might require a little moving around or at least a hatnote or two... no? bobrayner (talk) 23:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Did some googling, the South African company is a helicopter charter operator, not an airline. I found no mention of it is anything resembling a RS other than business directory listings - they've never made the mainstream news or even aviation trade press except for adverts. Roger (talk) 14:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
If you want I can suggest deletion on the Spanish Wikipedia. I know some people on there who are bilingual English-Spanish, and they can help with the AFD process over there. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:21, 22 January 2012 (UTC)