Talk:ISON Airbike

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Aviation: Aircraft

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Comparable aircraft- wrong listings

The "Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era" in the "See also" section was (until my edits, just now) filled with utterly unrelated, sharply-different aircraft. This is an ongoing problem in Wikipedia articles about ultralight and similar light sport aircraft.

The Airbike design configuration uses fairly traditional airframe fuselage construction: a framework of metal tubing. And its engine is in the front. And it's an open-cockpit design.

But someone listed a bunch of airplanes that do not fit ANY of those FUNDAMENTAL design characteristics of the Airbike -- instead listing PUSHER-engine / SINGLE-tube-keel aircraft, including the Kolb's, Lockwood Drifter, Spectrum Beaver, and others -- most of which were also ENCLOSED-cockpit.

Lumping them together with the Airbike is like comparing the Beech 18 to the Cessna Skymaster, just because they're both "light twins" with overlapping production years.

This reflects a common, very careless, even reckless, attitude about ultralights and such aircraft, by many Wikipedia editors -- who casually lump them all together as a single type. That is NOT the purpose of that section of the article. It is supposed to list similar aircraft.

Please respect the differences, and confine your "comparable" listings to those aircraft that are TRULY similar.

~ Zxtxtxz (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:AGF and WP:NPA regarding your use of the terms "very careless, even reckless, attitude". There is no need for insults, just because you disagree with aircraft in a "see also" list. There is nothing even close to "reckless" about any list of aircraft on Wikipedia. No one is going to die from reading these lists no matter what they contain.

In general on WP:AIR, if "see also"s have been contentious we have just removed them entirely, as not worth spending the time arguing about them.

That was me who added those lists when the articles were originally written, as I started probably 95% of the ultralight articles on en.wikipedia. The "see also"s were "aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era", i.e. recreational-use ultralights (international definition, not the highly restrictive US one), aeroplane configuration (not hang gliders, helicopters or balloons) and from the same decade or two, (plus or minus). They were added as each article was written, as I wrote over 1,000 ultralight articles. If you check the documentation at Template:Aircontent you will see it is very optional and non-restrictive. The "see also"s don't need to be of identical construction type or engine location to fit this broad criteria, just aircraft that might be competitors in the market place, for readers looking for something generally similar. Personally I don't care if you want to make the lists more restrictive, as "see also" lists are probably the least important aspects of aircraft articles and certainly not worth arguing over. - Ahunt (talk) 19:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ahunt: I apologize for the tone of my post. It is borne of enormous frustration with using these lists in research, and continually finding many of them quite misleading.

That said, it is worth noting that the "configuration" differences between ultralights do result in different market choices and applications ("roles"), and consumers in that market, historically, are more likely to choose between similarly configured aircraft than between similar-brand or vintage aircraft. That is why many ultralight manufacturers produce so many distinct variants within their overall product line.

~ Zxtxtxz (talk) 20:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apology accepted. As I noted, the guidance on this list template is quite minimal, so it is up to users how widely or narrowly they want to interpret the parameters. In the early days of creating the first ultralight articles, one of the reasons for including the lists at all was to avoid having articles tagged as "orphans" due to the lack of inbound links, so naturally the first few hundred articles were more generally ultralights from the same period more than any other tight criteria, such as engine configuration or structure. Regardless, feel free to make them more narrow if you like. I don't think you will find a lot of arguments by people opposed. - Ahunt (talk) 00:28, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]