Template talk:US-airport/Archive 1

Archive 1

Discussion

Why is it that airnav seems to get preferential treatment in Wiki articles? Just because they were the first to be listed in the template doesn't mean that they should reign superior for the rest of time. I find there archaic layout and old technology to be so obsolete that I always go elsewhere for better information. Isn't it time we chose something better? Gladtohelp (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

Sorry to be making bold (and worrysome) moves for such a new editor. I have added a link to my service (rsvpair.com) in this template, because I felt it would be helpful for readers to know what planes are available for air charter: As far as I know, we provide a unique service, the only resource that makes this data available - which we and the operators themselves maintain on the site. It was not intended as link spam, and certainly not meant as an aggressive move.

As my partner has mentioned on another page ( Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rsvpair ) we want these steps to be the first in a long future of working together with wikipedia - sharing the unique data we collect and maintain, both directly in wikipedia, and as links to available external (and changing) content. What do you think - how should I proceed? Rsvpair 18:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

At first blush, I think the link is a useful addition. Unless someone can suggest a better source for similar information, the link should stand. Demi ^T/_C 21:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the usefulness of the info - it just seems like commercial linkspam to me. Physchim62 (talk) 23:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, this doesn't tell me a whole lot. You don't think a link to a directory of charter services is useful? Or you don't think this directory is useful? Demi ^T/_C 10:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, there are 5-10k charter operators in the world operating countless private aircraft. The regular location of an aircraft available for charter is moot because they are so transient and clearly mobile. The FAA and ICAO offer a list of licensed/registered charter & air taxi operators. This is a commercial attempt at creating a advertising index with free and commercial listings that is otherwise plagued with advertisements. Any airport information included on any page is a weak replication of the Airnav.com link, which already exists and is much more in-depth. Additionally, seeing as this is a template change with hundreds of pages using it, it's notable that lots of airport pages have no charter content on the destination page except for replicated content and advertisements. For example, Adirondack_Regional_Airport and Oxnard_Airport. In the case of a major airport like LaGuardia_Airport, where people are most likely to be looking, the site has one link to a charter aircraft that you can wade to at the very bottom of a page that has a 9:1 advertisement:charter link ratio. I became aware of this link spamming when I saw the AFD and am surprised that anyone has fallen victim to this attempt to capitalize on WP's userbase. I don't think re-inclusion after multiple reverts on the basis of insufficient argument against it is appropriate; lack of justification for inclusion is a more valuable metric. Dbchip 22:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly open to the idea that it doesn't belong, but I'd like to frame the distinction between it and the links that are currently there. On what basis do we include some of these and not others? Wikipedia isn't a how-to, not even a how-to fly into a given airport. I don't think any of these links are "necessary." So what distinguishes rsvpair.com from flightaware.com? Or AirNav.com? FlightAware is ad-supported. A large section of airnav.com is given over to a mapquest-style directory of local businesses--the kind of directory we routinely remove for city articles. Are the three ad blocks on rsvpair.com too many? If so, what's kosher? One?

My second question, you say "The FAA and ICAO offer a list of licensed/registered charter & air taxi operators." Can we somehow link to that list instead? Similarly, are there more free sources of information for what airnav.com or flightaware.com provide? Demi ^T/_C 23:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

possible addition

I came across this website in a search for crash info for airports. This website lists details of all accidents/crashes at an airport; it will work with the current template, as the website uses the three letter airport code

as an example:

Midway Airport or "MDW" is http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id=MDW

this works with nearly any airport, though not minor ones.

It just seemed that this info maybe useful to people checking out an airport.

Just let me know what you think.

--MJHankel 10:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I know there has been much link spam recently, and I just would like to be clear that, I am not affiliated with this link in anyway.

I am not trying to force anything on anybody and if you feel that this link should not be in this template just tell me and remove it. I found it very useful though as it provides history and details about accidents at airports, including plane types, operator, cause, and description, some even have pictures. Seeing as how this is an encyclopedia, this info seems useful, though if not, please know I mean no contempt. I am perfectly fine either way. --MJHankel 01:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

How about linking directly to the NTSB/FAA incident database, which is where aviation-safety.net appears to be getting their information from? -- Bovineone 01:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

just let me know the link, that is fine as long as it works with the airport code --MJHankel 14:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This link expects a 3-letter IATA code. For most U.S. airports that is same as the FAA identifier provided when calling this template, but if not the ASN link is invalid. To resolve this I have updated the {{US-airport-ga}} and {{US-airport-mil}} templates to allow a second parameter for the IATA code; other templates will be updated only if needed. For more information, see: Template talk: US-airport-ga #Updated template to handle airports with different FAA and IATA identifiers -- Zyxw 08:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition: Airport Weather provided by MyMetar.com

Howdy. I posted a link to MyMetar.com, which is a free web service that provides aviation weather for pilots. I did so without understanding the protocol for edits, and for that I humbly apologize.

The weather information provided on MyMetar is sourced from the National Weather Service (and international sources) and adds plain language interpretation of the encoded METAR as well as the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF), which is the forecast weather for the next 12 hours. In addition the plain language and TAF information, a visual indicator is added that represents the flight rules in effect as a result of the visibility and ceilings: VFR, MFVR, IFR, and LIFR.

I thought the link was justified given that AirNav and FlightAware have links present, that the weather delivered is specifically tailored to pilots, that the weather is enhanced with visual indicators for the current flight conditions, and that both current and forecast weather is provided.

Shortly, the relevant radar imagery will accompany the weather for that airport, further simplifying the steps required to get weather for a particular airport. If you're a pilot like me, you'll understand the hoops that you have to go through to get a composite view of weather for a particular ICAO station.

MyMetar also provides weather observations for airports around the world, which means the applicability goes beyond just US airports.

The URL form for accessing airport specific weather is http://www.mymetar.com/metar/[icao code], or http://www.mymetar.com/metar/KSFO for San Fran.

Tweihs 04:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well all I know to tell you, is that that template affects multiple articles. Basically, I can tell you two things I know regarding the situation.

A. You should troubleshoot to make sure that your link properly works with at least the majority of all the airports.

B. Try not to totally revamp the template, simply add your link in similar fashion as to the other links. (Aside from the FAA link they are in alphabetical order).

As it is, I did not create this template, so I do not know the whole deal regarding the Airnav and FlightAware, though I do know that they have proven to be overall compatible. and FlightAware offers a flight tracker. I have no problems personally though I would definitely avoid removing other links as this may be taken poorly by others. If someone says something regarding it later, you will have your chance to defend it. I just try to help avoid controversy. --MJHankel 02:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Tweihs seems to be affiliated with mymetar.com based on his comments. I would be concerned about his attempts to use wikipedia to promote his site (Wikipedia is not for self-promotion or advertising). MyMetear appears to be a very new site with very little established net reputation (very few google hits, very low Alexa score). Using this template to link to other well-established destinations (such as Airnav, FAA, and the others that are already listed) is acceptable, since they are already well-known. -- Bovineone 00:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are there two links to weather observations???

There is some... erm... stupidity going on with the whole linking of supposedly "current" observations and "historical" observations from NOAA. That stupidity is the fact that the "current" link goes back a day, while the supposed "historical" link goes back... you'll never believe this... 3 days! I suggest STRONGLY that the "current" link be dumped and the "historical" link be called simply "weather observations from NOAA"... the current linking structure is, IMHO, false advertising.Famartin 03:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I would firmly agree, with that change, but I am sure there was a reason initiallly and maybe somebody else can shed light on it. --MJHankel 22:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that it is because the supposed "current" ob link has "current" in the URL while the supposed "historical" ob link has "history" in the URL... IOW, someone just looked at the URL's without firmly investigating what each link provided, and the fact is there isn't much difference between them, except that one goes back 1 day in time and the other 3 days. Famartin 00:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Since there has been no additional debate, I am hereby removing the duplication. Famartin 10:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

SkyVector

I fully see the usefulness in this link, but they offer this on the airnav site as well, I don't know it just seems to me that the Airnav one suffices as they directly link to the skyvector one. --MJHankel 22:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe the SkyVector.com link was added sometime before AirNav.com started including it at their site. I suppose one could also argue that AirNav includes the FAA airport diagrams, so we shouldn't include links to those (see LAX#External links for an example). Or that AirNav shows the coordinates and has links to maps, so we should take the coordinates link out of the infobox. But I like having those direct links in the Wikipedia article. Also, as useful as AirNav is, we need to be careful of favoring one site too heavily over others - particularly those which might be making money as a result of increased traffic due to all these links (as of this posting, the English Wikipedia has 1863 pages containing links to *.airnav.com). -- Zyxw 19:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't get me wrong I was just wondering if this had been considered. I have no ties to anything and was just pointing it out. Sorry if I caused any undue announces/stress. --MJHankel 05:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

No stress here, just offering my thoughts. I also have no connection to any of these sites and no idea if those with advertising (AirNav, FlightAware, SkyVector) are doing it simply to meet expenses or if they make a profit. However, there is often controversy over the attempted addition of new sites (FBOweb, FlightView, MyMetar, RSVPair) and I imagine the same might happen if certain existing links are removed. Due to the lack of comments here, perhaps the only real way to find out is to be bold and remove it, then wait to see if anyone complains or reverts it. -- Zyxw 07:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding theAirdb to resources?

There is avery good resource for airport in general, that gives destination routes and statistical information for all airports worldwide. This kind of information are not available in the resource we heve now. The format is

http://www.theairdb.com/airport/IAD.html

Where the last three upper case letters are the IATA code of the airport (in this case Washington Dulles Intl). IMHO this can be a valuable resource to add. Vitoque 14:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

With no debate to the contrary, I'm going to add theAirDb Vitoque 14:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Touchdown Turnaround 11:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I read (even before) the external link guidelines. Can you please let me understanstand exactly why this link (theairdb.com) is not accettable? In my opinion:

1. theAirDB provides a unique resource beyond what the airport article would contain. It contains up to date destinations, statistics such number of dtinations, countries and continents served, average Route Distance.
2. it is a free resource, without commercial link, or whatever
3. Site doesn't require registration or a paid subscription
4. It is in english

Again, I don't wnat to be confrontational, but I just wnat to understand the exact reason. I also invite other member to give their opinion, what ever this is positive or negative about this link.

Thanks for any explanation you will be willing to provide, other than a unspecified "it is spam" Vitoque 14:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Your only edits are promoting the site and that's not what Wikipedia is for. Your time would be better suited improving and expanding your site such that it becomes a popular Internet resource -- not the other way around. Touchdown Turnaround 22:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition: US Airport Fuel Map

Hey all, what about this one? I don't know what we would call it but just check it out. Its a map of the airport and not on any of the others.

http://www.globalair.com/airport/fuelmap.aspx?aptcode=SDF  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerien (talk • contribs) 23:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC) 

This is a great tool! Is there any reason this isn't on the template? PuritysDisciple 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

With no negative response, I'm going to go ahead and add this! PuritysDisciple 21:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Your only edits are promoting the site and that's not what Wikipedia is for. Your time would be better suited improving and expanding your site such that it becomes a popular Internet resource -- not the other way around. (copied from above since it's the same issue) Touchdown Turnaround 22:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't see where you are coming from. The map link that Jerien suggested gives pilots information about what airports and fuel are around airports in an effort to give them a better picture of fuel prices in the area. Please let me know as to why this is not a good link. As far as I can tell it follows guidelines and is a valuable resource to pilots coming into airports.PuritysDisciple 14:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been trying to talk about this link for the past few weeks and no one seems to want to talk about it. Pilots I have spoken to (myself included) think this is a great tool and I want to give everyone access to it. I am posting it back on, if anyone wants to discuss it thats great, but at least give reasons as to why it shouldn't be on there.PuritysDisciple 16:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Please stop spamming this link -- that has been your only "contribution" to Wikipedia so it's quite clear what your intent is. The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Also, please read Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule . Touchdown Turnaround 16:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to ask, how do I contribute to Wikipedia if the information that I am providing is being taken down? As far as I can tell, it doesn't violate any of the ToS for wiki. I am glad to follows these restrictions that wikipedia has. As far as I can tell AirNav and FlightAware both give the same information, which I would think they would violate some kind of external link policy. The link I am trying to put up is brand new (on Wikipedia) information that people want.PuritysDisciple 13:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear that Airnav is receiving preferential treatment. In spite of the fact that it has been superceded in usefullness by several other sites, it seems to be the only one that is allowed. I would suggest a link to a wiki article, maybe something called "Airport Resources". Replace Airnav, SkyVector and the rest with "Airport Resources" in the template. Then in Airport Resources, list them all. Of course, that negates the ability to pass a particular airport ID to the external site. Another option might be breaking the template into parts such as "Airport Data", "Airport Charts", "Airport Weather", then nominating two sites for each category without regard to the current list. Gladtohelp (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)Gladtohelp

Agreed. All the reasons mentioned as to why AirNav belongs here and others don't (i.e., notability, etc...) are self-fulfilling. Of course AirNav is the most notable--all others are being reverted! Spam? How is a different yet similar site any more Spam-like than AirNav itself? Conflict of interest? Nearly impossible to prove, and couldn't conflict of interest also be applies to the reverters as well as the posters? I totally get that this is not a link-fest, but at this point, Wikipedia is not representative of the best options on the internet. Which is why I agree with Gladtohelp. But why stop at just two? Then we're back to the same problem.Fletch07 (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You guys have got to be kidding yourselves if you think anyone is naive enough to not see through your thinly veiled attempts at promoting your web site. AirNav is not notable because of Wikipedia and I'm sure is not being sustained by being linked to as a credible resource. All the duplicate links people are adding are considered spam because they have no credibility, no verifiable user base/recognition, no significant difference to the sites already linked, and are usually clearly being linked to by the creator of the web site. People work hard to make Wikipedia a consistently valuable, credible resource -- please stop trying to make it your commercial promotion playground. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 03:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I am affiliated with Navmonster.com. And for the record, I hope that some of the others here, particularly Touchdown Turnaround and Bovineone will also disclose their biases and/or affiliations. I posted a link to this site because it has better (and more accurate) information about airports, FBOS, and airport weather conditions than all of the current sources that you appear to be protecting. Just because a site has a significant user base doesn't mean that it's credible and useful. And, just because someone has an interest in a site doesn't by itself mean that the site has no value. THAT is a logical fallacy. I wish that instead of protecting the status quo, we'd at least take the time to evaluate the sites that others are posting as well as continually evaluate the current roster. Let's consider the current listing on its own merits and compare them to the Wikipedia criteria.

AIRNAV: Not credible because it's incomplete and far less useful than other sites. Did you know that they don't list an FBOs unless it has advertised with them now or in the past? Time Zone data is also not to be trusted 100%. Did you know that all the airports in the Navajo nation in Arizona do in fact observe DST unlike the rest of the state? Airnav ignores this nuance. And as for weather info, all Airnav gives is the coded METARS and TAFS. Many of the modern sites decode the TAFs for the user, which is much more helpful. And finally, how does one verify that they have a significant user base? Did someone audit their records. Not likely.

ASN: This site is run by an arm of AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assssociation) which is a non-profit, but they still have an agenda. All they are doing is linking to the NTSB data which can be found here, straight from the source. http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp I suggest we simply link to the government site and take out the middle man. After all, what could be more credible than the government itself? <grin>

FlightAware: This is an excellent site for real time flight tracking, but you maintain a link to its airport data which is of course redundant with AirNav. I suggest maintaining FlightAware for flight tracking, but not for airport information as they have no notability or credibility in this area.

NOAA/NWS: This is possibly the worst forecast data for pilots and is certainly of limited value to the general public as the METARS and TAFS are coded. Better info can be had at www.aviationweather.gov or www.wunderground.com.

SkyVector: Outstanding site that deserves to be here because they have a unique solution for displaying sectionals and low altitude airways.

FAA DELAYS: No issues here. This is legitimate data.

As you can see (I hope) there are issues with the current list and in some cases, the wikipedia criteria are being contradicted. So instead of just accusing everyone on this discussion of having a conflict of interest, you need to look at yourselves too to see if the "policing" you are doing is making Wikipedia better or worse. Do not accept the status quo...be skeptical and consider that just because something is new and different, it may actually be better than the status quo. I'm not going to undo your revert, because you'll revert it again. I'm also not going to remove any of the other entries since those too will get undone. However, I do hope that we can actually discuss some of the issues I've brought up without accusation and speculation. Discuss.Fletch07 (talk) 15:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there anyone else here or is TouchDownTurnAround the only user opposed to changing the way these airport external links are handled? If he's an army of one, I think he should thoroughly research every site that is appropriate to the template before he makes such broad assertions.

TD: "Airnav is not noteable because of wikipedia"? TouchDown, if you think over 2,000 links don't provide extreme noteability to a site, then you are the one being naive. I will wager that wikipedia is one of Airnav's "highest producers."

TD: "All the duplicate links people are adding are considered spam because they have no credibility, no verifiable user base/recognition, no significant difference to the sites already linked,..." TouchDown, are they really "duplicate links?" How do you know they have no "credibility." Since you require a verifiable user base, please explain how you have verified the user base of all the listed sites. And you say there are no significant differences. How exactly to you know that? Gladtohelp (talk) 22:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

We should definitely try to avoid redundant links to sites that overlap significantly in functionality. Extra links just unnecessarily increase the length of the footer templates. Additionally, using well-established sites that are already notable and popular should be a requirement. Sites should be in existence and with non-trivial popularity for longer than least a year. Alexa is one way to judge relative site popularity. For example: Alex comparison, another comparison, Alexa site detail for aviation-safety.net. -- Bovineone (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Bovineone, I think you (and others) are making up the rules to suit your behavior and decision-making. I have read through the External Links guidelines and I am not coming to the same conclusions as you. For ARTICLES, I agree that links ought to be limited, be notable, etc..., but isn't the whole idea of EXTERNAL links to give the reader OPTIONS (several of them) to related information? I think it is, or at least ought to be. Alexa is interesting, but it measures only one dimension of a site's value (i.e., traffic volume) which, as Gladtohelp points out, can be self-fulfilled by a site's inclusion in WP. Even if Alexa was to be used as the yardstick, then FBOWeb deserves a place in the listings. I thought I went through a fairly thorough point-by-point analysis of why some of the references are not that accurate, complete, and reliable. I'm sorry, but you have failed to make your point, and it seems that there are more voices here for expanding the list of references rather than protecting the current ones. If you don't want to include NavMonster, FBOWeb, etc...that's fine...but you must defend that position with valid arguments that relate to the Wikipedia guidelines. Lastly, I have clearly stated my affiliation to NavMonster, so everyone knows where I'm coming from. It has been pointed out in other discussions on WP that you may not be totally neutral with respect to the referenced links. If you are going to be reverting and deleting posts, I think you owe it to this audience to come clean on your connections, if any, with the "favored few" sites. Fletch07 (talk) 00:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

As a pilot I am constantly looking for updated weather, flight planning, FBO, TFR, and airport information. That being said why are some editors constantly removing resources from aviation related topics that would be of assistance to me? Airnav just doesn’t cut it anymore. Many of the newer sites have active, more up to date content with better (read more intuitive) interfaces. I probably have a half dozen or so sites that I visit on a regular basis to gather flight information. The linked resource is pretty far down on my regular use list (if it is on my list at all) because you can’t even get real weather reporting on it.

While new to Wikipedia as a logged on user, I’ve been lurking for some time, and I don’t see this as a fair use of these pages or of the rules set in place to govern the encyclopedia. I don’t agree with the editing style being used here.

I’ve got no dog in this fight, but why not use the external links to link to the most accurate, up to date, user friendly sites? Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Revamp the Template from Scratch

Since there seems to be a significant contengent that believes the airport template could be improved, I suggest that we embark on a complete reselection of the external links. I propose that we include any reasonably useful sites, in alphabetical order, than have the ability to be linked to by individual airport identifier. So how does this sound for a start? Gladtohelp (talk) 03:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

I think that makes sense. Do you have a list of nominees?Fletch07 (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Guys, it's my (pretty obvious) observation that the entire contingent is comprised of individuals attempting to use Wikipedia to promote their web site. It is Wikipedia's policy that adding external links to an article for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Since the sites being promoted have virtually no popularity (according to Alexa and Google) and are clearly being promoted by the creators and sockpuppets, this is a blatant attempt at abuse. I think the best course of action would be to focus on improving your new web sites (flight central, nav monster, global air, theairdb, etc.) so that they gain organic popularity and should be included on their own merit. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 15:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that list provided by TD is a good starting point:

FlightCentral.net Navmonster.com Globalair.com Theairdb.com Probably add FBOweb.com, too. Any other suggestions?

Gladtohelp (talk) 16:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

I was under the impression that the point of this whole wiki thing was to have a growing, changing, living resource, not a static one. I don’t much care what particular site is the one that garners the coveted link; I am concerned that the ONE link you do allow is not relevant anymore. Yes, there are guidelines. They are just that though, guidelines. There will always be shades of gray. If I were to try hard enough, I would imagine I could find a reason to undo any edit ever made on this or any other template. Is that the goal? No, of course it isn’t. There wouldn’t be much of a wiki if we did that. That being said, I can see where that is exactly what seems to be happening here.

Honestly, while some of the edits/undos have had merit, and I applaud those that stood up and said their piece, there are a number of edits that I can see on this template alone (yes I went and read through the history of edits and undos. . . hey, my interest was piqued ) that are the direct result of what appears to be a tendentious editing style that some members possess. This style in some instances has led to edit warring.

“Edit warring is an unproductive behavior characterized by repeated, combative reversion of others' edits. Wikipedia is founded on the principle that an open system can produce quality, neutral encyclopedic content. This requires reasoned negotiation, patience, and a strong community spirit, each of which are undercut by antisocial behavior like incivility and edit warring.”

I’ve no doubt that those doing the link removal or stonewalling of any changes have the best of intentions. Maybe, just maybe, some are guarding the castle a bit too tenaciously to the detriment of the kingdom as a whole. Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Gladtohelp, I think the following links ought to be there in addition to the ones you mention.:

AirNav.com: There's little doubt that this site is of value.

FlightAware.com: Provides a unique service in a great format

SkyVector.com: Again, pretty unique and specific functionality

100LL.com: Has fuel price data that's gathered by calling FBOs. This is very different from Airnav that relies on user and FBO updates (i.e., no active outbound calling).

There are probably others. Thoughts? Also, once we have a list together, I submit that the entries be put in alphabetical order, just as they are now. The ASN link to aviation accidents seems to lead to a page that's not about accidents. We could link to the NTSB site, but unfortunately, I don't think you can go to specific airport by URL.

TD: You make several points, which I'd like to address one by one.

1) You (and Bovineone) keep offering up Alexa and Google rankings as the litmus test for whether or not an external link ought to be on WP. While not completely useless, traffic data does not speak to a site's value. (My guess is that's why this metric is not included in the AP guidelines) That takes intelligent and thoughtful human beings like us. And, I think that's what we are trying to do--use our collective expertise on these subjects to make objective decisions.

2) You and B1 continue to accuse me (and others?) of promoting our sites as our only motivation. I cannot speak for others, but I have clearly posted my affiliation to NavMonster.com on this discussion. However, my affiliation has no correlation to the site's value on WP. Again, I think that's for us to decide collectively. For the record, I feel strongly that the site does offer unique value to pilots and others and is worthy of consideration. If you/we don't feel the same way, then feel free to tell me and explain why. But I respectfully ask that you site more than questionable internet traffic metrics. The WP guidelines for external links state that anyone affiliated with a link not post it but rather open it up for discussion first. I erred on this point the first time around, but then again, so did you. You reverted my link without telling me why. I am now taking the recommended route and I ask for legitimate consideration.Fletch07 (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Google test (including Alexa) is a standard method for establishing notability of things on Wikipedia, including external links. The guidelines for external links says that you should avoid "Links mainly intended to promote a website". Websites that are not already popular/notable generally have higher motivation to insert themselves on wikipedia for promotional purposes.

As you point out, it is not possible to mechanically judge the "value" of a site's functionality so that must be done by hand. However, keep in mind that wikipedia is not a collection of links--just because something is "neat" doesn't mean it should necessarily be included.

I would also caution against biasing link selections based upon too narrow a scope of interest. It would probably be reasonable to guess that most Wikipedia readers looking at a major airport's page are not necessarily General Aviation enthusiasts or looking for pilot or flight planning details. I should actually hope that pilots are not using relying on random links on a globally editable wikipedia page for planning their cross-country flights. Although there have not been any guidelines established for this template yet, I would expect that links appearing on common footers (like this one) have as much general interest as possible. Aviation gas prices seems excessively narrow in interest scope, and I would not expect an aviator interested in planning a fuel purchases to begin such an activity by beginning at wikipedia.

As for my affiliation, I am not currently nor previously employed by any aviation related company, nor am I stock-owner in any of the companies being discussed in this template. (I develop software that is used primarily by pharmaceutical research companies.) I do know people who are pilots, although I am not one myself even though I do enjoy commercial airline flying. I value wikipedia for its quality and conciseness, and am motivated to maintain it that way. -- Bovineone (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, Bovine. We clearly do need to establish guidelines so that one or two editors cannot dominate the decision-making here. Every person here has equal right to consideration. Since there is a clear consensus that something should be done, I suggest we begin the development of guidelines that we all can generally agree on to define what site is acceptable as an external link, and what isn't. Since there are now a variety of sites that offer airport information, we need an objective measure that can determine which "get through" and which don't. Gladtohelp (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

My main frustration is that the "Resources for this airport" is primarily aimed at pilots. While I don't object to having that information, there are MANY MORE passengers than pilots out there. Personally, I would like the airport pages to point to information that would help a traveler going to/from that airport. I know that is borders on the edge of Wikipedia's policy on non-commercialism, but that's what would be most helpful to me....after all, MANY more people care about that than care about buying airplane fuel. Just my 2 cents.... BruceMount (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with your assessment with there being more passengers than pilots, and that the selection of links should try to reflect broad, general interests. For example, Expedia has some airport guides at [1], however that is not a very comprehensive listing and doesn't seem to be easily accessible by airport codes. As I mentioned above, I wouldn't expect pilots that are seeking accurate and trustworthy technical airport data and flight planning references to reasonably begin by coming to wikipedia anyways. -- Bovineone (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

More passengers than pilots, a point well taken. However, I suspect 90% of those passengers are shoehorned through the 30 Class B airports in the country. Of the remaining 6000+ airports, the vast majority do not serve commercial carriers other than charter opertions. I would estimate that over 5000 of the airports in the United States do not serve conventional passenger traffic at all. So, yes, let's include resources that passengers would find useful, too. But I suspect a significant amount of the wiki viewers querying airports will have some type of more technical interest in the airports.

It's a common misconception among non-flight crew people (i.e. passengers) that the airports they catch Delta at are the only airports around. The fact is that these airports are huge, but numerically in a huge minority. So how about some suggestions on selection criteria for external links? I'd suggest a site should have all the FAA (A/FD) data, weather at the airport as well as regional weather (METAR, TAF, FA, radar, satellite, etc.), current charts and maps, links to the airport's "official" websites, as well as ways to contact people and businesses who operate at the airport. I don't really think a link to NOAA weather is good since many of the airport sites have better and more specific weather reporting. Gladtohelp (talk) 03:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

I'm not sure we can fully predict who comes to Wikipedia and what information they seek. It is certainly very common to Google a topic and find sites (flight planning, weather, etc...) there. On the other hand I (and I'm sure others) come to Wikipedia to get unbiased (i.e., unranked) information that is not subject to the Google search hierarchy. Unfortunately, the current external links simply mirror what Google already presents, so aren't we simply mirroring the popular sites? Shouldn't we be making quality judgments beyond what the "Google Bots" can do? Second, Since we do not know the specific interest of the airport info visitor, maybe we should categorize External Links into sections such as Flight Delay Info, Weather Info, Tools for Pilot, etc... Thoughts on this type of strategy?Fletch07 (talk) 20:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I don’t know that I entirely agree with the more passengers than pilots assessment. As it has been previously stated, this line of thought might hold true for the major airports, but may not apply as neatly to the vast majority of smaller venues. Certainly I wouldn’t oppose some sort of link that would help travelers; however, I would suggest that many of the visitors look at US-airport wikis (putting aside those airports that have the major airline services) would be aviators or someone who doesn’t just have a passing interest as a passenger. As a fledgling pilot I know that I got here by trying to look up information on local airports before I visited them by plane. I didn’t begin my search here, but it was one of my stops along the way to gathering as much information about my destination as possible.

So, what’s the next step? How do we begin the process to create new guidelines for a template that is more to everyone’s liking?Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

How about these for guidelines: = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

(1) Limited advertising (a value judgement, but one way to keep out link farms)

(2) Current FAA data for all major A/FD sections

(3) Current weather by airport (more than just METARs)

(4) Current terminal charts (some sites are consistently late in getting these online)

(5) Ability to link directly to each airport using this template

(6) Link to airport website

(7) Support for user comments and other input

(8) Search capability to find nearby airports

(9) Ease of use (another value judgement, but this might be of use)

Maybe if we start with these and refine them, we can move on to the selection of several websites that best meet the guidelines. Gladtohelp (talk) 21:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

These seem reasonable to me. Since there hasn't been a lot of discussion to the contrary, I'm back to saying that the candidates we proposed earlier all fit most of the criteria you put forth. So just to reiterate, we are proposing the following sites:

www.AirNav.com

www.FBOWeb.com

www.FlightAware.com

www.FlightCentral.net

www.Globalair.com

www.Navmonster.com

www.SkyVector.com

www.Theairdb.com

www.100LL.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fletch07 (talk • contribs) 16:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

For discussion purposes lets say that we adopt the list of criteria above as gospel(see Gladtohelp’s post above). How would those sites listed by Fletch stack up? Would they stand up to the new template’s litmus test? I didn’t know, but since I’ve been housebound due to a tree attacking me out on the trails ;) I had some time to kill. I started applying the criteria above to each site listed. I’m going to list them from least number of qualifying items to most qualifying items. To save me some typing I’m only going to list the numbers from the list that the sites DO NOT support rather than typing them out for each site. I also think we should eliminate any of the sites that might prove difficult to get linked directly to airports from this template. Right now that looks like FBOWeb and Globalair (feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken about the linking thing.) Anyway, here’s what I got. Remember the listing is which criteria the sites DO NOT meet:
Misses on 5 points
FBOWeb – 4,5,6,7,8
100LL -- 2,3,4,6,7
Skyvector – 2,3,4,6,7

Misses on 4 points
Theairdb -- 2,3,4, 7
Flightaware- 3,6,7,8

Misses on 2 points
Globalair - 5,6
Navmonster – 6,7
Airnav --3,8

Meets all Criteria
FlightCentral

So if we take the top three (of the current list) we are left with Airnav, Navmonster, and FlightCentral. If special cases can be made for any of the other sites listed I’d be more than happy to hear them.Bearhawk949 (talk) 20:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm glad the guy who wrote Flightcentral met all the criteria he defined -- what a relief. Seriously though, setting feature-based criteria is a brilliant way to compile a list of a bunch of sites that all have the same functionality and not necessarily credibility. Essentially, it's the wrong approach for Wikipedia. It should be based on value to the average encyclopedia user and credibility. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 02:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, Bearhawk. And if touchdownturnaround wants to add "value to the average user" and "credibility" I certainly have no complaints. I do think those are going to be virtually impossible to quantify, but what the heck, add 'em in. I'm glad he finally decided to say something. And I'm also glad to see we are making some real progress toward resolution. Gladtohelp (talk) 04:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Wikipedia, as far as I can tell, does not provide objective criteria for measuring an external link's value. Value is a subjective term, and that's why we are all here talking about it. Credibility CAN be measured objectively, but not very well. Wikipedia offers Alexa and Google as good benchmarks. These are NOT indicators of quality or credibility. All these measures indicate is traffic volume (maybe), the degree to which the webmaster has been successful in SEO, and how long the site has been around. If these measures were actually reliable and useful, we could just automate this whole thing and be done with it. That's already been done and it's called Yahoo and Google.

Let's talk about the term "average user." If you can find me one, I'll be impressed. Wikipedia should strive to add value to ALL users, not just the middle of the bell curve. To me, Wikipedia is more useful than other sites because of its completeness. If I want average, I'll just Google it.

Now the criteria, with comments below each

(1) Limited advertising (a value judgment, but one way to keep out link farms)

If we apply this to AirNav (the incumbent) they fail because they have tons of it. Link farms are not linkable to a specific airport typically, so we may not need to worry about this on too much. None of the current candidates are link farms anyway.

(2) Current FAA data for all major A/FD sections

Probably not a good measure, since some of the sites (like 100LL) are not designed for this purpose. 100LL for example provides high quality and recent fuel prices, so they are valuable for that.

(3) Current weather by airport (more than just METARs)

Again, not all sites are weather-centric.

(4) Current terminal charts (some sites are consistently late in getting these online)

For those that provide charts, agreed.

(5) Ability to link directly to each airport using this template

This is probably the #1 criteria. FBOWEB, by the way, DOES meet this criteria

(6) Link to airport website

Probably not relevant. Most airports don't have web sites.

(7) Support for user comments and other input

This is not relevant for all sites due to their specific goal/business model.

(8) Search capability to find nearby airports

OK. BTW, Flightaware and Airnav do have this capability.

(9) Ease of use (another value judgement, but this might be of use)

I think we'd all agree that sites ought to be easy to use, but we could spend decades on this debate.

So I'm back to suggesting that in this case, each of the sites we have in the list provides value in its own unique way which makes them all valuable. This also supports the goal of making Wikipedia a valuable resource to the most number of visitors, not just the "average" user.

One last comment. Let's not forget that we are talking about the external links section here, and NOT the body of an article. The criteria are different. Fletch07 (talk) 17:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I'm all in favor of open-to-everyone philosophy, I don't think adding every one of these sites is prudent and certainly not useful to the "average user" (whatever that is). We need objective criteria and I offered some after several suggestions to do so but got no response from anyone else. To say that some sites don't meet certain criteria because they are irrelevant to the site's business model is a statement of fact. However, we must limit the number of links. So, we select criteria to use as a filter, culling down the potential list of sites to those that offer the broadest benefit. I do think that the external links should be broken down into categories like (a) airport information (b) special information. 100LL is such a specialized site offering a very narrow slice of information, I suspect it does not need to be included. However sites like Skyvector and Flightaware would certainly warrent appearing in Category B. The more general and broad-information sites would appear in Category A. Gladtohelp (talk) 15:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

So I think that could work. How about this breakdown:

Airport Information

AirNav.com

FlightCentral.net

Navmonster.com

Globalair.com

Theairdb.com

Special Information

ASN (aviation-safety.net)

NOAA/NWS (noaa.gov)

SkyVector.com

100LL.com

fly.faa.gov (flight delays)

Alternatively, how about these groupings?

Pilots

AirNav

FlightCentral.net

Navmonster.com

Globalair.com

100LL

SkyVector

Non-Pilots

ASN (aviation-safety.net)

NOAA/NWS (noaa.gov)

fly.faa.gov (flight delays)Fletch07 (talk) 23:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally, fletch, I think that is still too many, but it is an improvement. Lets see what others say about it. I've done a little research and found www.flightstats.com. It is horribly slow, but does seem to link to every airport by identifier and provides passenger-type information. We should consider it or something similar to help out the passenger crowd, either in the Special Info or Non-Pilot category (whatever we decide to call it). Gladtohelp (talk) 00:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

An important goal is to limit the amount of "bloat" and verbosity added to the bottom of each airport's page as a result of this template. Since it is seemingly a great challenge to keep this list concise, another alternative may be simply to move all airport related links onto a "Special" helper page. That "Special" page can provide links to all of the relevant pages. Although I am not aware of the politics that went into its creation, you can see this for book identities (for example ISBN 0-590-35340-3 Hardcover). -- Bovineone (talk) 04:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

B1, That's probably not a bad idea. Someone more adept than I at Wikipedia engineering would have to implement. Fletch07 (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I heard this debate was going on and wanted to give my 2cents worth. I'm a pilot and have my favorite sites for looking. I agree that WikiPedia should change the list of links to include something other than the old list of old sites. Newer things are here and pilots want to know about them. I think a list of requirements is going to be the only way to figure out what to add. I am not going to make a career of involvment in this, but wanted to let the WikiPedia editors know I am in favor of this change. Thanks, Blooskize. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blooskize (talk • contribs) 01:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Fletch, your suggested list is just too long for my liking. On the flip side what is currently listed seems less than complete to me. Yeah, I know not terribly helpful, or insightful, but it's all I've got right now. Bearhawk949 (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Offsite canvassing is unacceptable

Offsite canvassing, evidenced by this edit is not acceptable here. It certainly looks fishy when there are several editors with very few edits lurking around wanting to add external links to a widely used template. Even more so when one of the parties admits to a conflict of interest. I suggest we move on and leave the template as is. See also WP:SPAM and the essay Wikipedia:Grief. Please remember that wikipedia instituted a policy that tags external links "NOFOLLOW" so search engines will not rank your site higher by adding them here. Thank you. --Dual Freq (talk) 06:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

New Template

Ok, looks like we've been having a reasonable discussion. And speaking of fishy, it sure looks odd when people pop in without any participation at all only to question whether or not other members of the discussion should be allowed to make suggestions. Last I heard, wiki discussions are open to everyone and no one has any special rights to squelch the comments of others. Any interested party has equal right to be heard and to help determine the outcome of the discussion.

It looks like a template containing two categories should be implemented. We've had some sites suggested for these categories. Are there any others anyone would like to suggest? Gladtohelp (talk) 01:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Are you affiliated with any of the sites you have listed above? --Dual Freq (talk) 01:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hang on there. I think I have every right to make suggestions regardless of how I got here. Avig8tr (talk) 02:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)avig8tr

No, that is incorrect. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppets#Meatpuppets. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 23:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Good grief, they even signed the same way that time. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Touchdown, I hope that your comment / link to sock puppets is not an accusation. If it is, I assume you have proof. While I have the floor, I'd like to point out that Wikipedia addresses specifically the notion of people with a conflict of interest (i.e., site owners) adding external links. It quite simply says that they should come here to the discussion section to talk about it...which is exactly what I, and perhaps others, have been doing. A person's affiliation with a site has very little to do with that site's value--the idea is to discuss the merits of the SITE, and not the PEOPLE involved. Top be blunt, you and Bovine1 have been doing a great job at character assassination (or at least attack) and not been doing much to further the discussion. I respectfully suggest you either join in the discussion or get out of the way. Fletch07 (talk) 18:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Touchdown was making an accusation of you being a sockpuppet since he linked to the "meatpuppet" section of that document. That section appears to deal with recruiting other "real" people to make comments on articles to support the motivations of the recruiter. Dual Freq pointed out a comment by a first-time user (Blooskize), which is presumably one of the implicated users. In any case, I'm disappointed that you think my comments here have attacked anyone or have not contributed to the discussion. -- Bovineone (talk) 02:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe the latest suggestion on the table is for two categories. This suggestion looks to be supported by several people on this discussion. Therefore, unless there are any REAL objections, I plan to implement it.Fletch07 (talk) 13:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The latest real suggestion was under the "Offsite canvassing is unacceptable" section. I'm sorry...you are not going to get any legitimate traction trying to use Wikipedia as a platform to advertise your site and these kinds of attempts at attempting to subvert the rules are going to be unsuccessful. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 20:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

TT, where do you get off with your "subvert the rules" nonsense? The rules have been followed verbatim. And why is the one suggestion by your supporter the only "real suggestion"? Are you saying the multitude of other comments and suggestions in this discussion are not "real"? You have an obvious bias toward the exclusive use of Wiki by Airnav. This is clearly NOT in the best interests of Wikipedia, but it IS in the best interest of Airnav. Gladtohelp (talk) 18:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

TDTA, I am following the rules that Wikipedia established. I've said before and I'll say again that the rules for external links DO NOT PRECLUDE parties that have an interest in those links from posting them. All it says is that they should be discussed first. This has been done now. Furthermore, there is general agreement on redoing the links. What DualFreq wrote is neither a suggestion, a fact, or relevant. I think it would be abundantly clear to anyone reading this discussion page that we have two factions here: One that is progressive and wants Wikipedia to reflect links more in line with the world today, and another faction that is guarding the status quo. I could possibly argue that you too have a vested interest in the current set of links. But I have no proof of that, so I'm not going to accuse you. That said, I ask AGAIN for you to document your accusation about me being a sockpuppet or being involved with mockpuppets. Once again, unless there is any LEGITIMATE objections, I plan to implement. Fletch07 (talk) 17:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you affiliated with any of the sites listed above or that you are attempting to add to this template? Please remember that wikipedia instituted a policy that tags external links "NOFOLLOW" so search engines will not rank your site higher by adding them here. Thank you. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree and am ready to see a new template placed here. Fletch's argument is rock solid. All of wikipedia's guidelines have been followed and a legitimate discussion has resulted. I personally believe all the attempts to maintain a monopoly for a certain website (which already has thousands of links in Wiki) are totally unethical and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. Fletch, I'd like to see your proposed listing. Gladtohelp (talk) 18:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Are you affiliated with any of the sites listed above or that you are attempting to add to this template? Please remember that wikipedia instituted a policy that tags external links "NOFOLLOW" so search engines will not rank your site higher by adding them here. Thank you. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you have not chosen to discuss the merits, pro or con, of any of the discussed topics, I feel disinclined to answer your question. I don't know who you are, what your affiliations are, nor do I care. I have not found your input to be valuable in any way since your primary efforts have been to squash the discussion. But just to eliminate any questions about affiliation, I will refrain from personally making any edits to this template. I will not, however, refrain from continuing to offer rational and objective comments to the discussion. This is encouraged by Wikipedia guidelines. So, maybe we can stop beating this particular dead horse and move on to something more constructive. I am in favor of improving Wikipedia and couldn't care less what the search engines see. Gladtohelp (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

The new template is up, and I think looks pretty good! I tested it and all the links go where they should. I was not able to include GlobalAir and TheAirdb as they do not seem to lend themselves to the template format.Fletch07 (talk) 17:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Fletch: I would suggest that we use the same description for all three airport sites since they all have weather. Navmonster isn't unique in that regard. Also in the flightcentral link, it will work better if you change the "airportdetailview aspx" stuff to just say "airport/". Gladtohelp (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

There is no consensus to change the template. Please don't change the template to add your own company. Please remember that wikipedia instituted a policy that tags external links "NOFOLLOW" so search engines will not rank your site higher by adding them here. There are other ways to drive people to your site, please consider one of those options instead. Thank you. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

DualFreq, and others, if there is a policy on Wikipedia that a 100% consensus must be reached to change something, then please point me to it. If there is a policy on Wikipedia forbidding an affiliated person making an edit, then please let me know where that is. I have carefully read Wikipedia polices with respect to editing external links, and I believe I have followed all the rules. On two separate occasions I said that I was planning on making changes OKd by at least three different people. There were no objections, so I made the change. I know all about the NOFOLLOW tags--you've made that very clear. My intent is to make this template more useful. As a person deeply involved in this space, I think I'm uniquely qualified to contribute to Wikipedia. Finally, I've gone through the discussion on this template, and I don't actually find much if any discussion on how the existing links got here. Furthermore, noone has made any case in support of the status quo except to argue against any/all changes. I am undoing your revert and making the 2 edits that GladToHelp suggests.Fletch07 (talk) 03:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Although DualFreq has pointed at that "offsite canvassing" is not acceptible, onsite canvassing apparently is. He has asked for help from the Airport Projects members and suggested that the further edits to this template be blocked. I am happy that more people will be coming here to voice their opinions. Gladtohelp (talk) 05:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Reaching a Concensus

As Alex suggested, lets work on reaching a concensus. I have a couple of questions for DualFreq and TouchdownTurnaround so that we can establish the lay of the land. If you wish to continue being a part of this process, I believe we need to know your answers to these. (1) Do you believe that your opinions should carry more weight than some others in this discussion. (2) Do you believe that a bias-free set of objective criteria should be used to decide what sites are included in the template.

Thanks. I'm simply trying to establish the ground rules here. Gladtohelp (talk) 12:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

I can't believe that this is still going on. I don't know that I can really add anything else that hasn't already been said. If most agree that there should be a change and the change follows the rules, than what is the issue? Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Clearly there is still disagreement and non-consensus, since the additions keep getting reverted. I'm still a little skeptical about the necessity of adding yet more sites and increasing the noise/verbosity that is introduced onto all of the affected airport pages. The encyclopedic value of some of the links being proposed is questionable. The example that I've mentioned before is the airplane gas price website--just because it happens to relate to the airport doesn't mean it needs to be included (we don't have an automotive gas price link to http://www.austingasprices.com/ on the article for Austin, Texas). -- Bovineone (talk) 18:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's where we stand, bearhawk. Alexf, an administrator, has suggested that we continue with the discussion and try to hammer out an agreement. You, me, and fletch all agree that a change is due. Bovineone is leaning against, and DualFreq and Touchdown are opposed, yet refuse to be part of the discussion. They simply stick their fingers in their ears while we talk, then cry fowl when we think we have covered all the issues. Bovine, I agree about the fuel prices. I don't think that is much of an issue and it is certainly available in several of the other sites. The big issue is Airnav. It is clearly not up to par with the other sites being suggested. So we believe it should either be replaced, or new sites should be added. In all the thousands of words expended in this entire page, I have yet to see a reasonable argument that it should be retained as the only source for that kind of information in the template.

I suggested that we develop and apply an objective set of standards to make the decision about what sites belong in the template. Touchdown plainly stated way up above that he did not want objective standards. DualFreq simply ignores the question. How say you about that, bovine?

Gladtohelp (talk) 23:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

I do not see any "big issue" with AirNav, and I think that it appears to be a valuable reference site. The fact that it lacks 2 esoteric usability features (showing nearby airports, and showing weather of non-METAR style) seems arbitrary and unimportant. The lack of those 2 features does not invalidate the utility of the other information aggregated by AirNav. The alarm that you express in its continued presence seems to indicate some bias against it.

At minimum, I do not think all items in your checklist should have equal weighting. Any checklist that has all bullets fully satisfied by one/few contenders seems like a biased marketing sheet; having criteria that permits any single contender to fully satisfy (and is satisfied by others) at least provides the illusion of non-systematic bias. I am beginning to fundamentally question whether a checklist of arbitrary features is the right way to include/exclude sites. -- Bovineone (talk) 04:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You know what bovine? I really appreciate that fact that you're entering into this discussion with reasonable comments. The only reason I made up the previous list of criteria was because no one else would do it. I would say that the non-METAR weather is probably less than esoteric and there are more fundamental differerences than the two you mentioned. But, praise Jesus, we're talking about it now. I would welcome you to go back to that previous list of criteria and offer up suggestions for changes. Thank you for the refreshing blast of fresh air. One question if I may. You are familiar with Airnav. Have you looked at any of the others being suggested? I'd recommend a direct comparison using your favorite airport in each. Gladtohelp (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

After a two month self imposed wiki break, I came back over to see if anything had happened. I see it's still status quo. Why is there a place to have discussion on the template if all that happens is that the powers that be get to take their ball and go home without giving an idea a fair shake?

I tried to help edit one other page and while I ended up messing up my addition. I got pointed in the right direction to make changes and improvements; not the stonewall attitude that is displayed here.

Seems pretty lame to me. Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales on the Subject

A video of Jimmy Wales on openforum.com clearly states that while people should avoid adding links to their own sites, THEY SHOULD OFFER THEIR SITES FOR DISCUSSION IN THE TALK PAGE. He is quite clear on the matter. Sites should be considered on their merits. Editors should discuss them without bias. The knee-jerk vetoes from a couple of editors in here who believe their votes are more important is not at all what the developers of Wikipedia intended. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladtohelp (talk • contribs) 13:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It would appear that the individuals who were successful in getting the page locked down have succeeded in stifling any additional meaningful conversations by choosing to disengage from the conversation. I and others have followed all the rules, acted according to etiquette, etc, but to no avail. I feel that I have no other choice but to submit this to arbitration. I don't want to do this, so I'm making one last plea for people to come back and talk about this. Fletch07 (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to claim that "[some] editors in here ... believe their votes are more important". The primary issue is that there is no consensus that any of the proposed sites need to be added at all, particularly with some expressed concerns of self-promotion. It may not be possible to achieve consensus by continuing to try swaying dissenting editors with the same arguments. Users should not criticize others on not devoting time to edit--my primary interests are not in debating with others about policy and composing such responses are very draining. Although consensus can change, it should not be done by calling in other editors in hopes of overwhelming consensus. In general, I continue to feel that the proposed sites seem to be mostly redundant in providing the same type of information that is already available in the current template. -- Bovineone (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Calling in other editors, bovine? Like what dualfreq did here? Read what he said - he was clearly lobbying for support of his position and outright asked others to come here and comment. Why no complaints about that? Gladtohelp (talk) 20:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

But even if their concerns do center around so-called "self promotion", that is not a valid reason to deny a site from inclusion. Wikipedia guidelines and the founder himself are crystal clear on that. Sites should be judged on their merits and nothing else. You see, bovine, this is exactly what we've been arguing about from the beginning. Wikipedia guidelines, the founder of Wikipedia, and even the Super-Admins who were called on by dualfreq all say the same thing - we should discuss sites on this page based on their merits and attempt to come to an agreement.

There has never been any discussion in here at all - just a kneejerk veto by one or two editors based on grounds that clearly violate wiki guidelines and basic philosophy. Airnav maintains its coveted monopoly because short-sighted editors won't even take the time to look and compare alternatives.

By the way, approach charts for March expired on 3/13. As of 3/23, Airnav still provided the old expired charts, illegal for use in flight. As of today, 3/26, links on Airnav to approach charts all come up dead. This is one of MANY times that I have noticed their charts to be out of date over the last year. I guess one could argue that navigational charts aren't needed in an encyclopedic entry, but then what in Airnav is needed? And also, I would question something called "credibility" that editor TouchDownTurnaround was harping on earlier in this page.

I propose that Airnav be removed altogether from this and the other airport templates until an unbiased group of editors willing to look at the facts can select the top contender(s) for inclusion. Gladtohelp (talk) 18:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Please remove blank link at bottom of template

{{editprotected}} In this edit on 27 January 2008, the template was updated to use the {{documentation}} template. However, the edit introduced a blank line at the bottom of the template, which can be seen in the following example:

===Header1=== {{US-airport|LAX}} ===Header2=== Header1 Resources for this airport: AirNav airport information for KLAX ASN accident history for LAX FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker NOAA/NWS weather observations: current, past three days SkyVector aeronautical chart for KLAX FAA current LAX delay information Header2

Compare that to the output of the similar Template:US-airport-ga:

===Header1=== {{US-airport-ga|LAX}} ===Header2=== Header1 Resources for this airport: FAA airport information for LAX AirNav airport information for KLAX ASN accident history for LAX FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker NOAA/NWS weather observations: current, past three days SkyVector aeronautical chart, Terminal Procedures Header2

This can be corrected by replacing:

** FAA [https://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/flyfaaindex.jsp?ARPT={{{1}}}&p=0 current {{{1}}} delay information]
<noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>

with:

** FAA [https://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/flyfaaindex.jsp?ARPT={{{1}}}&p=0 current {{{1}}} delay information]<noinclude>
{{documentation}}
</noinclude>

It would be appreciated if an admin could make this edit since the template is currently protected. -- Zyxw (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Done. --- RockMFR 06:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- Zyxw (talk) 11:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Continuing the Discussion on Updating the Template

After reading this entire discussion I would like to bring up several points which I believe have merit. Some features that are now becoming standard on most websites are not appearing on AirNav. For instance, while most are now explaining clearly to an individual the weather conditions at an airport through images and text AirNav does not. AirNav provides the METAR way of viewing the weather but a non-pilot will not understand it. If we want to have resources for pilots and non-pilots alike then we need to link to a site that provides both. Seeing that in the template we also have a link to NOAA why don’t we attempt to find a site that pulls its weather information from NOAA? That way we reduce the template by one link?

I have read in the discussion about adding certain sites that provide fuel prices from FBOs at the airports. AirNav does provide this ability but lacks credibility when any user can login on to the site and change the fuel prices for an airport to a possibly incorrect amount. If we were to add a site that did this then we will need to find one that only allows the FBOs to update their fuel prices so it can actually have some credibility about the price of fuel at that FBO.

I think the biggest issue I am having right now is when there are websites that provide the same information as AirNav but present the information in a more logical/easier to read interface then why do we consistently go back to AirNav every single time? I understand that Alexa is a good metric to measure a website’s worth but you must also consider that sometimes an established site does not provide the most information or present that information in the best possible way compared to possibly newer websites or other alternatives.

The site that I currently use for researching/shopping for fuel prices is globalair.com I saw that you all have mentioned them before but said that they were difficult to link to. I searched around on Google and found several sites that link to them in a way that should be easy to link to. The link is simply http://www.globalair.com/airport/airport.aspx?AptCode=LAL. In that format I do not see why we could not link to them in the template. I suggest that we add global air to the template. Neilh89 (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Most new users normally don't immediately edit template pages. Of the thousands of articles here, may I ask how you found this template? Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation has many articles in its scope and you can get started right away on improving those articles if you'd like. Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports is another aviation related project that could use help improving many articles in its scope as well. There are many articles needing attention, like Category:Aviation articles needing infoboxes. Since you seem interested in templates, you could add infobox templates to various aviation related articles listed in that category. If you want to help but need more ideas please post to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation and someone will point you in the right direction. There are many things to do besides adding external links to various websites. Thank you and welcome. --Dual Freq (talk) 03:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

While I am a new user in terms of when my account was created, I am a long time user of Wikipedia. I found this template because I became curious about the links at the bottom of the airport page I was using for some simple research. I was wondering why they were linking to AirNav while I knew of a possibly better resource for information about an airport. I then did some more research on what made the links appear at the bottom of the page and thus found this template. As far as the other areas in which I can assist in improving, I would be happy to improve them as I find the time but as of right now I can hopefully make this small but controversial change to improve Wikipedia. -- Neilh89 (talk) 22:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Greetings, NeilH. You're going to be fighting an uphill battle. Airnav is firmly intrenched with something like 3000+ links in Wikipedia, and a few vocal editors here intend on keeping it that way. They have clearly veered from Wiki standards, i.e. rather than consider new links on intrinsic value, they focus on the motivations of the person making the suggestion. If you want to suggest something other than Airnav, you will not receive an unbiased listen from this crowd. Even the founder, Jimmy Wales, has stated that users with interesting entries should offer them for discussion on the talk pages. Doesn't seem to work in this example, however.

A second point. This template was locked in violation of wiki guidelines. There was no threat of "vandalism" going on. But by getting the template locked, a few editors managed to effectively shut down the discussion. This is an obvious example of wiki gone bad. Gladtohelp (talk) 13:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Maybe we should then push for the template to be unlocked. What would we need to do to unlock this template because, as you have said, it has thus shut out all discussion on this talk page. You say that this will be an uphill battle, and I am in no way doubting it after reading the lengthy discussion, but I think it is one that needs to be fought simply because we need to make this an example of what you call “wiki gone bad” to wiki gone good. - Neilh89 (talk) 22:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

This template was not locked because of vandalism, it was locked because it is a high risk template and changes to it affect many articles potentially affecting server load. If you want to change the template, I suggest taking it up with Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports since this is their template. It has been discussed there in the past and one suggestion was to delete the template since is is a frequent spam target by single purpose accounts and anonymous IP contributers. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

DualFreq, that is a complete load of misinformation! Here is verbatim what the wiki policy page says about page protection and high-risk templates:

"There are two reasons high-risk templates are protected: vandalism and server load." Your statement that it was "locked because it is a high risk template" is NOT a valid reason. The reasons, as stated by Wiki, are vandalism and server load issues. The occasional changes that popped up in the template were CLEARLY nothing that could be attributed to vandalism nor could they be considered excess loading on the server. There was absolutely no history to support this template being protected. And I don't believe you care beans about server load. You wish the template to remain protected so that dissenting voices can be ignored.

You have been doing everything you possibly could from the beginning to distort wiki policy in support of your contentions. You quote out of context, avoid answering legitimate questions, and take arbitrary action that CLEARLY shows your biases.

This template should definately be unprotected so that discussion may resume. Gladtohelp (talk) 16:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

The fact remains I requested it be protected as a high risk template, and it was protected as a high risk template per Wikipedia:High-risk templates. "(Changed protection level for "Template:US-airport": High-risk template [edit=sysop:move=sysop)]" It is a frequent spam target and the last time changes were made it was by someone who admitted being associated with the website they were adding. There is no point in attempting to spam your company website on wikipedia. Please advertise it the correct way by paying someone to market it. Again, your wasting your time here, ask the WP:Aviation / WP:Airports editors about adding your company to this list. There are a number of administrators in WP:Aviation, and I'm confident they will agree that this is a transparent attempt to spam a company website to multiple articles. --Dual Freq (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you requested it be protected for a reason that is not included in wiki guidelines. For that reason, it should be unprotected. Rules are rules, and you are bending them to fit your personal agenda. Let's leave your emotional entreaties out of this, and go by the letter of the law (wiki guidelines). Gladtohelp (talk) 22:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

Edit Protected

{{editprotected}}

With the lack of an opposing opinion for well over a month, I am going to request that GlobalAir.com replace the AirNav link within the template. Here is what I believe the code should be to edit that link. - Neilh89 (talk) 00:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

** GlobalAir [http://www.globalair.com/airport/airport.aspx?AptCode={{{1}}} airport information for {{{1}}}]

There is no consensus for this change, beyond a collection of single purpose accounts that tried to implement it in the past. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've commented out the request for lack of consensus. Incidentally, why do you oppose? GlobalAir seems to have a couple more ads, but it also seems to have more content. Cool Hand Luke 02:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, scratch that. AirNav definitely seems more reliable, and we should stick with it. What I'm getting at is that incumbent commercial pages are no more sacred; we should always pick the best, no matter who is promoting it. For example, the article on AirNav was probably written by someone with a COI, but that's not a good enough reason to delete it. Cool Hand Luke 02:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what makes globalair unreliable compared to airnav? - Neilh89 (talk) 18:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

AirNav is butt-ugly to me, but it works, seems to be the standard, and conveys all the information in a small number of bytes, which might be useful for mobile users. I just tried both an airport (SLC) and found that AirNav had the weather data, but GlobalAir—after requiring a second click—failed to retrieve it and gave an error. It seems to be working now, and I admit that this isn't a statistical sample, but the fact that the very first airport I tried failed to get results undermined my confidence in the site.

If GlobalNav becomes standard, we should use it, but we are not a venue for promoting it along the way. Cool Hand Luke 05:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Using Firebug I found that airnav’s page on one airport weighed in at 301 kb. On globalair’s site that same airport weighed in at 317kb, so the size difference of the two pages is negligible. I don’t know why the site wouldn’t show you the weather the first time you tried it but it has never happened to me when I have gone to use it.

Also I would like to address a broader point. What makes a site a standard? Can standards change? I think that if a site is a standard we should always look for the next best thing instead of being highly critical of anything that is new that might improve upon the standard. - Neilh89 (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you're right about the size, that's very interesting. I guess it loads everything on the first page. I assumed each tab loaded more content, but I guess the tabs are just javascript for displaying the selected information? I know javascript might trip up mobile devices, but I'm not really sure why one is th standard and not the other. The maintainers of this project say that AirNav is the standard within the industry, and I'll defer to them. I'm not especially knowledgeable in this area, I was just an admin responding to the edit request.

You might want to ask Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation whether they think GlobalAir would be better. If AirNav is the industry standard, that's a valid reason for sticking to it. Cool Hand Luke 18:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I cant see that template adds any value to the article it is just a vehicle for external links that are not really needed. Wikipedia is not a directory of websites. Perhaps it would be easier to remove the template from airport articles then it wouldnt matter who it is advertising or site pushing. Perhaps even consider an MfD as it ticks many of things in what Wikipedia is not list. MilborneOne (talk) 14:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This whole issue has been so grossly misused, contrary to Wikipedia guidelines, that I would have to agree. The template should be removed in its entirety until OBJECTIVE STANDARDS for links are established and applied. There is far to much bias toward the existing links, with no rational argument for alternatives allowed. Gladtohelp (talk) 17:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

{{editprotected}} Nominate protected template for deletion. MilborneOne (talk) 12:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. --- RockMFR 23:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Push To Remove Private Party Sites from Template

After reading the recent discussion on the Templates for Deletion page, I am asking to put in place what was suggested during the discussion, the removal of all private party links from the template. This would leave just ASN, NOAA, and the FAA as links in the template. I am suggesting that we do this until there are set standards on which sites are linked to from the template, as there are major disagreements with the ones currently on their and the ones that others have suggested, thus resulting in a stale mate with two unhappy parties. - Neilh89 (talk) 18:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Delete all links except those mentioned, then develop objective standards that apply, across the board, to every new link considered for inclusion. Although the Deletion-page discussion did lean in favor of keeping the template, there was a clear signal that changes to the template should be considered. Let's go ahead and get this going. Gladtohelp (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)gladtohelp

A few comments:

• I'd also like the following links to remain because both seem to provide unique services: SkyVector for the aeronautical charts and FlightAware for its flight tracker.
• The only change I'm strongly in favor of is eliminating the FlightAware "information" link: it doesn't appear to offer anything not available from the FAA and it often gives incorrect identifiers for airports outside the continental U.S. For example, their Bethel Airport data at http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/PABE gives a three letter code "ABE", but the correct FAA (and IATA) identifier is "BET". Oddly enough, their link using Bethel's FAA code http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/BET does redirect properly to PABE but still shows "ABE" as the 3-letter code. Also, it doesn't work for airports outside the continental U.S. without an ICAO identifier, such as Alakanuk Airport where http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/AUK attempts a redirect to KAUK, which does not exist (even their own list of Alaska airports at http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/browse/AK contains a non-working link for this airport).
• I am ambivalent about the AirNav information link since I find it useful and it is mentioned as an alternate data source on the FAA website (see https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/airportdata_5010/). If AirNav is removed, I'd suggest replacing it with a link to the G.C.R. and Associates web site -- that is the contractor which manages all the airport data for the FAA (see http://www.gcr1.com/history.htm) and their website has no advertising. The code that would be added to the template is:

** FAA [http://www.gcr1.com/5010web/airport.cfm?Site={{{1}}} airport master record for {{{1}}}]

-- Zyxw (talk) 05:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggest removing the real time weather, flight delay and flight tracker links. They don't add "meaningful, relevant content" per WP:EL and WP:NOT. They don't "provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." Wikipedia is not a collection of external links and it is not a directory site for providing travel information. When I asked about inclusion weather links and at WP:EL, both responses were to remove them and not add them to other pages. They might be useful for WikiTravel, but provide no encyclopedic value. --Dual Freq (talk) 11:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Support Dual Freq suggestion about real time weather, flight delay and flight tracker links being removed. MilborneOne (talk) 11:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit Protected 2

{{editprotected}}

Since it seems that we have an agreement on removing private party websites, except for SkyVector. I am going to put in a request to update the template to this:

** FAA [http://www.gcr1.com/5010web/airport.cfm?Site={{{1}}} airport master record for {{{1}}}]
** ASN [http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id={{{1}}} accident history for {{{1}}}]
** SkyVector [http://skyvector.com/perl/code?id=K{{{1}}}&scale=2 aeronautical chart for K{{{1}}}]

- Neilh89 (talk) 17:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Done Stifle (talk) 09:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent change damaged the template. ASN entry is incorrect, has no closing ]. --Dual Freq (talk) 11:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed that. Stifle (talk) 15:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted these changes as it seems there was not consensus here. Please gather consensus and request the edits again. Stifle (talk) 18:38, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask where there is not a consensus here? It seems that the editors who have voiced their opinion on this discussion page for months have all agreed on removing the private party links. The suggestion for removing private party links came from when this template was considered for deletion, so even editors outside of this talk page have agreed to the change. - Neilh89 (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Where is there no consensus? I have been following this for a few months. People, such as myself, would like to add sites that we feel serve the public better than AirNav. The editors disagree so in all fairness, everyone has agreed to remove all of these commercial sites while a concensus is made on what constitutes an acceptable site for the airport pages. I would love to have my site, AirportGuide.com, included in the links along with everyone else's links but I too faced the editor's SPAM accusations. A consensus should be agreed upon for what criteria must be met to allow a site to be included and then we will all improve our sites to meet that criteria and we will be back here again in this same discussion in a year. There is a problem with allowing Sky Vector to remain in the link list. 1) How are they encyclopedic in nature and 2) what happens when all of the Sky Vector copycats want their sites included.

The only fair thing to do is remove all private links. I'll bet when you do that, that AirNav will take a big hit in Alexa.N8080 (talk) 23:48, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone just wants to make sure that every SUA, SP, and MP has their voice(s) heard!! Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 00:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

It is my belief that everyone’s voice that cares about this issue has been heard. It was in discussion, and waiting for the change to be performed, for a month and half. This is plenty of time for someone to voice their opinion. Now we are continuing this discussion for two months. Again, this is plenty of time for someone to voice their opposition to the change. - Neilh89 (talk) 19:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the editprotected request for another admin to look at. I consider myself conflicted and won't make the change myself. Stifle (talk) 09:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Three single purpose accounts agreeing is not a consensus. An admin that completes this edit protected request should consider deleting the template instead as it will serve no useful purpose. There are also formatting problems with the above request, ie. double bullet points. And no reason has been given to keep skyvector.com, an online map site for "Flight Simulator Aviators" (as stated on the site) that is full of google ads. It is not safe for use in flight planning and may or may not be current. http://www.naco.faa.gov/ warns that use of obsolete charts or publications for navigation may be dangerous. --Dual Freq (talk) 14:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Disabled editprotected request. Work this out before wasting more admin time, please. :-) Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 02:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Dual Freq, I am ok with the removal of SkyVector from the template and just leaving the FAA and ASN. Here is also an updated version of the template, hopefully this time without the double bullet point problem. What do you think of this change without SkyVector and the double bullet point being fixed? Also, this change was suggested when the template was up for deletion. Take a look at the discussion on the Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_August_27#Template:US-airport page to see where it was suggested.

* FAA [http://www.gcr1.com/5010web/airport.cfm?Site={{{1}}} airport master record for {{{1}}}]
* ASN [http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id={{{1}}} accident history for {{{1}}}]

- Neilh89 (talk) 18:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

If the Skyvector data is outdated (is it? i never got that impression but have not looked much), it should probably be removed. However, I don't see why relevant links should be removed just because SUAs are upset that they can't get their sites in. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Labeling gcr1.com's link as being "FAA" is extremely misleading, by suggesting that it is more authoritative than simply being a republisher of FAA-supplied data. -- Bovineone (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. I didn't even notice that the SUA was trying to spam another site. It's unfortunate that people like you trying to make WP useful are outnumbered by those trying to exploit it. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 20:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Touchdown Turnaround, I was not attempting to spam any site. I have been a proponent to removing all private party links until there is a complete consensus among the editors. It seems to me you are the only one in this discussion from the past three months that wishes to kept private party links (spammers) namely one AirNav. Leads me to believe you are working with them.

The gcr1 site (which by the way is the government contractor that puts the airport data together for the FAA. See http://www.gcr1.com/ ) was put into the template by suggestion from Zyxw on September 17, 2008, just read exactly what he said on this talk page on that date to see what he said. Zyxw even gave the format for how it should link and appear in the template, which I then just copied into the edited template, assuming that it was correct.

What I find most amusing is the fact that, for months now, there has been a discussion on this talk page about editing this template, one where there has been a consensus and caused a change to be made to the template. It is only when the change was made that you felt (after not being involved for months) it necessary to voice your opinion on the change, going as far as communicating with the admin asking him to revert the agreed upon changes and stating as a fact that there was no consensus when there clearly was a consensus if you had read the talk page.

Many people, on this talk page and on the talk page when this template was up for deletion, have suggested that we remove private party links from this template until guidelines are laid out on how a site will be judged to be put on this template. I feel, and apparently others agree, that just because sites have been on this template for a long time does not mean that they are useful or that there are not better alternatives to the previously listed sites, which is why we needed such guidelines. I along with many others are under the opinion that we should use only FAA information, it does not get any better than from the resource that provides the information

Please inform me how I am not trying to make Wikipedia less useful by making this change (which you reverted back so AirNav could be listed AGAIN) and suggesting guidelines on how links should be chosen to be added to this template. I have researched a few of the discussions in the past regarding this same question you have aimed at other editors in an attempt to discredit them and it always seems to come back that AirNav stays and the editors go away, can’t wait to read your response. - Neilh89 (talk) 04:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it would make sense to cut down to these three links. See WP:EL. Stifle (talk) 09:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is an updated template that has no private party links and uses the FAA for information. I would like to put an edit request in for the change if there is a consensus.

* FAA [http://nfdc.faa.gov/nasr/airportLookup/airportDisplay.jsp?category=nasr&airportId={{{1}}} airport master record for {{{1}}}]
* ASN [http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id={{{1}}} accident history for {{{1}}}]

- Neilh89 (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit protected 3

Since this has not been disputed for about 2 weeks now I am going to put in for the change to the template.

{{editprotected}}

** FAA [http://nfdc.faa.gov/nasr/airportLookup/airportDisplay.jsp?category=nasr&airportId={{{1}}} airport master record for {{{1}}}]
** ASN [http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id={{{1}}} accident history for {{{1}}}]

- Neilh89 (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus to alter this template from WP:Airports. I can only assume there was no response because the project is ignoring repeated requests from single purpose accounts hoping they will move on. Again, as mentioned above, this template might as well be deleted if this change is made. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Please try to get firm agreement before trying to push this edit through. Thanks, Maxim_(talk) 15:26, 17 January 2009 (UTC)