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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Trivia

I am adding a trivia section; many planes are featured in fiction, and ignoring this defeats the purpose of Wikipedia. --The1exile 18:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What, exactly, is the purpose of wikipedia as it applies to this? ericg ✈ 01:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a well-written trivia section populated within reason can be a cool addition (learning is always more interesting when fun facts are included). Alien set being made from Avro Vulcan parts is interesting. Every airplane and its mother included in Ace Combat is not. - Emt147 Burninate! 02:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Identification

I (we) have NOT sought nor received permission to identify the actors in Wild_Weasel_mission_transcript. I have removed Sir names. We can suppose that these airmen do not wish publicity, good or bad, to intrude upon their lives. I recommend "No Comment" to any inquiries. However, the central clearing house for inquiry may be the Society of Wild Weasels (Wildweasels.org)--plumalley

Thrust/weight

Thrust/weight has apparently not been displayed on this page for some time. This is due to a fluke in {{airtemp}}, which causes it to not display {{{thrust/weight}}} unless you specify what kind of powerplant the aircraft has. The lack of an explanation for thrust/weight was erroneously considered by some to indicate that it is an open question. It is not; by scanning through older versions of this article, it became very clear to me that thrust/weight has always been meant to have a unitless measurement. I am not playing God here; only fixing an error with template rendering. Ingoolemo talk 01:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Related content

"Related content" is a non-standard "See also" section as far as I can tell, and according to WP:MOSHEAD, "See also" should precede references and external links. I'd recommend switching the order here. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 12:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:Air is a special case because of the additional information (related developments, designatio series, etc.) that needs to be conveyed. I don't see a problem as long as the look is consistent across all Wikiproject pages, which it will be once template conversion is completed. - Emt147 Burninate! 15:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I seriously considered making this proposal some time ago, but I decided against it for a number of reasons. I suppose that 'related content' could be moved above exerternal links, but it seems like a lot of effort to go to for very limited return. Ingoolemo talk 21:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Infobox consideration

I was wondering if the project has ever considered using Infoboxes for technical information? Rather than place it in the article, sequester it on the side in the infobox. I think the result would be much more aesthetically and professional appearing. As an example, I would point to this template Template:Infobox_Military_aircraft and its aircraft infobox design. It could easily be designed towards the protocols that your project have devised for aircraft. I modified it and applied it to the SOC Seagull article as an example. ~ The Rebel At ~ 16:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC) 16:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, this WikiProject did use infoboxes for technical information originally, but we changed to a text-based format for several reasons that I won't go into here. If you really feel the need, you can discuss this on WT:Air, but keep in mind that we've had to defend our decision probably a dozen times now, and a lot of people won't be very polite in explaining why our standards are different. Ingoolemo talk 17:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
BillCJ and I were discussing the use of infoboxes in WP:Air. He is discussing it on the Template Talk page. I noticed that it isn't in the page content description but that it is still listed on the templates page. We're both looking for the Project's consensus on this style issue. (Born2flie 03:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC))
We decided to standardize the {{Infobox Aircraft}} template as a non-technical option for articles. It's not a standard part of the page content, as some articles aren't long or detailed enough to merit what is basically a summary. ericg ✈ 05:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
That "consideration" (not long or detailed enough) is not elucidated anywhere, nor is it stated that it is an "option". (Born2flie 06:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC))
If you look closely at this project page, though, you should note that it clearly says "This is a set of suggested guidelines [emphasis mine] for articles on specific aircraft types. Some wikipedians prefer a standardised look and feel to articles on closely-related subjects and these guidelines exist to facilitate achieving that goal for articles about aircraft." The infobox discussion can be found in the talk page archives for the project, and it's not as if there's something saying that you can't use it. We have also had several rounds of discussion regarding specifications infoboxes, and consensus is that they shouldn't be used. However, this is a wikiproject and as such doesn't have rules or policy; we have guidelines. If you like, you can amend those guidelines, or someone else can, or whatever. Do what you like, but know that specs infoboxes will probably be converted to something else. The consensus on this was within the last 6 months, so chances are nobody has gotten around to it yet.
Most of us spend our time writing or editing articles rather than working on the bureaucracy side of things. If you'd like to aid with that, please do so... ericg ✈ 06:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
That's okay. It's these things about the Wiki that are leading me to write static articles somewhere else. Reaching a consensus and then not recording it where newer editors can have access without sorting through months of archives strikes me as irresponsible in a community that has a policy of consensus and within a group that touts its purpose as "primarily to suggest how aircraft-related articles can be put in to Wikipedia in an extensible and coherent manner." I mean, if you have to keep revisiting this as every newcomer to the project asks the same questions, then the guidelines aren't even working towards that "coherent" manner that is desired. If the guidelines aren't even the basis of consensus of how this project intends to meet the WP:MOS guidelines, then they aren't even guidelines, they're really more like a set of ideas on what a page could look like. If the goal is FA articles and more articles, I don't think there is adequate incentive for me to exert that much effort in such a laissez-faire environment, and I am by no means looking to be a member of a borg collective. It's not that I'm capable of FA articles, just that I'm not willing to work for that goal without a standard of what is an FA article or guidelines to guide the group as a whole to that end. But I feel that this aspect of the community is self-defeatist. (Born2flie 15:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC))

Wing Loading and Other Calculations

Is it appropriate to calculate formluas such as wing loading if all the other relevant data is appropriately sourced? A specific example would be the Sukhoi Su-35, which lists both the Su-35's loaded weight and the wing area, but not the wing loading (which is loaded weight divided by wing area).

I would venture to say that it is appropriate, but it since it would, technically, be unsourced, I was unsure. --Tom 00:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think many editors are unclear as to the meaning of wing loading, power/mass, and thrust/weight, and consequently never bother to calculate them. If the necessary statistics are available, feel free to add them to the article.
Note: some members of this WikiProject believe that the calculated values are redundant, and that including them constitutes original research. I disagree with them, though I sympathise with their viewpoint. Just mentioning this so that you can be aware of all the viewpoints involved. Ingoolemo talk 16:55, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Layout question

Hello! I have been checking some aircraft related pages while cleaning external links, and I noticed the layout is recommended as "External link" and then "Related content". The main problem with this is that it contradicts the manual of style at WP:MOSHEAD#Standard appendices. I am considering the "Related content" is just a renamed "See also" section, which is also contradicting the pointed manual. Would you reconsider changing the suggested layout here to comply with the one mentioned in the manual of style? Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 11:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

See #Related content above. The related content footer has its origins in an earlier table-style navbox that has since been deprecated. My feeling is that switching the order of the two would be a lot of effort for inconsequential return. Ingoolemo talk 16:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"Rotation"

Several aircraft articles link to rotation when referring to aircraft attitude change at liftoff speeds. The article at rotation is irrelevant to this use of the word 'rotation'. Would someone who could write a good article explaining rotation in this context want to write one? If you would, I'd be happy to go through and change the appropriate links User:Pedant 15:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I added a section in the Rotation article. I don't think it needs its own article. --Gbleem 04:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Another Infobox Question

I recently visisted the CF-18 Hornet page, and noticed it used the {{Canadian Air Force}} infobox. This is also used on the CP-140 Aurora page. While there are nine aricraft listed in the infobox, these are the only two aircraft pages using the box.

What are the guidelines regarding its use on aircraft pages? Should it remain where it is, or be replaced with the standard aircraft infobox? Should it then be placed further down the page? Thanks -- BillCJ 19:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe that WP:AIR generally prefers to use {{Infobox Aircraft}} instead. It's worth noting that the Canadian Air Force infobox is technically not an infobox but a navbox.
In a discussion some time ago, the consensus seemed to be that we shouldn't use navboxes such as the Canadian Air Force template, because they can be a pain to deal with and are often redundant.
Sorry I don't have a more clear answer. The fact of the matter is, there isn't one. Karl Dickman talk 00:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Photo sections

What is the Project's policy on thumbnail-photo sections on aircraft pages? Eurocopter Dauphin has 10 thumnails, for example, most of which are also on the Commons page, but only 2 pics within the article, one of which I put there. - BillCJ 05:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no official policy. However, I do suggest removing such sections; when there are a lot of images on the commons, we should provide a link to the commons page and be judicious about including only the best images. Karl Dickman talk 01:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. And yes, there was a link to Commons there also. I've removed the gallery, and kept a few of the best pics, as suggested. - BillCJ 02:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Lead - military

I am not sure if this is a universal issue, but I stumbled into Yakovlev Yak-25 (1947) and struggled for a few moments to understand that it was a military aircraft. To the non-specialist, "interceptor" does not jump out.

Would it be a good idea to include a broad descriptor (military, civilian, commercial) in the opening sentence of most aircraft articles? Jd2718 15:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

  • It wouldn't hurt to add military or whatever if there's doubt. I think that would not be needed for fighter, attack and bomber aircraft though. -Fnlayson 22:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


Specification figures

I've been wondering for some time. why is it that U.S. units take precedence over the international metric scale? shouldn't metric units be given priority, while U.S. units confined to the brackets? it's a trivial issue, but it's a question on whether we take the metric scale seriously or just an impediment.--Ariedartin 15:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The primary units are always those which the manufacturer used. In the case of European aircraft like Airbus products, metric comes first. ericg ✈ 17:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
First, off, "imperial units," not US units. The British started it. :) When in doubt, ask what units the instruments are in. All US aircraft and British aircraft until some time after WW2 used imperial units, hence these go first. - Emt147 Burninate! 18:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


Specification of performance - explanation wanting I just wanted to ask, what is the purpose of providing the specification data? Wikipedia is supposed to explain, not just present data. For example there is no aerocraft performance included in the infobox such as:

Speed - at a given altitude
Climb - Almost invariably the aircraft with the best power to weight ratio will have the best rate of climb.
Operational Ceiling (as opposed to service ceiling) - the height at which the maximum rate of climb does not fall below 1,000 ft/min
Range and its relationship to Endurance - Fuel consumption, capacity, throttle settings and altitude, particularly altitude, must all be taken into consideration.
Acceleration - the power to weight ratio coupled with clean lines in design has considerable effect.
Turning Circles - varies depending on engine efficiency at altitude, hence low-altitude and high-altitude fighters
Rates of Roll - The ability to roll rapidly is vital to a fighter, so much depends on the speed, and to a much lesser extent the altitude at which it is carried out.
Dives - Efficient streamlining and maximum speed both influence the dive, handicapped by airscrew drag.
Zoom Climb

Some of these fairly basic performance terms are not even in the terminology list.--Mrg3105 13:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, much of what you're requesting is very subjective, depending on so many factors that it's hard to be specific. In addition, we used only published sources, and most of those don't list these at all. Some could be calculated from other information, but that's very close to Original Research. Finally, this is an enclyclopedia, not an exhaustive study of each model. Summaries about all we can provide. - BillCJ 01:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if this is original research or not, but these factors defined success of many models, particularly military aircraft as their pilots saw it. Most pilots probably didn't know or cared how long their aerocraft were, but they all knew their roll capability. Not sure what sure what the point is of having the entries if they don't tell the story. These entries are not educating the reader, and possibly misinforming.--Mrg3105 07:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia, not a pilot's manual; and one primarily aimed at a general readership at that. The specifications that we quote and the format that we quote them in is directly comparable to the figures provided on aircraft types in any general reference work that you care to name. Not even Jane's provides most of the data that you're asking for; even for extremely famous and well-documented types that make up only a tiny fraction of our coverage. To answer your original question, the purpose of providing these figures is to concisely describe the aircraft and provide an immediate answer to questions along the lines of "How big was it?" and "How fast could it go?" --Rlandmann 10:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Airlistbox display problem

I'm not sure why, since it shows okay in preview, but in normal view, the listbox doesn't display properly. On my IE6 browser, the 'v*d*e' has rewrapped itself to the beginning of the line (but slightly displaced downward), the list name-links are just displayed in the article space (without the box frame), and the 'hide' option is nowhere to be seen. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

including specifications?

"Based on several past discussions, the infobox is purely optional, though infoboxes including specifications are frowned upon." I'm not sure I understand. --Gbleem 03:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The specifications should be in a separate section at the bottom. On several occasions, WP:Air consensus was very strongly opposed to including specs in the infobox. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

"all reciprocating engines, including rotary engines" Which kind of rotary do you mean? Rotary piston engines? Wankel? --Gbleem 04:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh no. A rotary engine was a reciprocating engine decades before the Wankels came along. The torqueless and fuel-thirsty Wankels have very few aircraft applications. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

E-3 specs

Can someone familiar with how the SPecs work please tak a look at the sepcs on the E-3 Sentry page? There are 2 sets, and the engine specs for neither one are displaying at all. If you solve the problem, please explain, either here or on that talk page. Thanks. - BillCJ 08:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Section headings

The {{aircraft-imp}} and {{aircraft-met}} templates have different section headings for listing the Users section that the page content guidelines specifies. Currently {{aircraft-imp}} lists the section as, "Units using this aircraft/Operators", and {{aircraft-met}} lists the section as, "Units using this aircraft/Organisations using this aircraft"; both with the instruction to "pick one" in the text comments on the page.

I would like to recommend that all these references agree and it makes sense to me that we use Operators. Some editors feel the need to separate out Military versus civilian, but I can see "Operators" as applying to either or both. --Born2flie 21:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Take Off & Landing Distances?

Is there a particular reason why required take off and landing distances aren't in the aircraft's specifications? It's relatively pertinate information... Selevercin 16:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Those figures are dependent upon variables and usually determined for the situation based on tables in the aircraft manual. Not exactly the kind of information an encyclopedia article would cover, unless the aircraft was specifically designed to meet a certain take off and landing distance requirement. My US $.02 --Born2flie 14:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I realize that they aren't fixed numbers, but for the purpose of Wikipedia we could assume STP (standard temperature and air pressure) and a paved runway. I think it is one of the very few pieces of information that is missing from the generic specifications, since this is a big part of the aircraft's performance (how do you get it off the ground?/how do you get it back on the ground?). I wish we could get some more feedback on this--I think doing this could be a good thing. Selevercin 17:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
A laudable suggestion but a practical reason for their exclusion is that relatively few reference sources provide this information and due to the variability of weights, a modern aircraft would not have an exact takeoff and landing distance assigned. I can, however, see the inclusion of this information in the case of specialized aircraft such as S/VTOL and STOL types wherein takeoff and landing characteristics are relevant to the performance of the aircraft. If you look at some of the articles where an aircraft is tested, for example, off a carrier deck, then the noting of this kind of information becomes extremely useful. IMHO Bzuk 18:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC).

Design section?

A lot of articles show that editors are more inclined to discuss the design and construction of an aircraft rather than unique markings or paint schemes of aircraft, which is what I suspect the Aircraft markings section found on the {{aircraft-imp}} and {{aircraft-met}} templates was intended for. The FA-Class articles in the project (F-4 Phantom II and B-17 Flying Fortress) and even the A-Class aircraft articles in the project show the same tendency of the editors to focus on construction and design features more than markings. Should we change the Markings section of the Body to Design, since nobody seems to use it in improving articles or just add the Design section? --Born2flie 14:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is there currently is no Design section in the guideline, but it appears in or is joined to the development section of the two FA articles and most articles attempting to follow the FA-class examples in the Project include a Design section. Very few have anything on Aircraft Markings because it is almost a military specific kind of a pasttime to identify which squadron which aircraft belongs to based on a tail flash or some other marking. If Aircraft Markings is an optional section, why even include it in the guideline. I always have to comment it out or delete it. --Born2flie 14:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I reworded the Markings section into a Design section on Page Content to match the templates. If anyone has a better idea, please reply. -Fnlayson 20:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I've moved it to after Development, since that's where it usually ends up being covered. I aslo added a note on "Design and Development", since that is used in many smaller articles, and does make sense for them. THere are also cases where the design being cevered with development works better for historical or testula reasons, even if the section is quite large. - BillCJ 22:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Few format proposals / Technical issues

I have few proposals for formatting of articles. As far as I know we have no formatting guides currently and articles are made in several different styles. Below is list of my suggestions with short explanations:

Flags

1. Flag templates should be used only in Operators section, not in Infobox Aircraft area.
We are doing that right now but there is no clear guide. From time to time I see and correct articles with flags placed in Infobox so it's still quite important.
2. Flag templates should use the historical flags and war flags for military aircraft, if available / different.
This guide will help us place aircraft in proper era. Several countries have flag not changed for hundreds of years but several other had flags changed quite often. I think that for example Hungarian aircraft operated during World War II should have this flag Hungary, not Hungary this one. The same for Japanese military aircraft - IMHO we should use this Japan military flag, not Japan civil one. Currently there is no guide for that and from time to time we can see smaller edit wars.

Images

1. Images of aircraft in foreign users markings should be placed in Operators section, if/when available.
This guide can help illustrate different camouflage and markings, sometimes quite different from original operator's ones. Several aircraft was exported to dozens of countries and sometimes excellent photos ara available at Commons - let's use it.
2. Images should be placed under section header only, not directly above it or inside the text.
This guide can make life of editors easier because to fix image (change description, change order of correct fixed width to thumbnail) we have to edit only one section, not whole article. Of course from time to time larger "white space" will be generated but IMHO it's insignificant. When section will be edited and some text will be removed / added "white space" will be changed automatically.
3. No images should be placed between Infobox Aircraft and first section header.
This guide can make life of editors easier because to fix/tweak image we have to edit one section only, not whole article. It's important when editors on slower computers are editing large articles.
4. No galleries should be allowed.
Instead of galleries proper images should be placed in sections of article, this will help to illustrate text. When Commons have more images of that particular aircraft/helicopter, all available images in Commons should be gathered in one page and this page should be linked in Related content section. With this guide sections of article should be better illustrated with proper images. Additionally we can get some order in Commons too and such order can help us with future projects.

Formatting

AFAIK we have no guide for formatting articles and several articles made heavy use of stars (*) etc. I would like to propose formatting style much easier to read and edit for editors. This formatting style is better from usability point of view too so is much better to read for users. Please look at following example, it's the most common now style:

Variants section

Code

*'''Model 357''': First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns.

*'''Model 358''': Second production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with missiles only.

*'''Model 359''': Third production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with two 30 mm guns.

Effect

  • Model 357: First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns.
  • Model 358: Second production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with missiles only.
  • Model 359: Third production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with two 30 mm guns.


Operators section

Code

*{{UK}}: [[Royal Air Force]], [[Fleet Air Arm]], [[Army Air Corps]]

*{{USA}}: [[United States Air Force]], [[United States Army]], [[United States Navy]], [[United States Marine Corps]]

Effect


As you could see above, code is hard to read for editor and it's easy to make mistakes. Displayed text is difficult to read too and users can have some problems with understanding article. This is against web usability. Below are my proposals with the same text as above:

Variants section

Code

;Model 357

:First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns.

;Model 358

:Second production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with missiles only.

;Model 359

:Third production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with two 30 mm guns.

Effect

Model 357
First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns.
Model 358
Second production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with missiles only.
Model 359
Third production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with two 30 mm guns.


Operators section

Code

;{{UK}}

*[[Royal Air Force]]

*[[Fleet Air Arm]]

*[[Army Air Corps]]

;{{USA}}

*[[United States Air Force]]

*[[United States Army]]

*[[United States Navy]]

*[[United States Marine Corps]]

Effect

 United Kingdom
 United States

I hope my proposals are easy to understand. I'll be glad to hear your opinions. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 22:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment: I definitly see what you're suggesting here, and for the vast majority of situations it should work. However, when you get into matters of Pre- and Post-1962 official US military aircraft designations I feel that this could create problems. You'll end up with models that conform to one system, the other, both, or neither, and alphabetizing such a list would be difficult. I would think it best in all situations to try and get the manufacturer model numbers, a sort of neutral designation, for all the variants in question (of course this still comes into conflict in situations where conversions were not assigned a model number). I find I'm objecting more to the lack of relationships presented by the format, which I believe is extremely helpful to finding the model in question in any quick reference. Otherwise, I have definitly been swayed that its easier to read and that the visible space issue is really a nonissue. -- Thatguy96 23:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
In response to the answer by Piotr Mikołajski, I want to clarify my point because I feel as if it is being misunderstood. I do not believe any level of detail beyond what you have described in your formatting examples should be provided in any variants section (your example was "First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns") and I don't believe the case that led me to this discussion was really not much more than that. My point is more that whatever the formatting style it is helpful to see relationships between variants which provides a visual component to what I agree has to be described in detail in a "design and development" section. Simply doing things in alphabetical order or something similar means that variants end up all over the place, and I have seen a number of helicopter articles for example that does this and it is very confusing in my mind because it makes 0 distinction between manufacturer designations, US military designations, and foreign modifications of either as indepedant designations, and specific foreign designations. It also creates serious redundancy, where a single addition to the variant list saying "(Also XYZ-123 in service of military X)" or something like that would have sufficed. I have nothing against not going into development detail, that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about making variants lists not visually unsorted laundry lists that are redundant, confusing, and seemingly without understanding of relevance between models. I personally believe that what you keep terming "a development tree" is no more than a heirachry which shows helpful relevance. And can be a substitute quick reference than reading the entire design and development state, or in fact going to another page in the case of certain extended developments, in order to find out key information about a single variant that you might simply know as "Some ELINT version of the base model." -- Thatguy96 15:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: That seems OK for the most part. Sure, flags should not go in the Infobox. Using historical flags for historal aircraft should be a guide not a hard rule. The right one may not be available or something. I'm fine with your images guidelines. I'm OK with a gallary if it is at the bottom like with the Airbus A380 though. For short varaint entries, what you suggest is fine. But some articles have multiple paragraphs on each variant so sections are used. -Fnlayson 23:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


Opposed I strongly disagree with several of these requirements. You propose a rule barring images above the section heading, and also between the infobox and the heading. Of course this can cause very large and unsightly gaps in the article. For example, when you edited the C-47 article pursuant to this rule, it looked like this. When you edited the E-2 article pursuant to this rule, it looked like this. I don't think that's "insignificant." Furthermore, the Manual of Style cautions against cutting off the heading from the text below.
You say that "This guide can make life of editors easier because to fix image (change description, change order of correct fixed width to thumbnail) we have to edit only one section, not whole article." This is a bad solution to a non-existent problem. I've never heard anyone complain about that. If it's a problem for you, maybe you should think about upgrading your connection.
You also propose that "Flag templates should use the historical flags and war flags for military aircraft, if available / different." You then offer specific examples of which flags whould be used in which circumstances.
Who gets to decide that, you? As you're well aware, the applicability of flags can be very hotly contested. How then can you presume to dictate that "Hungarian aircraft operated during World War II should have this flag Hungary, not Hungary this one. The same for Japanese military aircraft - IMHO we should use this Japan military flag, not Japan civil one." You know full well that numerous people have complained about your use of the Japanese naval ensign but you nevertheless believe that you can legislate the circumstances of its use. That's simply arrogant.
Furthermore, I don't see why galleries should be banned. If you don't like them, fine. Don't add any. But I think you're just looking for an excuse to delete everyone else's galleries. M Van Houten 01:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Opposed - I've seen a lot of different styles for Operators and Variants, and while it might be nice to have a "standard", guidelines are not standards, they're just the Project's preferences to see things done a certain way. For instance, OH-58 Kiowa which does not have a significant list of Variants and would actually suffer from such formatting, especially since the text in those sections goes into discussing a lot more of the design variations between the variants. And Operators, well, I think this section should go into much more detail than the section in most articles go, and there needs to be flexibility to adjust as the detail of the section grows. Regarding images, it seems pointless to counter the WP:MOS for images. I don't think there needs to be a change in image guidelines from WP:MOS to provide consideration for some editors, because Wiki already has a guideline that worrying about the wiki's performance is sort of pointless, since the problem is either on the individual editor's/reader's end, or else on the server that the editor/reader can do nothing about. --Born2flie 02:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


Flags - I would support the proposal • Images - No problem with the proposal, with regard to the galleries I dont think we need them in articles when commons is a perfectly good way of displaying images • Formatting - I support the proposal, I understand the comment relating to the Kiowa but remember these will only be guidelines and they will always be exceptions. Just to add that there should be an option under Operators for civil and military sub-headings if the article requires it. It would be nice if all our project articles were consitent with the same look and feel. This proposal should be a starting point to update this page content article - we can change things later if they dont look right. MilborneOne 11:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree with most of the proposals, bearing in mind that Wikipedia does not have "hard and fast" rules merely guidelines. I can see some problems in establishing a format across all articles but a degree of standarization would make aircraft articles easier to read for the occasional user.

I concur on the following:

  1. Infobox standards (an earlier discussion and resulting consensus was noted that infobox information not include flags although this has not been extended "across the board" to other articles, witness biography infoboxes where flags seem to proliferate. The Charles Lindbergh article even had a Medal of Honor symbol incorporated for a while.
  2. Appropriateness of information seems to be addressed with your proposal to have the most relevant flag image associated with the aircraft type and operator. There still may be some debate about which flag is appropriate, however, the concept is valid.
  3. Galleries (I am still of the opinion that the Wikipedia Commons acts as a gallery of photographic and graphic images, however, I can see where a gallery may serve a function as a more immediate resource within an article so I am wishy-washy on this point.)

My reservations include:

  1. "Stretching" in that some of the guidelines suggested will make a large article even larger.
  2. Image placement is a difficult area to precisely administer as many editors seem to prefer a "right-side" only look whereas "more adventurous" editors have dallied with graphic appearance and been concerned with "balancing," "white spaces" and "sizing" issues.
  3. "Downright contrariness" factor may be invoked as some editors definitely prefer to "swing" their own way, although I can see that your suggestions are entirely well-meaning and have been brought to a forum rather than been featured in a flame or edit war, and I commend you on your initiative.

FWIW, I find that you have embraced the Wikipedia ethos in a remarkable way and watched your progress and growth as an editor, from cautious newcomer to confident researcher. One thing that may be of value is to record the deliberations of a discussion such as this and have newbie editors given a few "textbook" examples of a "good" article. IMHO Bzuk 13:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

  • Comment - Most of the proposal looks good to me, except for two items:
  1. Placing images between the infobox and first paragraph is actually a good thing, as it allows the images to right float immediately under the infobox and thus prevents white space gaps.
  2. Re: the galleries...these are actively encouraged by the MOS, and though we may be one of the more influential projects, we need to make sure our guidelines are in harmony with the larger umbrella of guidelines for all of wikipedia. That being said, what's wrong with galleries, anyway? All they do is make our customers, our readers, have easier access to images that complement the article. Akradecki 14:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I will say that the one thing that disturbs me about proposals like these, is that guidelines are often tossed at others as if they are policies or hard and fast rules. This contributes to a violation of Assume Good Faith, which IS a policy. I just left a comment on Talk:UH-60 Black Hawk because an IP editor has been reverted at least twice for removing  Australia from the Operators section. A. Australia is in the Operators list without a reference to begin with, and B. the IP editor is correct, Australia operates S-70A-9s (and/or S-70B-2s by another reference). Verifiability is also another one that is applied one way, e.g. information added to an established article is often reverted if it seems unlikely and is added without a reference, contrary to WP:AGF; but not applied the other way, e.g. information already contained within an established article is assumed to be correct even if it is unreferenced, so unreferenced attempts to remove it are rebuffed as "unreferenced", again, contrary to WP:AGF. Guilty as charged in this instance, too, so don't think I'm just poking other people in the face with accusations. I think we're getting into Instruction creep and with WP:IAR out there, any guideline is subject to fall by the wayside. And, when it does WP:AGF and WP:DBAD will fall by the wayside as well. --Born2flie 15:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - For the most part, I agree with the proposes guidelines. And to Piotr's credit, he is making a good effort to solve some formatting issues that have been causing some disruptions on a few pages. Hopefully the result of his proposals will be some movement towards some guidleines in areas that have not been previously covered, including establishing whether or not we WANT guidleines in some areas!
    • Flags - We do already have a consensus to keep them out of the Infoboxes, but it may need to be stated more clearly. As to using appropriate national flags, I understand the need for historical accuracy, and support in it theory. However, casual editors have not been very accepting of it, and worse, many editors are from countries where they have strong feelings about their previous or current national flags. In addition, simple ignorance of historical flags can cause some resistance. We may have to use so much judgment and flexibility to the point where the guidelines become useless, which would defeat the point in having them. However, having some guidleines on flags would at least give the regular editors some consesnus to use in disputes.
    • Images - THe MOS currently states that right- and -centered images should be just after headings, and left-centered ones before the headings, so we can't really go agaisnt that. As to images before the first Heading, it is a bit problematic: IE handles images directly under the infobox, while Firefox has trouble with them. In addition, some articles are so small that there is no space to put them all after the first heading. This is more of a Metawiki sortware problem than anything. It would be helpful if we could edit the section before the main heading alone, without having to do the whole article, but again that's software we can't change ourselves. I don't like galleries either, and have been known to remove a few, but they are good for 2 reasons. One, they could help with the issue of small articles without enough text for several pics. Two, although Wiki COmmons is a good place for overflow pics, it can only be used for free images. THere may be some good fair-use images we want to keep, but really don;t have space in the aritclef for them. THey can't go on COmmons, but if they are not used in an article, the image-deletionists will detlete them, often without warning. In such cases, the gallery could house such non-free pics.
    • Formatting - Given that there are several different formatting styles, some of which have been the cause of revert skirmishes, we do need to decide something on the issue to help avoid such conflicts. I actually prefer using the star-formatting instead of the semi-colon-formating in the variants scetions, but understand Piotr's points on readability and editability. The stars were being used predominantly when I first began, but the semi-colon style is seen more often now that previously. If we pick one style, I'll use is, whichever it is. But if not, whatever style is in an ariticle should not be changed to the other one just to change it. On new articles, it would go with the first editor's preference. I do think Piotr's proposals on the operators section are good, and that is the style I currently use.

- BillCJ 22:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Further comment - On operators, it might be a good idea to limit the section to actual operators, past or current, and confirmed future purchases. The JAS 39 Gripen article is becoming quite a mess with every airforce that has sneezed in the Gripen's direction being added to the list, along with their nation's flags, of course! Being in a competiton for a contract is not the same as having been awarded the contract. I propose that "possible" operators be limited to the text section, with absolutely NO flags for those "users" who haven't actually purchead the planes. - BillCJ 23:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment - The above suggestion is a good one. Further, I think that it makes sense to limit the operators section to countries that used the aircraft for its intended purpose, as opposed to merely evaluating one or two examples that were captured in combat. I think it's absurd and misleading to list an Allied country as an "operator" of an Axis aircraft just because they tested captured aircraft. M Van Houten 20:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment - I agree with the actual operators only but the question of captured aircraft may be a bit muddy - some captured aircraft were not just tested but used in combat! and captured Ju.52/3m aircraft were operated by British European Airways. MilborneOne 21:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment - True, in the case of the Junkers, that really is operating the aircraft. I'm thinking of the Heinkel 177 article and other examples like that. Seems to me like that information is properly included in the text of the article. M Van Houten 23:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Answers

I left discussion for few days to see more comments and proposals. It's time to answer or explain.

(Note: I'll not answer on ad personam comments made by M van Houten. I think he consider reverts of his entries as personal issue or personal war. Some time ago he was asked to stop setting fixed width for images and his edits were reverted by me several times. Problem rised high enough and I had to ask Akradecki, BillCJ and Chrislk02 for help. Some discussion is available here - User talk:M Van Houten#Image width)


OK, here are the answers. A little bit long but I want to answer as good as I can:

Purpose of proposal

I don't want to set bunch of strict rules, such approach is senseless. I want to discuss some different styles of editing existing in our project now and I want to work on common solution which gave us technical and visual unification of all aviation articles. Such unification is very helpful from usability point of view:

  1. Visual unification is very helpful for readers because they know where to look the same info in another articles. They can understand and learn "page code" (not Wikipedia syntax but look of different information) much quicker and can read articles much faster.
  2. Technical unification is very helpful for all editors. Unexperienced editors can copy large parts of the same code (for example list of operators) from one article to another instead of manual re-formatting and risk of errors. They can learn syntax much faster and their edits can be much better from technical point of view. All editors can see through code of article much faster and can find this part of text which they want to edit much easier.
Images
  • Galleries

WP:MOS about galleries:

If there are too many images in a given article, consider using a gallery.

— Images section, WP:MOS#Images

It means that we can consider using a gallery, there is no info about recommended galleries. IMHO we can use link to Commons {{commons|Name of page in Commons}} instead. With such guideline we can get two things for the price of one:

  1. Those who want to work on galleries can make some order and cleanup in Commons.
  2. Page in Commons will be kind of large gallery, much larger than acceptable gallery in article.

Personally I think that effort put into creating gallery inside one article works only in that particular article. Effort put info creating gallery in Commons works for every article which need images of that aircraft.

BillCJ's point about fair use images is good one but we have simple solution. We can move all free images to Commons and leave in article fair use images only. BTW - it's not very real problem because we don't have such quantity of images to be worry about which one to use. In fact we don't have even single image for dozens of articles.


  • Image alignment

WP:MOS doesn't forbid left-aligned images but supports right-aligned ones. That's what I want to remember all users here - put images on the right rather than on the left. There is also another problem with left-aligned images:

Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes.

— Images section, WP:MOS#Images

Many editors don't know anything about this technical issue and they make a lot of mess in articles. With guide put on right rather than on left we can expect a little bit less chaos.

  • Image placement (white gaps fighting)

Few commenters talked about white gaps. Gentleman, you've forgot that we are not DTP operators and we don't prepare pages for printing ;)

There is no possibility to make web page looking the same for all readers. For all professionals building web sites it's well known truth but not everyone have to be webdeveloper. Your efforts are fruitless due to few reasons:

  1. Articles are editable and after reformatting / adding / removing some text white gap can be larger or smaller, can disappear or can come into view.
  2. People are using different operational systems and different web browsers. These combinations display the same page in slightly different way. These differences can remove white gaps or can show it - it's far behind your control.
  3. People have different settings in their browsers and in their Wikipedia User Control Panels. Please make some tests - enlarge size of text or size of images. As you can see some white gaps disappeared, some new emerged.
  4. New versions of MediaWiki can display images in slightly different way and again - some white gaps will disappear, some new come into view.

All these arguments mean that fighting white gaps is fruitless.

I propose posting code of images directly under headings because:

  1. Code for images displayed in section will be placed in the same section and will be easier to maintain.
  2. Images will be easier to find (no image put inside sentences) so sections will be easier to edit and our edits will be faster.
Formatting
  • Variants

Thatguy96 points that "star editing" allow to show development tree. I disagree partially because "star editing" can's show us all development and all linking between variants. I think that the best place for this is Design and development section where text description will fit better.

Fnlayson points that some articles have large variants section and subsections are then used. I agree with that but IMHO such large sections should be moved to separate articles just like Hawker Hurricane variants or Supermarine Spitfire variants. BTW - you can compare readability of both articles.

  • Length of articles

Bzuk points that articles can be longer - yes, that's true. Articles can be a little bit longer but I think that's little price for being much more readable. Of course when article will be very long we can consider moving section/subsection (variants, operators, operational history) to separate article.

  • Strictness

Born2flie points that guidelines can be used as policy. Well... if we want to have some unification we have to have some kind of technical guidelines. I know about official policy on the English Wikipedia:

If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them.

— Wikipedia:Ignore all rules

I can say that proposed rules doesn't prevent anyone from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. Even more - these rules should help editors, especially new ones. They can copy ready syntax without need to invent new on their own.

Flags

Posting flags is quite easy and I don't see major obstacles. We know when aircraft was operated and we can post proper flag which was used during that period. For example all WWII aircraft used by Greece were operated under Greece flag, the same for  Egypt,  United States or  Canada. Of course sometimes flag was changed when aircraft was still operated. In such cases I suggest following two solutions:

  1. Use this flag under which aircraft noted most important part of its service.
  2. Use this flag under which aircraft was operated longer.

I'm updating flag templates quite often and I can prepare separate page with all codes not shown on Wikipedia:Inline templates linking country articles and needed in aviation articles. Some kind of such page you may see here, I've made for my own purposes. This can be developed like example below:

 Canada — before 1921 — {{flag|Canada|1868}}
 Canada — 1921-1957 — {{flag|Canada|1921}}
 Canada — 1957-1965 — {{flag|Canada|1957}}
 Canada — after 1965 — {{CAN}}
 Greece — before 1978 — {{flag|Greece|old}}
 Greece — after 1978 — {{GRE}}


Operators
  • Subsections

Currently we have "Civil operators" and "Military operators" subsections but from time to time we have few more - "Law enforcement operators", "Fire-fighting operators" and "Governmental operators". Subsections are quite normal and it doesn't interfere with my proposal of formatting and vice versa. Flags issue was discussed above.

  • Captured / tested aircraft

In guidelines we can read:

Operators, usually a collection of links to airlines or individual air force squadrons that used this type.

— Body section, Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content

I understand this as linking all units operated aircraft, doesn't matter for what purposes, including captured aircraft. Of course I mean aircraft which entered duty in official way - had nationality markings, unit code letters and/or badge (when used) and type/serial/evidence number. Captured aircraft used for joyrides etc. shouldn't be listed until mentioned in official papers, like Luftwaffe order issued in 1943 which witdrawn Gloster Gladiator, PWS-26 and several other types from use. IMHO proposed limit the operators section to countries that used the aircraft for its intended purpose approach is not well thought. What does it mean in practice?

  1. Should we write about two Czechoslovakian He 219 or not? Aircraft had Czechoslovakian Air Force markings and type number (LB-79) but was not used as a night fighter.
  2. Should we write about one British Bv 222 V12? Aircraft had RAF roundels, Air Ministry number (AM 138) and RAF serial (VP501). Was tested by MAEE Felixstowe and later was transferred to 201 RAF Squadron in Calshot were was tested/used between 1945 and 1946 and had squadron code letter - big red R.
  3. Should we write about German MS.406 or D.520? Several dozens were operated by Luftwaffe but none as fighter, all were used in training units.
  4. Should we write about German B-17, B-24, P-47, P-51 etc.? Luftwaffe operated many captured US-built aircraft but bombers were transport aircraft and fighters were used for training.
  5. Should we write about Japanese Me 210 or several other aircraft which were bought by them in one example only? All were bought for test purposes only and were not used operationally.

I would like to know who want to be the judge here because I'm really curious what rules will be set. Personally I don't see difference between aircraft bought for tests and captured aircraft used for tests. Both were not used in combat, both not entered combat units, both had national markings and some kind of type/serial/evidence numbers... if these were applied. The only difference is that first ones costed some money, second one costed some effort.


I hope I answered all questions asked and I'm sure you'll have some new ones. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 13:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, I pointed out that many editors use guidelines as if they were policy. For instance, in addressing Thatguy96, you mentioned a Design and development section. While such a section may be in some articles, there is no Design and development section in the guidelines. I, personally, don't think it works well that way and prefer a different section to discuss the design elements of the aircraft and let the development section contain all the timeline data. Of course, I didn't like the {{tl:Infobox Aircraft}} but it has grown on me. Design differences between variants should be contained within the Variants section as they help define the reason for it being a variant. In those instances where there are few variants but many known design differences, such as in the Me-163 and OH-58 articles, subsections work well. If there are more variants and smaller design differences between them a bulleted list or even your proposed guideline, which I even use after having seen it on the F-4 Phantom II article, will work fine.
I don't think most editors go far enough with the Operators section, if we're going to use the little flag icons. For an example of what I mean, look at the OH-58 Kiowa#Operators section and the Schweizer (Hughes) 300#Operators section. Some questions I think we should be answering in that section are:
  1. Who in that country operated that aircraft? Are they a current operator?
  2. How many aircraft did they operate? And a question here should be; is one aircraft operated notable enough to be included?
  3. Are they a current operator?
  4. When did they operate that aircraft?
I'm not saying that the formatting in those is optimal, but the information is much better than just a flag icon and country name. Might as well go back to the old paragraph list of country names if that is all we're going to do. Should that be a guideline?
I actually like some of what you're proposing, I just don't feel much of it, if any, should be a guideline. I could agree if it was to be like the Me-163 article mention in the guideline, where the guideline directed you to an article that contained an example of how to do certain styles of formatting for various sections. Just not making it part of the guideline itself. A guideline should be vague and general, not specific. Besides, we're after content, not format!
There is no judge, just whether or not you get a consensus to include these as guidelines. I'll format some polling for each format guideline proposal. --Born2flie 15:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Formatting some polling would take some heavy refactoring of this discussion and I don't have the time today. --Born2flie 15:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
New Comment: In response to the answer by Piotr Mikołajski, I want to clarify my point because I feel as if it is being misunderstood. I do not believe any level of detail beyond what you have described in your formatting examples should be provided in any variants section (your example was "First production series, powered by two BZYK engines and armed with one 20 mm guns") and I don't believe the case that led me to this discussion was really not much more than that. My point is more that whatever the formatting style it is helpful to see relationships between variants which provides a visual component to what I agree has to be described in detail in a "design and development" section. Simply doing things in alphabetical order or something similar means that variants end up all over the place, and I have seen a number of helicopter articles for example that does this and it is very confusing in my mind because it makes 0 distinction between manufacturer designations, US military designations, and foreign modifications of either as indepedant designations, and specific foreign designations. It also creates serious redundancy, where a single addition to the variant list saying "(Also XYZ-123 in service of military X)" or something like that would have sufficed. I have nothing against not going into development detail, that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about making variants lists not visually unsorted laundry lists that are redundant, confusing, and seemingly without understanding of relevance between models. I personally believe that what you keep terming "a development tree" is no more than a heirachry which shows helpful relevance. And can be a substitute quick reference than reading the entire design and development state, or in fact going to another page in the case of certain extended developments, in order to find out key information about a single variant that you might simply know as "Some ELINT version of the base model." -- Thatguy96 15:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What about voting on parts of these suggestions seperately? Some guidelines on flag usage would be nice for starters. Leave off the historical flag part or water it down. -Fnlayson 00:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Order of sections

Currently the page content's guidelines say the sections are to be arranged like this:

  • Development
  • Operational history
  • Variants
  • Design (formerly Markings)
  • Operators

Seems like the design should be covered before the variants are discussed. I suggest switching the order of those two. What do you think? -Fnlayson 22:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I would recommend an order of Development, Design, Variants, Operational history, and Operators for a more natural flow. Variants are directly related to Design. Likewise Operational history and Operators are a natural fit; since Operators is usually an annotated list, it would make sense to have it follow Operational history rather than precede it. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Good reasoning, and I could live with it. However, the Development, Design, and Operational history sections are generally text, and flow somewhat chronologically, while the Variants and Operators sections are usually alphabetical or alphanumeric lists. Mixing them up would somewhat break up the narrative flow. - BillCJ 02:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Is Design section the same what Description or Technical description sections seen for example in RWD-8 or Ilyushin Il-10 articles? If yes I have to confess that in several articles I've moved it under Specifications section like in RWD-13 article because for me it was the best place for technical details. Of course I'll move this sections to proper place after we set proper arrangement but tell me earlier which name should be used. Piotr Mikołajski 06:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Description, Technical description, Features are all Design type sections. Anything that covers the aircraft design, features, technology, etc. in words. Specifications is supposed to be numerical data like dimensions, weights and so forth. Generally tabular data. Remember these are "suggested guidelines", so if you have good reason to do something different, do so. -Fnlayson 06:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I know I can make my own order but I would like to use one common standard to improve readability of WP Aircraft pages and to reduce trolling possibility by individuals who want to set their own rules. If specs are supposed to be tabular data only I suggest moving technical description earlier - under (or into) Development section. I'll unify names of these sections to Design. Piotr Mikołajski 06:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • In order to avoid Instruction creep, lists like these should always be descriptive in the first instance rather than prescriptive. So if the common practice for those articles that contain a detailed technical description of the aircraft in prose is to put it under a heading called Technical description, then WP:AIR should note that this is a heading that is consistently (if infrequently) used, and make it available for editors to use if they so wish. --Rlandmann 22:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to make short summary of this discussion. If I understood correctly our current names and order of main sections is following:

  • Development ("Design and development" in shorter articles)
  • Technical description
  • Operational history
  • Variants
  • Operators
  • Survivors
  • Popular culture (if needed)
  • Specifications
  • References
  • External links
  • Related content

If I missed anything please make correction. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 16:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

  • The Pop culture sections have usually come after the Specs is several articles. I think an (or Design) should be add to the Technical description line. -Fnlayson 17:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • My greatest concern is the general creep towards these sections becoming increasingly mandatory. The problem I'm seeing is that in some shorter articles, some editors are breaking up their prose into tiny "sections" of only one or two sentences, resulting in something that looks a lot more like a database entry than an encyclopedia article. This is exacerbated by not using __NOTOC__ in the same short articles, leading to a table of contents that takes up nearly as much vertical space as the body of the article. This isn't really a problem with sections like "Operators" or "Variants" that are usually just point-form; but prose sections like "(Design and) development", "Technical description", "Operational history", and "Survivors" only make sense when the article is so long that it's unwieldy without them. Just my $0.02. --Rlandmann 21:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Flag rule proposal

Currently there's no rules for flag usage. Based on the previous discussion above, I suggest the following rule be added to the Page Content. Formatting and other things discussed above can be done separately.

  • "Flag templates are to be used only in Operators and Orders sections, not in Infobox Aircraft and other templates."
    • - Would like to add not in the Related contents section either, nor in any list removed from or belonging in that section. - BillCJ 01:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Reworded to add "and other templates" to cover the that & other templates. The "only in the Operators and Orders sections" part covers all that anyway. But that's provide emphasis. -Fnlayson 02:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Support - They can clutter up things if used all over the place, especially in templates. And they are not officially restricted now. -Fnlayson 00:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - Personally, I'd like to see them go altogether (sorry, Piotr!). Flags are currently proliferating on Wikipedia but mercifully there are proposals underway to try and curtail their use (see here and here). But as far as WP:AIR is concerned, limiting them to the operators section is a good start. Even then, though, just take a look at any very widely-used aircraft (F-16, Spitfire, Il-28) and you end up with a pizza. Not to mention abominations like this. --Rlandmann 01:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - I would also suggest allowing them in multinational lists of aircraft, since that's where they predominate and first appeared among aircraft articles (according to my experience). They also do make the lists less visually blah – although often in an excessive way. I think it would prove a losing battle to ban them from lists. To avoid problems like the List of Boeing 737 operators, though, we might disqualify simple flat lists and restrict them to table-formatted lists, which contain them better. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure how to capture that in some words. They seem to work out OK in Operator list like Piotr's examples above. I was trying to capture where they are currently used that works. -Fnlayson 02:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support While use in an operators section looks ok, use in infoboxes or elsewhere often looks very messy. Nigel Ish 15:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support For all the good reasons above, on the subject of the 737 list if it was changed from a straight alpha lists and broken down by countries it would only have one flag for each country!. MilborneOne 15:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    • True, but why order such lists by country? That seems to give undue weight to a grouping that's not really relevant to the list. --Rlandmann 19:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Look at the 737 list now. Listing by country is NPOV nad much easier to maintain than sorting by country / airline operating larger number of aircraft. Each country can be edited separately and it's much easier to see duplicated entries. Piotr Mikołajski 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, much much better, but how about this now? (for example only, please feel free to revert if you hate it). If I want to see whether a particular airline is on the list, I'm far more likely to know the name of the airline than what country it's based in. Ordering by country does make a kind of sense for military aircraft like your Mosquito operators list, but (as far as I can see) little sense at all for civil operators. --Rlandmann 21:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - I would like to see flags (and only flags, not roundels etc.) in Operators section only and as a headers of sections in List of operators articles. Of course lists prepared like List of De Havilland Mosquito operators not like previous version of the List of Boeing 737 operators which will be tweaked was cleaned up by me. Piotr Mikołajski 18:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support for the succinct reasons mentioned above and especially since they clog up the infobox.FWIW Bzuk 20:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC).

Section headings

Are these section heading lists mandatory and exclusive? For example, there are some aircraft for which there are no survivors, but only reproductions. I put them under a "Reproductions" heading, thinking that would be accurate. But I am informed by Piotr Mikołajski that that is improper because "In Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft we use 'Survivors' name of section and text covers details." That doesnt make a lot of sense to me. It seems like a WP:CREEP problem. M Van Houten 17:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

  • They are guidelines. That is stated on the main page content page and above. Deviations should have a good reason and be explained (like on the article's talk page). -Fnlayson 17:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Forcing "Reproductions" name have no sense. Text of section clearly inform about preserved (or not) aircraft and about replicas. There is no sense for "Reproductions", "Wrecks", "Remains" or "Replicas" sections, "Survivors" makes standarization and text brings all details. Piotr Mikołajski 18:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
They're "mandatory and exclusive" in the sense that comparable sections in different articles should be called the same thing in order to best help the reader, and where aircraft articles have sections on preserved aircraft, these sections are labelled "Survivors" in general practice.
Of course, this is Wikipedia, and no-one can stop you from calling a section anything you want. Just be aware that if you call it something different from the norm, sooner or later someone else will no doubt come along and change it.
My advice to you would be to keep the "Survivors" name, but qualify it by saying "No examples of the Pfoo D.VI have survived to the present day, but modern reproductions are displayed at the following museums..." or after listing the examples that are genuine survivors, add "additionally, modern reproductions are displayed at..." I know I've seen examples of that around the place, but can't think of an example off-hand.
A better long-term solution would be to build consensus to generally rename this section "Preserved aircraft" (or something). Note, however, that any such proposal should come with a concrete plan for reviewing our existing content to bring it up to speed with the new standard. --Rlandmann 20:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
That's a very good idea, "Preserved aircraft" is more accurate and comprehensive. What sort of concrete plan did you have in mind? M Van Houten 20:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I still think Survivors is better, for example the Royal Air Force Memorial Flight Lancaster is not a preserved aircraft as it is still operational with its original owner! but it is still a Survivor. MilborneOne 21:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
MilbourneOne - you have a good point too. I was only suggesting "Preserved aircraft" as a possibility. "Preserved aircraft and survivors"? "Survivors and replicas"? Something else that includes aircraft like the Memorial Flight's Lancaster, museum birds and replicas, but which excludes wreckage scattered across any small Pacific island? M Van Houten - the situation is that we have articles on around 3,000 aircraft, with an unknown (but probably not trivial) number of them containing sections marked "Survivors". The plan I'm suggesting would have to address who was going to review these articles to bring them up to the new standard and hopefully some undertaking about what time frame it would be accomplished in.
Note that this is not any kind of policy requirement - it's simply a pragmatic concern in that I think that you would find it very hard to build consensus for such a wide-reaching change without also convincing other editors here that there was some hope of it being rolled out project-wide in some reasonable amount of time. --Rlandmann 21:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we should leave it as Survivors, they are very few notable replicas/models that would need a mention, normally only if there were no survivors. I see nothing wrong with - They are no survivors but a replica is on display at foo museum. Also we can leave alone most of the 3,000 aircraft articles !! MilborneOne 21:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see the point you are both getting at. Perhaps in the situation that MilborneOne mentioned, then it would be appropriate to use a heading of "Survivors and replicas"? And that would leave alone most of the 3,000 aircraft articles. M Van Houten 22:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
You still don't getting point. Your proposal mean establishing not only "Survivors and replicas" but also "Survivors and relics", "Survivors and wreckages" etc. because there is no reason why "Survivors and replicas" heading can be exceptional and "Survivors and wrecks" not. Piotr Mikołajski 08:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I believe M Van Houten means using "Survivors and replicas" for a particular article instead of all of them. That may fit better and will require a consensus on the article's talk page. -Fnlayson 16:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

How about templates for spec tables showing multiple variants of aircraft/engines?

I've been doing a little work on the Wright Whirlwind article, and one obvious problem with it is the listing of specifications for the different versions of the Whirlwind. At present, two versions have specs, the 9-cylinder J-6 and the 7-cylinder J-6, and the article already uses a lot of vertical space. There are at least two more important versions which also deserve to have specs listed: the 5-cylinder J-6, and the earlier 9-cylinder J-5, which was around 20% smaller in displacement than the 9-cylinder J-6. However, listing these in the present format would greatly lengthen the article, with most of that length being specifications, much of which would be empty space or repeated spec labels.

This cries out for a more compact table format, with the specifications as rows and the engine variants as columns. Unfortunately, the present spec templates don't allow for this. Could we make new ones that provide this facility?

I'd imagine such templates would be very useful for aircraft with a long history of development, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress or the Boeing 737. (The latter, I notice, already has such a spec table, but done without templates.)

--Colin Douglas Howell 08:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I dont think the templates are mandatory and in my opinion as long as you follow the spirit of what is required in the specifications list then a change to a 737 type column format for multiple variants would probably not be challenged. Nobody has questioned the 737 as it does the job required for multiple variants in that article. Perhaps with consensus we could add a multiple variants version to the guidelines. MilborneOne 11:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
It is common to do it in the motorcycle project, I did it for three versions of the Yamaha FJR1300. It would make sense to do this with variants of aircraft engines. Nimbus227 (talk) 01:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


New article, Dornier Do 28

I just added my translation and slight expansion of the original German WP article on this aircraft, there is a translation request process but I think it is quite slow and they probably struggle with specialist subjects so I did it myself. I note that no references are given (or required?) in the original article. Please feel free to wade in and correct my mistakes. There may be many other significant missing types on the German WP, I would be happy to help if anyone spots one that needs an entry here. Merry Christmas. Nimbus227 (talk) 02:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I see you found it already Bill! Nimbus227 (talk) 02:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Yup! I just noticed last week that we didn't have an article on the Do 28, and there it was! Revert the move if you prefer the long title.
The German site has a mix of some very good aircraft articles, and some stubby ones too. It's the site I usually go to first when looking for new images, and I'm often surprised with the articles they don't have. Too bad the German language isn't transmitted genetically, or I'd have at least a 25% proficiency. ;) Anyway, I'll keep an eye out for some articles thay have that we could use, either as new or expansions. - BillCJ (talk) 02:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
How do they get away with no references? No, Do 28 is fine! I notice though that we have differing styles of titles, Dornier Do 28, F-104 Starfighter etc. I have Lockheed F-104 in my user page to help me find it, is this an ongoing problem? There is a turbine Do 28 operating near me as a para drop aircraft (Do 128?), might get some photos and add a section in. Nimbus227 (talk) 03:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe there are some references now, and good job everyone! FWIW Bzuk (talk) 03:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC).
I put one in, hopefully that should save it from AfD! Memories of the XF-104 still linger. Thanks, I spent far too long on this in the sandbox and decided to let the professionals sort it out!! Nimbus227 (talk) 03:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
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