Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Archive 14

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List of aircraft of X Air Force/Military table formats, especially as related to images

There is a discussion on List of aircraft of the Swiss Air Force regarding the use of images in tables listing the equipment used by various air forces. As it stands there is something of a mess with these pages - some air forces have images in the table, some alongside, some have no images at all, and some have straight lists with or without images. Some degree of uniformity should be carried out across all of these pages especially as they are likely to be compared to each other. In addition, some air forces have separate pages for current and historic, others combine them into a single page, but as separate lists, and others have them in a single table. So far the discussion has just been about the use of images.

The points I have laid out so far are thus:

Many aircraft lack images or lack images for the appropriate air force leaving blanks or photos of inappropriate aircraft (wrong AF mostly).
Images are of random sizes, messing up table formatting.
The purpose of the table is to provide information, not be a gallery. Wikimedia is for galleries.
They take up a lot of space, stretching even fairly short lists into unmanageable ones.
Images in tables are too small to see properly on smaller screens such as cell phones.
If someone is interested in what the aircraft looks like there is already a link to that aircraft's page.
The tables that have images are almost all for current inventory, which covers a small number of types - historical listings rarely have images inline, not least because they are less likely to be the focus of nationalistic zealotry, and they have a lot more entries and would be unmanageable for even a medium sized air force. They should be consistent, and the likelihood of finding appropriate images for a majority of historical listings is low. Images should be used sparingly, and should add to the article beyond making it look pretty (which they don't) - in fact there is a wiki rule against that being the sole purpose for images.
Of all the information one can put in a table, an image is a long way down the useful list - when it entered service is far more important but there is no room for that in many current tables, nor is there even room to give each entry a single line.
Because other lists have them is no reason at all (another wiki rule). Many lists are not infected by useless clutter such as:

List of aircraft of the Royal Canadian Navy

List of historic aircraft of the People's Liberation Army Air Force

List of military aircraft of Japan

List of historical aircraft of the Indian Air Force

List of Regia Aeronautica aircraft used in World War II

List of aircraft of the Royal Air Force

List of military aircraft of Sweden

List of military aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS

List of Albanian Air Force aircraft

List of aircraft of Argentine Naval Aviation

Belize Defence Force Air Wing

List of active Brazilian military aircraft

List of aircraft of the Brazilian Navy

List of active Bulgarian military aircraft

List of former Bulgarian military aircraft

List of active People's Liberation Army aircraft

List of military aircraft of Denmark

List of active Egyptian military aircraft

List of aircraft of the Egyptian Air Force

List of military aircraft of Finland

List of aircraft of Canada's air forces

And on, and on... indeed more of these air force lists lack images than have them. NiD.29 (talk) 21:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

For the past several months I've been updating the tables (sourcing/ sub-headings etc) following the Aviation/Style guide/Lists and WP:IMAGEMOS (Don't overload articles with images) as per NiD.29 point and bring some uniformity to these tables - FOX 52 (talk) 23:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The section on Sortable lists of aircraft types is not really suitable for national lists, as it includes a column for nationality. Some of the air force lists under discussion include additional columns, such as numbers in service, that people might want to keep. I'd suggest that we adapt the columns accordingly and add a new section to the style guide page for Lists of types in a given organisation" or similar heading. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:21, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello all together Pictures make the chart more attractive to the reader. Images are information carriers and give the reader a first impression of the aircraft to the publically available information.For the active inventory it should be no problem to find the right picture (type& Nation), its more live in the page with a picture to every type in the list (type& Nation). As can be seen, this (pictures in the chart) is used inventory lists for other Air Force on Wikipedia.

So I am for having pictures in the inventory lists. I think in active inventory such a picture is a must have, and even by air forces (for eg.List of currently active Russian military aircraft) I see no problem. I would prefere to have the pictures in the active inventory and the one with retired aircraft. But I can see that by the historical aircraft not for any aircraft a picture can be found, so its not that important to me.FFA P-16 (talk) 20:48, 6 July 2015 (UTC) And a other "big fish" List of active United States military aircraft FFA P-16 (talk) 20:56, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with NiD.29 per his points - images in the table are unnecessary, and only clutter the page, causing formatting issues. The purpose of the table(s) is to provide information, not be a gallery. They take up a lot of space, stretching long lists into unmanageable ones. And Images in tables are too small to see properly on smaller screens such as smart phones. If someone is interested in what the aircraft looks like there is already a link to that aircraft's page - FOX 52 (talk) 21:18, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Since were listing pages I've already overhauled 112 air force tables with 39 to go (following the basic Aviation guide/Lists with out images). I began this project back in December - FOX 52 (talk) 21:25, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Aircraft	Photo	Origin	Role	Version	Number
Aircraft	Comment/NOTES or whatever this box should be called
F-16	[[file:some photo.ext\|100px]]	USA	etc	etc	etc
F-16	Place a all that supplementary information that makes all these tables odd looking with too much whitespace here, on a separate line below, like how episode lists handle episode summaries

Those have horrible formatting. I recommend using a two-line format, like how TV episode lists are formatted, so that the "notes" or whatever the long commentary section is called, appears as a table-wide box below the other boxes for the particular list entry. A picture can be standardized a 100px, and would not be intrusive, but, as to whether it's a good idea or not, I have no opinion. -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 03:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

No that's still leading to the problem of images which will clutter the page, causing formatting issues. The purpose of the table(s) is to provide information, not be a gallery - TV episode are a little different than aircraft type list - FOX 52 (talk) 04:15, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

How about...

Name	CAF Designation	Place of manufacture	Primary role(s)	Service Entry	Retired	# Used	Notes
Airbus Polaris	CC-150	France	transport/tanker	1992	current	5	[4][note 2]
Airco DH.4	n/a	UK	bomber	1920	1928	12	[5]

Active types are highlighted with an alternate colour, and there is lots of room for the full name of the aircraft. Because current use is small, it can be merged with the historical use, so those types that have been in use forever are not conspicuously absent from the historical listing which can not then be used to provide an idea of what equipment an air arm had at some particular point in time. A note can indicate if current inventory has been reduced.

No need for a version column, which again gets bloated easily, with the versions listed with the aircraft name. Versions associated with a different use (trainers for instance) can have their own entry. Instead an optional column can cover alternate designations where the particular air arm changed the designations at some point (US and RCAF for instance both changed designation systems)

Place of Manufacture is a better choice than Origin as not all aircraft are built where the design originated - for instance the Swiss historical list has to go through hoops with the Harvard II, which originated in the US but was built in Canada. Rather than the "North American (Noorduyn) Harvard IIB" it uses which isn't normal usage, it could have "North American Harvard IIB" (normal use) - with the Place of Manufacture being Canada.

Notes is for the references most of these pages lack, and it gets the supplementary notes (which often are long winded and full of trivia and cruft) out of the way and not messing up the formatting or providing distractions like how much a program cost, or what aircraft they traded where (for an example of this type of mess see the current Turkish list which needs severe trimming).

All columns MUST be sortable so the information can be put into context, which non-sortable tables with column spans cannot. The purpose of a table is to provide context. A table that can't be sorted is useless for most of the reasons anyone would put the information in a table in the first place.
CONTEXT! CONTEXT! CONTEXT! - cheers, :-) NiD.29 (talk) 05:21, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Compare how clean and readable and useful List of aircraft of Canada's air forces is, compared with List of active aircraft of the Turkish Air Force whose format actively prevents comparisons between table entries, and whose pictures reduce the number of visible entries even on a large screen to a small number - how much is visible on a small screen? Part of one entry, maybe? Will the public come back to that page? Probably not - they will go elsewhere because they can't make sense of what it has.NiD.29 (talk) 05:27, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear NiD.29, I think the List of active aircraft of the Turkish Air Force still looks good, on diffrend screens.. I have checked it out so far on 4 differend sizes of screens. i see no problem. Also I have to say that the List of aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force looks much more attractive to me to reading as List of aircraft of Canada's air forces ( Tow times Canada, one with pics one without).FFA P-16 (talk) 12:51, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Tables should be void of mini images, (tables) are to provide concise information, not be a gallery, that's for Wikimedia - And a few examples other tables (no pictures needed) List of muscles of the human body, List of rulers of China, Timeline of deportations of French Jews to death camps, List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Cheers and Coach (TV series) and we should not be the exception, that's why we have Help:Links - FOX 52 (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello Fox. yes if someone is interested in pictures he can go to wikimedia But we have the the possibility to use the pictures in many ways in wikipedia, and "a picture tells more than thousand words" Having a picture in every row of a type in this lists is far a way from beeing a gallery. We are here now discuss about Inventory chards / lists of Air Force/Military table formats. I think it is not a good idea to have one single rule for all these lists/charts/.. for all kinds of issues that exist in Wikipeda. if we already compare should be with a comparable theme, like for eg.

As a few exampels FFA P-16 (talk) 17:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I'd like to say that - in my opinion - List of aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force is one of the clumsiest, ugliest tables in existence on Wikipedia. And you need to work on your wikilinking. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:35, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I dont have a strong view either way on images but as Graeme has said List of aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force is not the way to go, the load of text in a table cell is probably a worse thing than the image, but we do have worse at List of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force. MilborneOne (talk) 19:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Probably the reason why most tables don't have images, they take up a lot more space than needed and agree I with GraemeLeggett just "clumsiest, ugliest" looking table - FOX 52 (talk) 19:40, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I would say by the List of aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force not the pictures make it to a clumsie table, i would say there is to much text in the "notes". Yes the List of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force is ugly, but this is not because of the pictures it is in general a little chaotic and again to much text in the "Notes". I think on the other hand the List of currently active Russian military aircraft is a nice example for such a table . The pictures are good and make the list interesting and appealing as without pictures.FFA P-16 (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Both the pictures and excessive text make it clumsy and ugly, but take away the notes and will still be clumsy and pointless - it may as well be just an article - lists (especially when made into tables) are not simply simply a cute formatting exercise - the whole point is that they facilitate the understanding of the information presented, which a table that is loaded with images and excessive text does not, and indeed cannot. A picture may tell a story of thousand words (although a picture of an aircraft almost never does), but it is not a story that belongs in the table - the table is telling a different story - of how that one aircraft relates to others used by the same organization - in numbers, dates, where it was purchased etc - the picture is a distraction from the other things we can learn - which often we can only learn from a sortable table. Can you tell me at a glance what the most numerous aircraft in the Swiss inventory has been? Without scrolling through the entire list? Or what types were merely tested rather than being widely used? One click on the clean, image-free sortable list and you have that information - information you could not easily see by scrolling through it, or even determine from the cluttered up list with the pictures. (It is the Morane-Saulnier 406 and variants btw). In addition, once images are added, the list becomes a magnet for useless trivia that doesn't belong there, as the Pakistan and Current RCAF tables clearly demonstrate.NiD.29 (talk) 18:32, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello NiD29 A picture gives the reader much faster an information what general type of aircraft it is than text ( you see a 4 engine higwing T tail jet Transport AC). To understand me right i am not only for pictures iam for pictures AND of how that one aircraft relates to others used by the same organization - in numbers, dates, where it was purchased etc. "Without scrolling through the entire list? " ? If you look for some special information you have to scrol trough the list no mather if there are pictures or not. Also I have to say for me a list with pictures looks much more interesting, the pictures motivate to have a closer look at the list or a part of it. But having no pictures make a list looking (in german you say "trocken " =dry, dusty). Not every one knows how a A-50 look like so the can see it right on the list and have not to click to the pages woh decribe the aircraft type, then go back to the list and do this for every type. If we have the pictures in an aproped size and in a clear row they dont clutter up the list. As I sayd before i testet it on 4 differend screens of differend sitzes,I had no problem with the pictures, the list. And today we have the tools to crate nice lists with pictures so we should use this, for me lists without picture look also very oldfashion You have to remeber we humans taking on informations on the first priorety on the visual way, so pictures help us to get informations. FFA P-16 (talk) 19:38, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

And i find it much easyer to finde an aircaft type (for ge F/A-18, MiG-29) by his photo, than seach in a only text list for this aircraft.FFA P-16 (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

The Turkish list is horrid, due to the comments causing massive amounts of whitespace

Aircraft	Origin	Role	something or other	something or other	something or other	Notes
Aircraft	Comments
F-16	USA	etc	etc	etc	etc	[a][b][c]
F-16	Place a all that supplementary information that makes all these tables odd looking with too much whitespace here, on a separate line below, like how episode lists handle episode summaries

Regardless of whether there are images in the table or not, all the tables with extended commentary per entry, should use a two-line format. -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 06:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

For example, from the Turkish Air Force list, we have this horrible amount of vertical whitespace:

Aircraft	Photo	Origin	Role	Version	Number	Note
Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon		USA Turkey	Multirole fighter	F-16C F-16D	185 57	Turkish Aerospace Industries manufactured 242 F-16C/D aircraft in Block 30 and 40. 163 Turkish F-16 have been modernised under the Common Configuration Implementation Program (CCIP) bringing them to Block 50+ configuration. TAI has commenced modernizing 30 of its F-16 Block 30 fleet with an indigenous package developed by ASELSAN as a test bed for the TAI TFX program. TuAF additionally operates 30 F-16 Block 50+ with Conformal Fuel Tanks.

But it could look like

Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon		USA Turkey	Multirole fighter	F-16C F-16D	185 57
Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon	Turkish Aerospace Industries manufactured 242 F-16C/D aircraft in Block 30 and 40. 163 Turkish F-16 have been modernised under the Common Configuration Implementation Program (CCIP) bringing them to Block 50+ configuration. TAI has commenced modernizing 30 of its F-16 Block 30 fleet with an indigenous package developed by ASELSAN as a test bed for the TAI TFX program. TuAF additionally operates 30 F-16 Block 50+ with Conformal Fuel Tanks.

or without the picture

Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon	USA Turkey	Multirole fighter	F-16C F-16D	185 57
	Turkish Aerospace Industries manufactured 242 F-16C/D aircraft in Block 30 and 40. 163 Turkish F-16 have been modernised under the Common Configuration Implementation Program (CCIP) bringing them to Block 50+ configuration. TAI has commenced modernizing 30 of its F-16 Block 30 fleet with an indigenous package developed by ASELSAN as a test bed for the TAI TFX program. TuAF additionally operates 30 F-16 Block 50+ with Conformal Fuel Tanks.

which have much better presentation -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 06:28, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The issue then is the length of the comment. Table should be for pithy and to the point content. Further detail will (should be) in the aircraft of air force articles. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:04, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

None of those are useful presentations - they all break table functionality, and are hideous to boot. Again the whole point of the table is to do something you cannot do with just text in a aparagraph - the layouts you have made may as well just be text and not be a list at all.

Name	Place of manufacture	Role(s)	Service Entry	Retired	# Used	Notes
Lockheed Martin F-16C Fighting Falcon	US/ Turkey	Multirole fighter	19?	n/a	185	[note 1]
Lockheed Martin F-16D Fighting Falcon	US/ Turkey	Multirole fighter/trainer	19?	n/a	57	[note 1]

There has yet to be a single rational argument provided to support leaving images in the table other than one person thinks they look pretty - which is a non-argument as that is already covered by wiki rules (ie no unnecessary images, and no excess images, and images should be pertinent to the page) - but lots to the contrary. An image adds nothing when there is already a link to the aircraft's page. Yet another broken format variation on the same theme is not helpful.NiD.29 (talk) 22:19, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

As it stands I think the debate has run it's course, and appears we should keep in place of what we currently use (image to remain out of the Table(s)) - FOX 52 (talk) 23:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the result is that the photos have to go. The rules preclude them and I haven't seen a good reason to "ignore all rules" presented here. "It looks nice" is not a good enough reason. - Ahunt (talk) 23:20, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The picture helps to recognize an aircraft than searching its name in the list. It is annoying if you then still have to switch between pages back and forth just turn around as certain types of aircraft at an Air Force look.Nowadays it is rather unusual that there are no pictures to support the text in a document of this kind.FFA P-16 (talk) 05:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I am against images in the lists, and they also go against policy (which has been made clear enough). Although there has not been a poll or vote, I count opinions now as:

For images: 1

No preference: 2

Against images: 4

No view expressed: 1

But more significantly, the arguments against are supported by policy while the arguments for are supported only by "why I like them" statements. As it happens, this is also the majority view so we have a very clear consensus to remove images from these lists.

I am also against long screeds of text, they also are not what list tables are for. I don't think the relevant policy has been explicitly brought up yet in this thread but I am sure it can be found. Do we need to dig it out or can we call this a wrap too?

Finally, I should like to raise the issue of national flags. Certainly, our guideline on sortable lists of aircraft in general forbids them and ISTR there is longstanding wider policy and consensus that they should not be used in this kind of list. Does anybody have a problem with this?

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:28, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I believe by consensus the only place we use flags is in the operator section of aircraft articles and not anywhere else. MilborneOne (talk) 20:06, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Question regarding Origin (or Place of manufacture) I've place the original producer of a type ei; Brazilian Air Force use of the EC-725 origin France and in notes stated "licensed manufactured by Helibras" as opposed to made Brazil as the Origin - thoughts - FOX 52 (talk) 20:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The origin is normally where the aircraft are built so in the case you mention it should be just Brazil. MilborneOne (talk) 20:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

(E/C) For Origin as in national origin in Infobox WP:Air has used where it was originally designed and built. For license production we're have sometimes listed both like France/Brazil if the license manufacturer partnered with the original manufacturer for the local version, such as the TAI/AgustaWestland T129. Just depends on what reasonably fits the situation. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:12, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

OK then a note should be made perhaps stating the original creator of the type? - FOX 52 (talk) 20:09, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Listing "Place of manufacture" like in Steelpillow's last table above seems to handle things best, imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:17, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

For the flags I see to possible ways 1. only the flag of the orginal creator of the type. 2. Flag of the creator of the type and flag of the place it was built but wit the note Built under license. Two flags with no such note like in the example here shown with the Turkish Air Force F-16 is not so good, I would use more than one flag without the not build under license only for multinational aircraft like the Jaguar, Tornado, Eurofighter,.. And if you are against photos in the list so please treated al this air force list equal. For eg.It's weird when an Australian forcible all photos from the Swiss Air Force list deletes, but in the list on the Australian Air Force All pictures can be in the list.FFA P-16 (talk) 20:57, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Those articles mentioned will be rectified, with image pulled from the table(s) - FOX 52 (talk) 21:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm for the use of images. In my opinion, such edits and removal of images should be done by consensus on the article talk page. Faraz (talk) 01:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Like many WikiProjects, this Project seeks to apply consistent standards across articles. The whole point of this is to avoid repeating the same old blow-by-blow arguments on every darn talk page concerned. The use of images in lists of aircraft was discussed and rejected a long time ago. Consensus has just reaffirmed that rejection. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:47, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

If indeed that is the case, I do not understand why do the following articles still use the image format?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Indian_military_aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_military_aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Air_Force

on and on...

Why are they not being edited in a similar manner? Faraz (talk) 17:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

They will be. Just no-one has got to them yet. I'm going to look at the Indian one now but probably won't get as far as re-arranging columns this time. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Images alongside the list tables

We are still seeing columns of images alongside the list tables. This is terrible, as they rely on a wide browser window. On mobile devices or if you simply narrow your desktop browser it collapses into an unusable mess. For example try narrowing your browser window while viewing List of aircraft of the Swiss Air Force. These images are not intended to align with the table rows but just stack arbitrarily downwards. IMHO they serve no sensible purpose and should be summarily deleted. Or, do folks think they are worthwhile galleries and should be found another home as per WP:GALLERY? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:37, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

We dont want to encourage galleries as I believe the current thinking is that the link to the relevant category on commons is all that is needed. Some representive images of current aircraft in the air force articles do not do any harm but as you say not alongside the table as is makes the mobile view hard to comprehend, not sure they are needed in the stand-alone list articles which can use the commons category. MilborneOne (talk) 17:46, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Just link to commons in these cases to avoid a formatting mess under narrow browser settings. - Ahunt (talk) 20:30, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

One image at the start should be sufficient - galleries are prone to accretion problems and any limit on their size would be arbitrary and prone to starting arguments. At the same time the tables should have the text wrap disabled as they make tables hard to read on narrow displays.NiD.29 (talk) 20:52, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

If you have an image or two that end up next to a table, then so be it. This whole brew ha-ha was regarding having images inside the tables - FOX 52 (talk) 17:48, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, only images inside the tables like some of the tables shown above. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

It is now over two weeks since this sub-topic was started. As I see it we have:

For these images: 1

No preference: 0

Against these images: 4

No view expressed: 1

The "for" vote is based on a "why not?" argument. The "against" votes are based on usability, especially for Mobile. This appears to me to offer a clear consensus. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Are lists in main articles different from lists with their own article?

Just to clarify: all this applies to lists included in main articles as well as pages created just for the list. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:53, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

No, the main articles I believe should not be included. Were going to have change every article so the work with smart phones? Granted I don't to see a massive galleries, but a few images pertaining to the subject should be ok FOX 52 (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

This whole discussion has been about lists, location unspecified, i.e. whether or not they occupy a whole article or a section in more general article. Check out the title of this thread, it says nothing about location. And there has been nothing said which generally excludes the main articles as you suggest. And anyway, I don't see how a list in a section differs in any way from a list hogging a whole article. The mobile viewing issue is exactly the same and the eye candy issues inside the table are exactly the same. And we don't want people going, "I'll keep this list in the main article so I can justify its pretties." — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:12, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

And you specified "regarding the use of images in tables listing" we use images in articles to illustrate to the subject matter, not because it's "eye candy" - FOX 52 (talk) 18:26, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see how this is relevant to the distinction between lists tables in articles and list tables in sections. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:19, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I too had assumed the discussion was treating these inventory tables the same whether a [relatively] short section of a general article on a nation's air force or a long standalone article. It might be different though if it was just a "stack" of images alongside a bulleted list of links. How does that come across in mobile view? GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I notice on (at least on my smart phone) is every image whether in a paragraph or next to a table is they stack up no matter what, which seems to be an issue for smarts phones in general (and that seems to be the problem for smart phones on any website) - FOX 52 (talk) 20:58, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

So far we have 2:1 that all lists should have the same rules. The argument that "we will have to change a lot more pages" is not valid - Wikipedia is here for its readers' convenience not its editors'. But I am being repeatedly reverted, so I'd like a stronger consensus one way or the other. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:07, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Not really sure what the problem here is - if a list is within an article it should follow the same rules for the same reasons, however any urge to add images can readily be taken care of elsewhere in the same article.NiD.29 (talk) 17:40, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Theses list should have the same information and appearance it doesnt matter if they are still in the main article or have been moved into a sub-article. MilborneOne (talk) 11:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

It is now two weeks since I asked for further comment on whether we should treat lists in sections the same as lists with their own articles. Views now stand at:

Treat the same: 4
Treat differently: 1

I think this is a clear consensus to treat them the same. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Table styling

In general, there is no reason to add styling, whether CSS or HTML, to tables. It can conflict with the skin/theme selected by the visitor and in turn this can affect accessibility. MOS:TABLES says that "Deviations from standard [styling] ... should not be used gratuitously." I have seen no justification for any such custom styling on any of the lists I have seen. Has anybody else? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:05, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

No - and the standard wikitables adds its own styling - centering and bolding column headers and giving those cells a coloured background. The only variation I have found useful is to highlight those aircraft still in service with another colour. Neither alignment (L-R or T-B) is usually needed, especially with the images gone, nor is any other colouring needed (as some lists have every second entry using a coloured background, but that in turn makes updates more difficult, and it usually results in a mishmash with skiped spacing and missing some of the coloured bars).NiD.29 (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

It is now two weeks since this sub-topic was broken out. Wikipedia's default is no added styling without a specific usage agreed by Project consensus. One proposal, for highlighting operational types, is under discussion below. No other specific usage has been put forward here. So I think it is clear that, with the possible exception of operational types (see ongoing discussion below), our Project consensus defaults to Wikipedia's and in-table styling should not be used. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Lack of involvement of other projects in discussion

I came here following recent edits to the Royal Australian Air Force article (which incidentally I have no opinion about). I was intrigued by the edit summary which stated "per Project consensus" and since I'd noticed no discussion at WP:MILHIST I assumed it must of been a WP:AVIATION initiative that was being referred to. Judging by the length of this thread I can see considerable effort has gone into attempting to develop agreement on some sort of standardization, which I accept does seem advantageous. That said I can't help but wonder why you didn't involve the regular MILHIST editors of many of these articles in the discussion, given that as near as I can tell that project was not notified of it. Of cse no one project "owns" any article and WP:AVIATION is as good a place as any to discuss this matter, but surely if you are attempting to develop consensus then all interested parties should at least be informed to give them the opportunity to participate. Anotherclown (talk) 12:21, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that when this discussions started it was more about understanding and applying current consensus, not reforging it. If that seems to be changing then I guess you are right and we should be widening it. Bar the odd over-enthusiastic edit (and I don't rule myself out in that), do you think we have got to that point yet? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Gday, unsure to be honest as its a very long thread (!) and I don't watchlist many air force pages (only a few that interest me and that I have some knowledge about). At any rate I can see how discussions tend to evolve over time etc and become more involved than they were originally intended to be. FWIW I posted a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history last night in case any interested editors in that project were unaware of the discussion here (as I was) and wished to participate. All the best. Anotherclown (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Rows, columns and column headings

There is a fair variety of table layouts out there. I'd like to see them standardised so that when I visit a list the layout is familiar and I can quickly find what I want.

Firstly, as somebody else said it needs to be sortable. This means that all those clever subdivisions for different variants have to go: Either a variant gets its own row or it gets lumped in with the main entry. Also, long text boxes have to go, which I think has already been agreed is a good thing as they are just a sign that the text needs cutting back.

Next, here are some example sets of column headings:

Table 1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists specifies these for multinational lists in generic articles:

Type	Country	Date	Role	Status	Description

Table 2. Several major nations' sites use this:

Aircraft	Origin	Role	Version	Number	Notes

Table 3a. Other pages use variants of these labels and may include dates along the lines of:

Name	Origin	Role	Variant	Service entry	Retired	Quantity	Note

Table 3b. Or, in similar vein:

Name	Origin	Role	Variant	Service period	In service	Comment

I think we should use the generic headings where possible. With no separate funnies for variants, this information can be included in the Type column. A single column is enough for service periods. So I'd suggest:

Table 4.

Type	Origin	Role	Service	Number	Notes

Most forces are split into current and historical lists. For current craft the Service is the date of introduction, for historical craft it is the from-to dates.

Any views? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Your Table 4 seems to include all that is required although the term "Service" may be confusing to some readers. MilborneOne (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I wondered about "Service date" and "Service dates" respectively for current and historical lists. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree on most points but I would also like to see (eventually) all the current and historic tables merged, with a retirement date set to n/a for those that are current, and a suitable highlighting to make them easy to distinguish from retired aircraft. For sortability, the dates should be in two columns. Origin is ambiguous when one country designed it, but another built it - better to choose where it was built or where it was designed, so multiple country names aren't needed - or have the country it was designed first, and where it was built in bracket afterwards. Variant info should be restricted to the broadest designation that covers all aircraft for a given role, so no block numbers and no hyphenated sub-variants so as to limit the number of entries for each type. To provide the number currently in service, the current number can follow the number used in brackets. Also all notes and references should be in the last column, aka...

Type (variant)	Origin (built)	Primary role	Operational	Retired	Number used (remaining)	References and notes
Aircraft C-77B	US (US)	transport	1979	n/a	5 (4)	[6]
Aircraft Mk.III	UK (UK)	bomber	1936	1943	70	[5][note 1]
Aircraft Mk.V	UK (Canada)	trainer	1942	1965	510	[5][note 2]

Ought to be "Number" not "#" though. To also include the right-pondian readers.GraemeLeggett (talk) 05:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

NP, Updated...NiD.29 (talk) 06:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

If the current and historic tables are merged, then I think they need to be sortable on their status rather than multi-coloured. There are also types which are neither operational nor retired, such as those currently being evaluated, or worked up to future operational status, or captured enemy types, and so on. This brings the opportunities of adding the retirement date to the status column and resolving the problem with "Service" discussed above.

On the matter of origin, having more than one country per entry makes sorting on the second nation impossible. I would suggest that the best country is that in which the airframe type was manufactured (or re-manufactured from a different type). There are many variations on manufacture, re-manufacture, modification, refit, licensing, etc. and attempting to write them all into a flexible format is not realistic. The more significant ones can be described in the Notes column and the rest left out.

I agree that variants should be kept to a minimum, using the broadest designation for the role.

For in-service types I think there should again be just one number, to make sense of sorting, and that for types in service it should be the number currently in service. Others can be left out of the list unless they are notable in some way.

On the general approach to headings, the fewer words used the broader the applicability and the less scope for argument. For example cites can just go in the Notes, there is no need to say so in the heading.

On that basis I'd like to suggest something more like:

Table 5.

Type	Origin	Role	Adoption	Status	No.	Notes
General Dynamics F-16	USA	Multi-role	1988	Operational	24	Locally modified. 13 more now phased out.
Sukhoi SU-27	Russia	Fighter	2012	Working up	7	9 more on order.
Supermarine Spitfire	UK	Fighter	1943	Retired 1952	197	Primarily Mks. V, VIII and XIV.

Workable? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC) [Clarifications added in italics 11:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)]

Looking good, is it worthdoing an example table using real data just to see that it all works. MilborneOne (talk) 12:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I just changed "Number" to "No." because it was wasting space. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't like status as it is too open to random nonsense - adoption is fine, but it should be paired with withdrawn or some synonym, with either a date or n/a or current or similar. Notes should be as brief as possible and limited to information directly related to one of the columns or cruft will grow like a weed. Some indication needs to cover the difference between the number currently in service and the total that have been in service. In my above post I meant both sortable on status, and highlighted - which the table is, as n/a or current will sort ahead or behind all those with dates. Captured enemy types work best in a separate table I think as with rare exceptions they are not used operationally, and types being evaluated are either on strength with a serial from the organization in which they get included, or they are not, and their inclusion should start when the organization has taken the type onto its books - either purchased or leased. Just because France evaluated the F-15 is no reason to include that type in a listing of French Air Force types (despite carrying French markings), and finding references to every aircraft evaluated would be difficult if not impossible, and it would add confusion. For the number in service this creates a problem, in that the table then cannot show how many of the type have been used to date - this may be partly my bias toward historic listings, but the current number is rarely accurate anyway - most air forces have hangar queens that have been stripped of parts and won't ever fly again, but are still listed on the books as on strength, and it breaks the format for those smaller air forces where having two tables doesn't make any sense at all. Also the number field will probably need an {{nts|#}} tag otherwise it sorts one digit at a time, so 40 will precede 5 - your numbers only sort because the first digits are opposite to the sizes of the whole number. {{sort|value|display}} is also useful so the role column will sort in a meaningful way - for instance primary trainer, advanced trainer and operational trainer all sort separate - but by putting {{sort|trainer - advanced|Advanced trainer}} and {{sort|trainer - primary|Primary trainer}}, they will sort as a group, with all the trainers together. Also not mentioned are industry acronyms TOS and WFU (hover over text to see meaning) - too obscure maybe?

Type	Origin	Role	Adoption	Retired	No. (active)	Notes
Aircraft C-77B	US	transport	1979	n/a	5 (4)	[6]
Aircraft Mk.III	UK	bomber	1936	1943	70	[5][note 1]
Aircraft Mk.V	Canada	trainer	1942	1965	510	[5][note 2]

NiD.29 (talk) 23:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I need your original table to make sense of the subsequent comments. I have restored it and moved your revised table to your associated post (there's a policy/guideline somewhere about not retrospectively changing posts without leaving a clear trail of the changes). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

The allowed content for a given column can be specified in the style guide. For example Trainer is an allowed role, but qualifiers such as Basic, Advanced, etc. are not. This should also tame any Status column, for example it could be restricted to; Working-up, Operational, Retired.

I agree about excluding types under evaluation. I am not sure it is tenable to argue that both operational and retired types must go in a common table but captured enemy types must have a separate one. Better to exclude captured types from lists unless they were used operationally, I do not see say "List of aircraft captured by the RAF in WWII" as notable, if only in a training aggressor role. The same goes for oddball types which appear in Air Force museums, such as the Avro 707 in Australia (although for an air museum, a "List of aircraft in the collection" might be appropriate). Nevertheless, significance can be attained for all kinds of oddball reason, and a "Status" column is flexible enough to allow the unpredictable. I see no reason to hard-code it out.

I am getting less and less happy about trying to accommodate the subtleties of numbering. For example do we count the number of Westland Sea Kings delivered to the RAF, the number at its operational peak, or the number officially still in operational service, or some combination of these? Hangar queens are seldom reliably sourced, they are just a distraction. And so on. To me, good cases can only be made for the number delivered to date and the number currently in service. One of these belongs in the "No." column, the other can go in the "Status" column, as in say "54 operational". This is nice for us because the No. delivered does not change when a type is withdrawn. The ordering issue is best resolved by adding data-sort-type="number" | to the column header or, in the case of mixed content, data-sort-value="number" to the individual cell.

We don't want trade acronyms. They are confusing, the templated display equally so, and we cannot rely on the client reader, especially accessibility readers, understanding how to handle the templated code.

Which all leads to:

Table 6

Type	Origin	Role	Adoption	Status	Total	Notes
Aircraft C-77B	US	transport	1979	4 in service	5	[6]
Aircraft Mk.III	UK	bomber	1936	Retired 1943	70	[5][note 1]
Aircraft Mk.V	Canada	trainer	1942	Retired 1965	510	[5][note 2]
General Dynamics F-16	USA	Fighter	1988	24 in service	32	28 license-built. Remainder locally modified.
Sukhoi SU-27	Russia	Multi-role	2012	Working up	7	9 more on order.
Supermarine Spitfire	UK	Fighter	1943	Retired 1952	197	Primarily Mks. V, VIII and XIV.

Progress? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

[Update] I changed the F-16 entry to illustrate some issues with local manufacture. Would there ever be a need to break out a given type into separate entries for multiple variants? Also changed "operational" to the slightly shorter and more accurate "in service". — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:10, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Given the change to "In service" I now think the "Working up" status should be rolled into it. Might we want an "In storage" status for types that are still on charge but have been "mothballed"? I'd prefer not, as the next thing will be the number in storage and that messes up the column sorting, but would In service or Retired come closer? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The fewer different statuses the better - I see no need for "working up" as that is perfectly well covered by "In service". Likewise, stored airframes are no longer in service, until whatever time they are brought back into service (rarely) or sold off - particularly as these are nearly impossible to document, and prone to change, and endless argument that will require frequent updates to keep current.

Multiple variants are fine so long as the roles are significantly different - ie - trainers vs fighters vs (dedicated) reconnaissance. There should NOT be an entry for multiple fighter variants (for instance) unless they are so radically different as to be almost completely different aircraft (which is rare).NiD.29 (talk) 04:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

We currently have lists with different scope: some include only types in service, some only historical types and some include both. I see no reason to get rigid about this, I would expect that all three options will remain useful. It occurs to me that the "Status" column heading then seems a bit awkward where the only values will be respectively nos. in service or dates of retirement: I think it would be better to have "Number" or "Retired" accordingly where the list includes only one status. Does that seem reasonable? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes it does, I think. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Users reverting image/flag removals

At least 2 users have restored the image and flag removals here. One is a registered (but not a regular) user, so semi-protection won't stop them if they want to edit war. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 02:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Taking out images and flags is a HUGE mistake in my opinion. As soon as you open the article and see the images, it's much easier to understand it and read/browse through it. With out them, it's just looks plain and way too lame article.buccaneer (talk) 02:53, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

The images are a problem for viewing in smaller devices, are often inappropriate, and do not add anything significant to the list. Lists with images also tend to lose most of the functionality of the list, reducing their overall utility. If you want to know what one of the aircraft looks like, there is a link to that types pages that probably has a whole bunch of images. This has been discussed at length and all the arguments both ways covered in depth.NiD.29 (talk) 03:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I would echo NiD.29's point that this has been discussed at length above and a consensus emerged to avoid images and flags in lists of aircraft. Please do not edit war, but if you feel the consensus is misplaced you are welcome to put new thoughts to us here (there is no point in you repeating what has already been said above here). If you want to build a gallery of images to browse, the WP:COMMONS is there for you. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:25, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed additions to WP:AVLIST

Based on the above discussions I have drafted some proposed additions to the Project style guide WP:AVLIST. ~~The draft is currently at User:Steelpillow/Test.~~ What it the best place to move it to for discussion/amendment/approval before merging it in, so that the associated discussion doesn't get lost? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps as a sub-page of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide. MilborneOne (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Or a subpage under WP:AVLIST, such as WP:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists/draft. Whichever seems more appropriate. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:44, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Now moved to WP:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists/draft. Comments welcome, either here or on its talk page. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:23, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Draft additions to WP:AVLIST

You are invited to comment on Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists/draft. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Now merged in. I did a fair amount of jiggling and copyediting, so more eyes are welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk)

Trigana Air ATR72 missing

Just for information at the moment "Indonesian plane missing over Papua region" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33951718 MilborneOne (talk) 10:17, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Trigana Air Service Flight 267 has appeared. MilborneOne (talk) 11:35, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Scott Cody Gallego

Is this [1] a correct revert or not? 178.95.155.204 (talk) 10:19, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Edit wars are never OK (removing vandalism is not edit warring, btw). I see no real edit warring there, except some back & forth edits over the categories. -Fnlayson (talk) 12:49, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Bullshit indicator has been set off, doesnt appear particularly notable or realistic, reads like something the subject would write, are we sure its not a hoax or at least self-promotion. The creater has not made any other contributions, and the subject doesnt actually appear in any of the references. MilborneOne (talk) 16:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Belfast International Airport

I have started a discussion re the inclusion of a non-aviation incident in the Belfast International airport article. Comments welcome at talk:Belfast International Airport#The bomb. Mjroots (talk) 15:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Note that their is a disscussion at WT:AIRPORTS regarding this. RMS52 (talk) 09:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Egyptian Air Force

My cleanup of the list tables at Egyptian Air Force is being reverted. help wanted. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:23, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect, The list looks better with images in the table. The reason for the appearance of vertical whitespace is because of the large amount of information present in the "Comment" column. The vertical whitespace and table styling aren't actually a big deal. And what consensus? and by whom? did you vote for it? I see no consensus, All I see are personal decisions. The way Information is shown is different from one page to another, Every page is free to show its information in the way it likes. You are allowed to remove these images only if a license to distribute is not found. I here request not to change the way the information is shown in The Egyptian Air Force page. Cheers, AHMED XIV

The addition of flags to the tables is contrary to MOS guidance, and there is clear consensus above that the photos are not an improvement to lists of aircraft. In addition, most of the photos that are being edit-warred into the article are not of Egyptian Air Force aircraft, and don't belong, while you also appear to be adding significant unsourced text to the tables.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:52, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Please, provide a link to the MOS guidance, and don't talk about a consensus unless you make a voting for it. I can make a page saying that it is important to add images in tables, In the end these are just personal decisions. the photos that are being edit-warred into the article are not of Egyptian Air Force aircraft, and we never said they belonged to the Egyptian Air Force. The purpose of the image is just to show the shape of the aircraft to the people , There are some unsourced text to the tables, but these are old ones that need citations, and we are working hard on providing them. Any recent information added to the page is added with a source, and we make sure that no information is added without a reliable source.AHMED XIV 12:52, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Inappropriate_use. The use of flags is these tables is purely decorative.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

MOS guidance may be found by following the appropriate links from WP:MOS. Additional Project guidance may be found by following the appropriate links from Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide. These are supplemented by recent consensus on this talk page, between the majority of experienced and responsible participants who have as you can see offered views based on Wikipedia's policy and guidelines, along with further considered views on issues local to aviation topics. That's what consensus is, you don't need a vote unless informal discussion such as this has broken down. Simple "I don't like it" or "I want to be different" comments are not acceptable alternatives to such a consensus. If you want lots of images for other reasons, you can find out more at WP:GALLERY. Meanwhile, I must warn you that your continued disruptive reversion of multiple editors constitutes an WP:EDITWAR and you may face sanctions if you do not stop. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:59, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

According to the "Encyclopedic purpose" found in the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Inappropriate_use page, Icons should serve an encyclopaedic purpose and not merely be decorative. The images that we provide are not to be decorative but are information carriers that give the reader a first impression of the aircraft to the publically available information. You must believe that this isn't an "I don't like it" issue, All editors for the Egyptian Air Force agree on this. Your continued change to the article must be stopped. AHMED XIV 13:23, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

The flag is redundant with the nation listed & linked next to it. That makes the use of flag icons decorative there. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:02, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
You are right about the flags Fnlayson, but we are talking about the images of each aircraft. They are definitely important. -AHMED XIV 02:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

This has all been hashed over before - images are NOT important as there is already a link to a page which has images of the aircraft, and serve to do little more than clutter the list, not to mention they tend to result in broken lists that cannot use most of the functionality of the list format - might as well not have the information in a list at all. Many of the images aren't even from the Air Force that they are supposed to be illustrating.NiD.29 16:20, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Hawker Hunter crash at Shoreham

A Hawker Hunter crashed today at Shoreham, West Sussex. Initial reports are of "several killed" although the pilot is not amongst the casualties. Suggest we hang fire on an article for the moment, but 2015 Shoreham Hawker Hunter crash would be a suitable title for such an article. Mjroots (talk) 15:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

BBC reporting seven fatalities, one seriously injured. As the deadliest airshow accident in the UK for decades, this has just been pushed firmly up the notability ladder. Mjroots (talk) 15:55, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Not sure the current title "disaster" is appropriate, sad but nobody in the press has used the term, perhaps move it to Mjroots suggestion. I was there yesterday watching aircraft arrive! MilborneOne (talk) 16:28, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Move it. No-one seems to be naming it as a "disaster". Watching BBC news right now, they call it a "crash" GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:14, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

There's a serious talkpage move discussion going on there, which is better placed than here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

"Aircraft accidents and incidents" cats...

This seems overly broad to me, as it includes in 2011, for example, commercial accidents, commercial incidents, military accidents, and military shootdowns. Now, the alternative is really small categories (especially for the military side), but being shot down is not the same as an accidental crash, or a part falling off. The category title leads one to think commercial side anyway. Has this come up for discussion previously? MSJapan (talk) 05:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

It is meant to be broad to include everything in the year, other categories deal with causes and the type of aircraft so breaking it down further will probably just make it useless as a finding aid. MilborneOne (talk) 11:00, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Basically per MilborneOne, but noting that the "Maritime incidents in (year)" and "Railway accidents in (year)" categories are similarly broad in their coverage. No need to change these IMHO. Mjroots (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Books

Wikipedia:Book says you can compile selected articles into a book for either online reading as a pdf or even to buy a printed copy. So I had a play and came up with a draft on Aircraft wing configurations.

It is making me think more about the presentation of articles: overuse of bulleted lists soon gets tedious while tables tend to disappear altogether, and it gets very obvious who has been adding either too few or too many images. Closer inspection reveals how tedious it is to read the same thing several times over in different articles, I think that is an important lesson.

As example I have started tinkering in Category:Wing configurations space to see where this leads. Please feel free to download a copy: A4 and Letter formats are available. It will feed you the current version of each article, so it can take a minute or so to build the file. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:15, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I wonder whether we should try to design our articles more with such books in mind. Please share any thoughts. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Although the primary viewing is the webpage it would do no harm to have a list of good practices that improves the printed experience. MilborneOne (talk) 18:19, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Interesting idea; there is a book on sale here in Australia about aircraft disappearances, published in the wake of MH370 but with many lesser-known disappearances in its pages. It is clearly based on Wikpedia articles. I have also seen an article in an Australian aviation magazine about the history of Piper Aircraft, lifted from the WP article almost verbatim - without attribution of course. Someone is making money from the work of WP editors. YSSYguy (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I have seen a few around too. The book the system built for me has pages and pages of attributions at the end, presumably to conform with its Creative Commons license. If you told the Wiki foundation about the offending magazine article they might well set their legal team on it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:47, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Flexible wing

Hi, I have rescued Flexible wing from a redirect and created a new article. More eyes/fingers welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:41, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Aviation history of Ukraine

Category:Aviation history of Ukraine has been nominated for deletion -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Orbital airship

The orbital airship article looks to me like a single commercial company pushing an impossible scam. I have started a discussion on its talk page at Is this for real?. Contributions gratefully received. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:54, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I PRODded it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

you WHAT? Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:PROD. Remove the template if you disagree. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Not disagreeing, not at all - merely wondering. Unexplained/non-documented acronyms go down badly, here. All clear now, thanks. Jan olieslagers (talk) 19:20, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

You're right, I should have linked first time round. My bad. Sorry. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

PROD template deleted. See below. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:34, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Orbital airship for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Orbital airship is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orbital airship until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:35, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

SERA

I was surprised not to find any article about the standardised european rules of the air - or did I miss something? I made a (red) link to the article at Eurocontrol. Jan olieslagers (talk) 08:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

British Airways Flight 2276

Most interested parties are likely aware of this Boeing 777 that caught fire today in the UK, but there's the link anyway.

Do we have "Accidents and incidents" sections on engine pages, as this appears to have been caused by failure of a General Electric GE90? 220 of ^Borg 03:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

The AfD discussion has already closed as Speedy Keep. While possibly too soon for an AfD, also too soon for a speedy decision?GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:06, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Please note that Tokyogirl, the editor who started the AFD, withdrew the nomination. I once saw an AFD started and ended by the same editor within minutes....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 11:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a pretty minor incident and not really worthy of an article as per WP:NOTNEWSPAPER, but as usual if it involves aviation the news is all over it. Perhaps this can be sent back to AfD in a month or so for a more rational discussion? - Ahunt (talk) 13:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure. All the main details should be out in 2-3 weeks and the news will have stopped by then. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

That sounds about right. Unless there is something new about this incident that makes it more notable by then I would suggest a more complete AfD debate at that time. There just doesn't seem much notable about an engine failure on take-off incident that ended with a successful runway abort, no deaths, no serious injuries and no serious damage to the aircraft outside the engine. - Ahunt (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

There's serious damage to the fuselage and the wing; it looks like a write-off to me. And you don't need to be some kind of prophet to know that - at the very least - ADs will be issued. This isn't any ordinary accident. Alakzi (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

An engine failure does not usually result in an AD, but if it does in this case then that should be noted in the article and the article should be kept as the incident will have had a lasting effect. - Ahunt (talk) 15:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

And I have seen no source whatsoever to indicate that there actually is any imminent write off. No source has described the airframe as suffering major damage. That seems entirely too speculatory. oknazevad (talk) 17:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

No source has described the airframe as suffering major damage. Except they have: "Images from the scene show severe structural damage to the leading edge and the centre wing-box area of the jet. ... There is also evidence of smoke damage on the right side of the fuselage, although it is unclear whether this is the result of smoke being blown through, or under, the fuselage". You could also look at the pictures. Alakzi (talk) 17:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, if it's actually reliable and relevant, it should be in the article. Secondly, that's the one author's interpretation of the pictures; he's not on scene and he's not the FAA/NTSB or other competent authority. If those agencies say there's severe damage, that'd carry weight, not the speculations of a single author based on pictures. Thirdly, trying to interpret the photos myself would be the very definition of original research, and is utterly unacceptable. oknazevad (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not original research or unacceptable to interpret the pictures. You've gotta have the capacity to interpret the sources to some degree to draw a conclusion on whether the article should be kept at this very early stage. It would be original research if you were to actually publish your interpretation. Our policies and guidelines are only meaningful when they're expertly informed. Alakzi (talk) 19:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Interpreting photographs of an aircraft to come to your own determination of the damage would very much be WP:OR. We need to wait for an official pronouncement of the degree of damage from a qualified person who actually examines the aircraft, such as company maintenance or the investigating safety authority. - Ahunt (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

A critical understanding of the sources is not WP:OR. WP:OR is not a behavioural policy; it's a content policy. One can make an educated guess as to whether this is a noteworthy occurrence with no effect on the quality of the article. Alakzi (talk) 01:28, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

True, that's the author's interpretation of the photos. It reads like severe damage to those specific areas, not severe damage overall to the aircraft. I think we should wait for a description from the airline or aviation body saying major or severe damage to the aircraft. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:39, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Fnlayson Indeed it looks a mess! [2]. Interesting that the engine only appears damaged on the 'inner' side (towards the fuselage) [3] It looks like a jet of flame came out sideways towards the wing root. Good thing they aborted take-off. (And as the 'OP', look at what I started!) 220 of ^Borg 07:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Heh, I knew you guys would be here within minutes debating the fact this should be deleted. It should be kept well alive until we understand the cause of the engine fire. 777 engines don't normally do this, and it sounds like we were five minutes away from a serious incident. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm rather pleased to see discussion taking place as so much a matter of routine that it draws comment. It's nice to know that at least one WikiProject takes the encyclopedic value of its domain seriously. As you say, it sounds like we were five minutes away from notability. ;P — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Both article creation and the AfD were too soon. That is to say, the article should not have been created so soon; once created, it shouldn't have been sent to AfD so soon either.

Now that we have an article that has survived an AfD, it is going to be around for a while at least. Suggest that editors put their effort into improving the article, we can revisit notablility once the fate of the airframe is known. Mjroots (talk) 21:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Transcontinental flight across the United States

Improve or delete? This article can certainly be improved with recent developments and current products (lie-flat beds, etc.) for transcontinental flights offered by AA (A321T), DL(lie-flat Delta One on B757 and B767), UA (United p.s.), B6 (Mint), VX, and the like. Right now it is in very bad shape. sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 12:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Possible sources: [4] sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 07:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Solo Türk for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Solo Türk is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solo Türk until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

This is turning into something of a test case on the issue of whether a "solo team" of one aircraft (possibly not even specially painted) plus support crew and a couple of pilots really counts as a notable "team" worth its own article. Might be good to have a few more contributors to the debate. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:03, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Planform for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Planform is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Planform until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

This is not really moving. A few more responses would be appreciated. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Merge or Delete?

All interested editors there's a discussion taking place on the Talk:Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk pertaining to the recently created MH-60CZ Multi-Role Helicopter article. A request has been made to merge, but a few editors including myself would suggest an AfD as it appears to be a promotional item per WP:NOTADVERTISING - thoughts? FOX 52 (talk) 17:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Aircraft "type" list categories

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft#"Type" list categories. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Aircraft roles in lists

I think the list of roles in WP:AVLIST could do with an overhaul. I have started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Style_guide/Lists#Roles. All comments welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Subsequent discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists#Continuing discussion. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Coordinates for airports

(Also cross-posted to WikiProject Airports)
User:Dthomsen8 has been doing some excellent work on geolocating articles on airports/airfields that are currently missing coordinates. I've generated a list at User:The Anome/Airports missing coordinates to help them in this process: if any other editors want to help geocode more articles on that list, I'd greatly appreciate it. -- The Anome (talk) 13:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Aviation accidents and incidents templates

Special:Contributions/72.49.194.129 Is it a correct edits? 109.108.251.119 (talk) 00:39, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

The marking of high-casualty and deadliest accidents was discontinued a while back by general consensus. Mjroots (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

AW101

Anyone have any current info on the AW101's being pulled from the RAF and inducted to the Royal Navy? If so may be it can reflect the operators list - FOX 52 (talk) 03:09, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Lists of aircraft - templated headings?

Is it worth having standard templated column headings for each type of list we define? The idea is to create a standard format that will become familiar to readers and is easy to set up appropriately for each list. I ran up a trial template and documentation to see what people think.

Templates

~~Draft template at User:Steelpillow/Test~~

~~Draft documentation at User:Steelpillow/test2~~

Questions

The ordering of role, date, etc. is deliberately varied to group appropriate columns together. Is this a good idea?
Three operator lists are shown, depending on the mix of current and historical types. Might it be more sensible to have all operator lists include both? On the one hand it pulls information together so types can be sorted on operational status, and it also avoids the need for three separate sets of headings. On the other hand, might it be too prescriptive?

Discussion

Please post your thoughts below here and not in the template documentation. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:38, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment I think that "NOTES" should be on a separate line below the other data boxes, such as found in SUMMARY boxes in TV episode lists; as the NOTES section can grow overly large, and result in the appearance similar to a newspaper column, with virtually empty boxes next to it, and lots of ugly vertical whitespace, and poor preseentation with overly long scrolldown tables. To see what I mean, see the databoxes and summary at Supernatural_(season_3) which function to present information in a manner similar to the proposed aviation list. The NOTES here is the SUMMARY. The airdate/etc boxes function the in a manner akin to the other non-NOTES databoxes here in aviation list. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:52, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

This would prevent the list from being sortable. It was agreed in an earlier discussion, still above here at List of aircraft of X Air_Force/Military table formats, especially as related to images, that the notes should be kept short enough not to disrupt the layout. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:01, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

TV episodes are different - the meat is in the notes. And presentation is fixed chronological. Sorting the entries is an added function which is possible but more importantly in this case useful in lists of aircraft. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:09, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Now gone live as Template:Avilisthead. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:44, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Aeroflot Fleet

The Aeroflot Fleet article was created yesterday by MikleffCoolX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The whole article doesn't seem right, nor do this editors contributions feel constructive. What set my alarm bells ringing are the claims re Manchester United F.C. - if true, surely this would have been reported in mainstream media (i.e. BBC). I can't spend time of this right now, so raising it here. Personal thoughts are that the article should be nuked and the user indeffed. Mjroots (talk) 07:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The Manchester United connection appears to be genuine - Google is indeed full of it.

More seriously, this article appears to be a spinoff from the Fleet section of the Aeroflot article. The creator's effort to link to the new article from there has been reverted. I suspect a personal agenda on somebody's part, not sure whose yet. Either way, the new article should be deleted and if there is anything worthwhile it can be merged back into the main article. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:02, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The article should be deleted.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 10:17, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not so sure the article should be deleted. There is a general tendency to have separate articles for airlines' destinations and I never heard/saw that questioned. Why should it be different for the fleet composition? That said, the article does leave much room for improvement, it seems typical to me of a new and enthusiastic, probably young, contributor. We ought to guide and encourage him/her. The opening of the present paragraph is unduly negative. Jan olieslagers (talk) 11:35, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Dont have a problem with a seperate fleet article but this was just cut from the current article without any attribution it probably is not the best way to go. Needs to be discussed on the main article page but the List of aircraft operated by Scandinavian Airlines is a better model for this type of article. MilborneOne (talk) 16:26, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Aircraft of the week

THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER OF THE AIRCRAFT OF THE WEEK THET WE CAN FOUND IN MY USER PAGE IS CLOSING, NOW WE HAVE TO DECIDE THE AIRCRAFT THAT WE PREFER, THE VOTATION WILL BE OPEN FROM 28 SEPTEMBER 2015 TO 1 OCTOBER 2015, AND WE CAN VOTE IN MY TALK.
The aviation user. Zurich00swiss (talk) 14:25, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I have reminded user Zurich00swiss that this is not something that their user page or indeed wikipedia is for and have asked them to stop and remove it, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 16:34, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Star Alliance GAR

Star Alliance, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. sst ✈ 14:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Parasol wing

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parasol wing. - Ahunt (talk) 20:05, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Design configuration articles

There are a number of small, badly sourced and incomplete articles on rather trivial design configurations, including:

Some comparably trivial configurations have no article, such as:

Others are redirects, for example Low wing, Mid wing and High wing redirect to the monoplane article.

Would it be better to bring the existing articles up to scratch and create the others, or to delete the existing ones? For example, if we keep them, is there enough notable material out there to make these articles stand up? Or, can such material as exists better be accommodated in articles on the monoplane and biplane, or just given a one-liner at Wing configuration? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:41, 30 September 2015 (UTC) [Updated 12:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)]

It probably makes more sense to combine them into one article. - Ahunt (talk) 12:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

They violate WP:WINAD, and Wing configuration already has as much info as will ever be in any of them.NiD.29 12:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, some of them, like Shoulder wing are much more than dictionary entries, with a fair amount of text on design and advantages, applications, etc. - Ahunt (talk) 13:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't see that at shoulder wing. I see a bunch of random factoids cobbled together with no underlying narrative, consistency or notability. IMHO the question is, could/should it be rescued? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:34, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not saying that article couldn't be improved, but it is more than a dictionary definition. I think ideally the contents of all those config articles could be combined and edited to a common style and content as sections in monoplane or wing configuration. Incidentally Braced wing is mostly covered at lift strut. - Ahunt (talk) 14:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose deletion, blanking, merging of any of these. All of them have notable independent existence outside the monoplane article and can support independent articles.

Sesquiplane is, by definition, not a monoplane.

Variable camber, variable-incidence and variable-chord wings all began with biplanes and are not dependent on being monoplanes.

The fact that better articles haven't yet been produced is no reason to assume that they can't be produced. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:20, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOTABILITY "is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article." So please cool it. I did look for significant content to pad out the first three listed, but couldn't find any. So instead I used my discretion as explained in the guideline.

Who is proposing to merge them all into the Monoplane article? I redirected sesquiplane to Biplane, so I don't understand your issue there. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

By all means opine that the missing content is to be found, but we can't wait for ever. I had already trimmed a load of desperate-fanboy trivia from them, to see if there was enough meat to be salvaged. Unless and until something better than that can be found, these grotty little stubs are best trimmed back to redirects. Even then, we might well end up with say a standalone List of Parasol-wing aircraft but no standalone article on the configuration itself. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Alternative thought - would it be possible to make a tree/bush diagram of connected aero terms, to show which terms are connected to which, and in what way? Non-aeronuts have a hard time navigating this bewildering mess of nomenclature - you can see the errors in the diagram, but I can't. Terms should be wikilinks to jump directly to that article. TGCP (talk) 21:05, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

It's a nice idea, but really there are so many combinations out there that a diagram with any meaning would need to be seven-dimensional. Anything less would be trivial or incomplete. I designed/wrote/illustrated the article on wing configurations to try and make things as clear as I knew how: each "dimension" is essentially a section containing a bulleted list. From an encyclopedic perspective the problem we have here is that some configurations, such as the delta wing are hugely notable and there is an enormous amount to say about them in their own right, while others just occur from time to time with no aeronautical continuity to make a discussion more than a dictionary definition. The articles under discussion here are borderline cases. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:26, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Grants:IEG/Wikipedia likes Galactic Exploration for Posterity 2015

Dear Fellow Wikipedians,

I JethroBT (WMF) suggested that I consult with fellow Wikipedians to get feedback and help to improve my idea about "As an unparalleled way to raise awareness of the Wikimedia projects, I propose to create a tremendous media opportunity presented by launching Wikipedia via space travel."

Please see the idea at meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Wikipedia_likes_Galactic_Exploration_for_Posterity_2015. Please post your suggestions on the talk page and please feel free to edit the idea and join the project.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter. I appreciate it.

My best regards, Geraldshields11 (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

User:FOX 52

FOX 52 (talk · contribs) is still applying styling and flag icons to lists of aircraft, despite having been involved in the consensus-building discussion above. See for example here. Please can folks keep an eye on this. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:34, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me point out that I stated early on in this debate that I had already started a massive overhaul of all air force aircraft lists. I began this endeavor back in December 2014, putting in several hundred hours work and have (currently) revamped 122 articles following this format, and basically had no opposition (expect having images removed from the tables – which started this whole brew ha-ha). And even had input from others 1 2, with no complaints on style. - So the real question, is that format so bad that my work must be reverted? FOX 52 (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

The consensus in the relevant discussion above says, yes it really is that bad. If you want to impose your personal style on dozens of Wikipedia articles, it might prove wiser in future to obtain consensus before doing so. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:19, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

FYI this was what I went off of, so it's not my "personal style" that is being imposed. Hopefully some kind of compromise can be reached -Cheers FOX 52 (talk) 22:34, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean this edit? YSSYguy (talk) 06:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

The edit link appears scrambled. But what compromise do you propose, that does not overturn a consensus already discussed and agreed on? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Obviously anything I propose will go counter to your discussion, since I began this project months before your debate. Having invested time in these lists, and bit more to lose, than some (overhauled 122 pages, over a 9 month period). I’d suggest the easiest and fairest fix, would be to remove the color styling, but keep the flag icons, as they give the reader quick ID of the origin and does NOT go against WP:MOSFLAG guidelines. Furthermore it would be a painstaking task, and I’d like to see some of work, wasn't for nothing. - FOX 52 (talk) 18:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, no. To quote from MOS:FLAGS; "In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself." In a list of aircraft types belonging to a given organisation, the flags are not pertinent to the purpose of the list. This is made abundantly clear in the section on Inappropriate use, where the very first subsection is Do not emphasize nationality without good reason. You have continued making these edits after participating in the main discussion and even while claiming that they conform to this Project's consensus or that they conform to MOS:FLAGS. Both claims are manifestly false and on occasion have led another editor into bad edits (e.g. see here). I have no more time for this mess of untruths and disruption. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:04, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

No my involvement was only pertaining to the images inside the table nothing more beyond that. And leaving the flag icon's is not a some silly nationalistic tactic for a table and doesn't refer to an organization only the origin (country). - FOX 52 (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

None of which - even if credited as more than spin and half-truth - is relevant to MOS:FLAG or to the consensus agreed above. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the logic in wanting the removal the icons, except it seems to be a personal preference and your so-called consensus appears to have omitted these opinions [5] [6]. WP:MOSFLAG leaves the door open to either rout. It's one thing if it's a tech issue, but another if it's a "I just don't like it" deal. Finally my nine months of work on these articles are more than just "untruths and disruption" - FOX 52 (talk) 21:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The following reasons mitigate against using icons:

they take up space better used for information, as laid out in the format agreed upon here.
they cause columns to wrap, which makes the table look ugly and inconsistent. It is worse if the table is viewed on a cell phone.
they massively increase load times as each flag's template gets loaded - this is a problem for people on slow connections.
they do not add additional info. The name of the country is there. The flag is nothing but decoration.
how long you've been working on lists is irrelevant - I have been working on lists far longer, and others longer still. We are not talking content, but formatting. I used to like flags, but the problems they cause are not worth it.
Wikipedia works by consensus - not by fiat, not by people going their own way, but by working together, and deciding to ignore an agreed upon formatting standard because you don't like it is behaviour that is likely to get you banned.NiD.29 03:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Takes up space? 3 letter spaces, is not gonna break the bank
Massively increase load times, doubtful in the age of high speed internet
Viewed on my phone and desk top looks fine, so not sure what issue you having there.
At a glance the flagicon is a way better visual cue than the text for quick reference
The concerted effort I've made trying to bring conformity to these lists (updating numbers, wikilinking variants & adding pertinent info) is very relevant.

You might have a different tune, if you had work on one specific project over the past year, achieving 80% of the goal only to find out it needs to be changed. Were working together? After trying to make a suggestion, the response I got started with "Sorry, no" - WP:TALKEDABOUTIT - FOX 52 (talk) 05:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

The claim that MOS:FLAGS allows such usage is false. Nothing could be clearer. Allow me to draw it to your attention once more to the section on Inappropriate use and specifically the subsection on Do not emphasize nationality without good reason:

'Flags are visually striking, and placing a national flag next to something can make its nationality or location seem to be of greater significance than other things. For example, with an English flag next to him, Paul McCartney looks like an "English singer-songwriter from Liverpool who was in the Beatles"; without the flag next to him, he looks like an "English singer-songwriter from Liverpool who was in the Beatles". Emphasizing the importance of a person's citizenship or nationality above their other qualities risks violating Wikipedia's "Neutral point of view" policy.'

We are identifying the country that built the plane, we are not identfying the country that built the plane. It really is that plain and unarguable, there is absolutely no wriggle room for you, so will you please stop pushing untruths about WP:MOS. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

@Steelpillow: "Focus on improvements, not rules" WP:NOTFATRAT I think it helped, but you seem to have your personal preference so I'll let it be - FOX 52 (talk) 17:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Didn't we just settle this issue? And as long as Steel isn't asking Fox to undo Fox's own work, why cry about all the hard work being undone? If all that's being removed is the flags, what's the big deal? - BilCat (talk) 07:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Bill your right, I just fear in 6 months from now these sections may still be in disarray, (sometimes editors lose interest, etc..with no follow through) so in the end I will probably be undoing my own work to please the community - FOX 52 (talk) 17:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Fox, I appreciate the work that you do on WP, especially in fighting trivial additions to Operators sections, which is something I also worm on, so I notice it. I think we've all had times when we worked on something that later turned out to be unwanted, but perhaps not to the degree of your case with the aircraft lists. As a whole, WPAIR and WPAVIATION has been facing opposition from certain guideline-wonk factions, such as the one that lead to the deletion of the {{aviation lists}} navbox, that try to undo much of the work the project has done in standardization of aircraft and aviation articles. So we're familiar with what you're going through now. There clearly isn't a consensus for using country flags in the lists, but honestly, it's not that difficult to remove them. As to the rest of your style changes to the lists, I haven't looked at them in detail to see which is better, but to be honest, I don't work well with list tables, so I don't usually edit them at all. But if you honestly believe your style has merits, then make a case for it, minus the flags of course. But I don't see that harping on the fact that all your work is being undone will help your case at this point. - BilCat (talk) 17:41, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

@BilCat: Thanks I very much appreciate encouragement - just want the user experience on WP to be the best it can be (as am sure we all do) - Cheers FOX 52 (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Takes up space? 3 letter spaces, is not gonna break the bank - it is often more than three spaces due to the way the country name is presented, which requires a lot of extra text to change.
Massively increase load times, doubtful in the age of high speed internet - not everyone has high speed internet, and not everyone has it all the time. Every flag that is included requires the full data from that template to be loaded. On a list with dozens of different flags, this can triple the page size easily, and for larger pages, this can be a problem. Before I completely revamped it, List of fighter aircraft used to have flags, but their removal not only provided more space for things like the full aircraft name, it also reduced load times dramatically, even on a high speed connection. While it won't change much for some piddly little lists, consistency demands we go with what works for all the lists.
Viewed on my phone and desk top looks fine, so not sure what issue you having there. - according to your ideas as to what looks good - others have different opinions, and since it is nothing more than useless beautification, it is against
At a glance the flagicon is a way better visual cue than the text for quick reference - it isn't required - that is why there is a sort option - so you can sort all the aircraft from one country together. Unless someone has gone and broken it with crossbars and photos and excessive notes.
The concerted effort I've made trying to bring conformity to these lists (updating numbers, wikilinking variants & adding pertinent info) is very relevant. - and you think you are the only one who has done so? Or continues to do so? The reason there was a discussion here was about the need for a consistent format, and one was decided upon. Which you then chose to ignore.NiD.29 19:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I still beleive adding pictures facilities the reading of any article. Smart Phones come bigger than years ago and make it easy to read. I have an iPad and pictures don't harm the reading. buccaneer (talk) 15:51, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

At it again

FOX 52 (talk · contribs) is still applying styling to lists of aircraft. This was one of the complaints I originally raised in this discussion. The consensus to avoid in-page styling had just been reached. That discussion is archived here and the outcome is now enshrined in WP:AVLIST. Worse, Fox 52 is making no mention in edit comments but is slipping it in underneath other edits, making it look as if this editor is still deliberately trying to evade the above consensus. See for example here, here and here. I have posted on their talk page to ask for an explanation but I am close to a formal complaint of WP:DISRUPTION. Suggestions welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:43, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Text alignment in lists

The wikitabe format tends to display text vertically centered in each cell. At Egyptian Air Force the text has been aligned with the top of each cell. WP:AVLIST says we should not use in-page styling without good reason. Is there a good reason for lists beloning to Air Forces to be aligned different to the wikitable default? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:06, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

As the perpetrator, I was working on the basis that when you have unequal height blocks of text in columns you get odd looking effects. [This is not notable with tables of numbers.]

Quick example table
Name	In use	Number	Note
Alpha	1953- 1968	24	Initially loaned but purchased 1958. Replaced with Beta from 1966

I've looked for MoS guidance but only comment on vertical align is in Help:Table#Vertical_alignment_in_cells "By default, data in tables is vertically centrally aligned, which results in odd-looking layouts like this:" where I've just notices that the "valign=" is deprecated in favour of CSS. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Seems like there's not enough interest to form a consensus either way. I would hope that, once these list tables get edited down to conform with WP:AVLIST; short Notes, no multiple variants on different lines, etc., the need for added styling should disappear. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

You can convert the Notes into Footnotes.

Quick example table
Name	In use	Number	Note
Alpha	1953-1968	24	^{[fn 1]}

footnotes

^ Initially loaned but purchased 1958. Replaced with Beta from 1966

-- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of MH-60CZ Multi-Role Helicopter for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article MH-60CZ Multi-Role Helicopter is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MH-60CZ Multi-Role Helicopter until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

For any interested editors - FOX 52 (talk) 02:55, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Easy Jet

Proposal to move at Talk:Easy Jet (horse) to Easy Jet. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:24, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Jumbo Jet (jumbo jet)

Just a belated note here that a new debate over whether "Jumbo Jet" is the proper (nick)-name of the 747 is now on its second re-listing at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 October 16 § Jumbo jet. Wbm1058 (talk) 11:52, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

AfD

The List of aircraft by tail number has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Removal of airline/destinations on airport articles and AfD of airline destination lists

Just letting everyone know about two significant discussions going on concerning aviation articles.

There is a discussion here about removing the airline/destination lists from airport articles.

There is also a deletion discussion for all of the "[airline] destinations" pages.

Of course, any comments should go in those articles, not here. AHeneen (talk) 00:28, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

"Jumbo jet"

The usage of "jumbo jet" is under discussion, see talk:jumbo jet (disambiguation) -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 08:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Why maintain structured data here instead of at Wikidata?

I made a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airlines#Why_maintain_structured_data_here_instead_of_at_Wikidata.3F and would welcome some feedback. Bovlb (talk) 04:34, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

List of aircraft by tail number - relisted for deletion

It's dithering time. Please visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of aircraft by tail number and give your two penn'orth. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Surveillance blimp‎

Moved to Talk:Surveillance blimp § Article creation

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:09, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Dynamic Sport

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dynamic Sport. - Ahunt (talk) 14:51, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Aviation in India

New article Aviation in India, thoughts as we dont have any other aviation in foo type articles. MilborneOne (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Cirrus SR22 lack of objectivity?

I found the Cirrus SR22 article smelling too much of company publicity and offered some slight changes - they were promptly reverted. How to tackle this? Or am I over-zealous? Jan olieslagers (talk) 21:01, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with your change Jan, it is one of the articles we have that is regularly changed to show the aircraft in a good light particularly over emphasis of the parachute system and safety issues. Best to raise stuff on the talk page if it gets out of hand. MilborneOne (talk) 12:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Recent edits all seem to have returned the article to a more neutral tone now. Thank you everyone for working on it. - Ahunt (talk) 15:52, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Kogalymavia Flight 9268

Article for Kogalymavia Flight 9268 has been created and like all new accident articles will probably need a tidy up when the surge of changes dies down, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 08:52, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

There is a bit of discussion about article naming at Talk:Kogalymavia Flight 9268#Page move. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

See Draft:Aviation automation. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 22:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Also Draft:Gender and pilot performance, although this one looks like an essay. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 17:40, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

[1] Initially loaned but purchased 1958. Replaced with Beta from 1966

[fn 1]