Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft

WikiProject Aircraft talk — Archives

Fajr Aviation & Composites Industry

This looks like an advert to me, creator's only contribs are related to this article. Just going through some of the unassessed articles. Nimbus (talk) 12:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly is! AfD candidate unless rewritten from a NPOV IMHO. --Red Sunset 20:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's a copyvio; I'm going to speedy it as such. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great, I'm too technically inept to sort it out. The phrase 'our blah-di-blah' raised my eyebrows! Nimbus (talk) 21:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the threat of its being deleted attracted the attention of the main editor who has now further developed the article. Still needs work, but it's less problematical and not a copyvio anymore. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Avyear

Now that date linking has been deprecated (See:MOS:UNLINKDATES), and people are combing through articles removing the links to days and year,[1] is now the time to push Template:Avyear into standard use? How about changing {{Infobox Aircraft}} so that if someone entered |first flight =10 May 1972 the Template would autoformat it to 10 May Template:Avyear. Should this template be used throughout the page or (I believe) just in the infobox? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 14:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that avyear should only be used in the infobox and should just be used to link the first flight year to the related aviation in year article. MilborneOne (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that seems to be the case so far with articles using it. And I think now it would be best to not edit the infobox, but the articles themselves. This is a good task for a bot or AWB. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 17:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that the "in aviation year" works well in the infobox but should not appear anywhere else as firstly, autodates are not consistent, often have no context connection in a wikilink and for the sake of simplicity, removing a date link just makes editing and reading easier, especially for the 99.9999% who are users with no date preferences set for their browsers. On a complimentary front, Lightmouse's Lighbot has already removed the in aviation links in infoboxes. I have asked him to adjust his bot's operation to allow the infobox to have a link to an aviation date list. I hope he picks up soon as his bot has already trashed gazillions of infoboxes. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]

For now, I have stopped the bot removing 'in-aviation'. However, I wish we could have statistics on click-through rates. I would bet that links that look like solitary years are treated like solitary years. If the link is concealed/piped/camouflaged/easter-egged, then readers will probably just ignore it. Readers do not just randomly click on links in the hope that they will go somewhere other than the text implies. Have you seen the music guidelines on this at Wikipedia:MUSTARD#Internal_links and similar discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Films/Style_guidelines#Film_years? They suggest alternate methods that make it more visible and hence less likely to be ignored. The music and film projects have the same interests in this as the aviation project. You may find their comments useful to your debate here. Lightmouse (talk) 18:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the premise that "in aviation dates" could be eliminated in the body of the text but there is a general agreement that the years listing can be of use in a limited way, I also work in the WP:Films group and that project group also uses these date links judiciously. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:34, 5 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Indeed. Eliminating 'year-in-blah' is one issue. The other issue is making them look less like a solitary year. Please look at the suggestions for appearance enhancements. Lightmouse (talk) 19:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the full term "year in aviation" could eliminate the stand-alone date issue, and if only used in one specific way and location, that could also prompt the deprecation of other date linking in the body of the articles which is the general direction that is being discussed in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]

But how would we use the full term and have it look ok:

First flight 10 May 1972 in aviation

First flight 10 May 1972 (in aviation)

First flight 10 May 1972^{1972 in aviation}

First flight 10 May 1972^{in aviation}

First flight 10 May 1972^{(in aviation)}

- Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 20:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another thought would be to use a category instead like Category:First flown in 1972 and not use avyear. 1972 in aviation would then link from the cat. Might save some grief. MilborneOne (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MilborneOne: I like your idea! - Ahunt (talk) 22:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the category could probably can be done with the Av year template. If it did that you'd want to show the year in black instead of linking. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Dates has been changed to the following:

Avoid piping links from "year" to "year something" or "something year" (e.g., 1991) in the main prose of an article in most cases. Use an explicit cross-reference, e.g. (see 1991 in music), if it is appropriate to link a year to such an article at all. However, piped links may be useful:
in places where compact presentation is important (some tables, infoboxes and lists);

- Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This has been a losing battle for some time now. I've given up and will not be linking any more years. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Avro Vulcan XM655 - individually notable?

Is this particular Vulcan notable enough for a separate article? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I dont think so it doesnt appear to have been notable in service (outside chance if it had been one of the Black Buck aircraft) just that it had survived in one piece, also see Vulcan Restoration Trust which is really an article about Vulcan XL426. Only XH558 is notable due to the long and very public campaign to get her flying again. The other two are fine with just a mention on the Avro Vulcan page. MilborneOne (talk) 21:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survivors series

Discussion on these articles is taking place in a couple of places - I'm centralising it here - please jump back in! --Rlandmann (talk) 05:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested template and category

I wonder if someone could create a template for aircraft engines without (or missing) specifications based on {{aero-specs}} probably and a category 'Aircraft engines without specifications' to go with it. I looked at doing it but the coding was too much!! I posted this on the template page but had no reply, excuse me for cross posting. I hope that this is a good idea, it would help me greatly as I am trying to improve the engine articles slowly. Many thanks. Nimbus (talk) 18:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a basic {{Aeroengine-specs}} template and a category Category:Aircraft engines without specifications to go with it. I have only tagged a couple of articles to check that it works and have not included the template or category in the project yet. If this is ok then I would appreciate it if someone could add this to the relevant sub-categories. Fingers crossed for approval! Cheers Nimbus (talk) 16:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unlinking dates

Maybe I'm the last one to find out about this, but in case there's someone more dense than I around here, I thought I'd spread the word. It's been an MOS rule of thumb to wikilink dates so that user preferences can apply to date formats (ie, so that 12 September appears as 12 September and September 12 appears as September 12, depending on how you have your prefs set).

Evidently, some folks disagree, and though it doesn't appear that a strong consensus was formed, the MOS has now been changed (see MOS:UNLINKDATES) and now we're told we are not to link dates. Sigh. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I for one am glad to see the end of wikilinking dates; it is a tedious process and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, often means that important aviation links, or those related to aviation, or to the subject matter, end up disappearing in a sea of blue links. The more links that are highlighted the less likely people are to actually use them, especially if the link bears no relationship to the information contained in the article (my feeling also is that if something is wikilinked once in an article it does not have to be wikilinked again, unless the references are spread well apart). Minorhistorian (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Designer field in Infobox Aircraft

The instructions for the Template:Infobox Aircraft regarding the "Designer" field cleary state: Only appropriate for single designers, not project leaders. However, this instruction is not present in the infobox in most of the aircraft articles. In fact, some WP:AIR members in good standing appear to regularly add project leaders such as Ed Heinemann (sp?) to WWII and 1950s era aircraft pages. In fact, I removed a project leader from the F-16 page's infobox last week! Where this becomes a unique problem is with Soviet/Russian Design bureaus: The articles are titled after the Design bureaus, not the actual builder of the aircraft. That's fine, but some editors, typically those from the former Soviet block, are placing the Design bureaus in the Designer field, and placing the assembler in the Manufacturers field.

Bearing in mind that guidelines generally need to reflect usage, not dictate it, what should we do about these problems? Disable the design field altogether? Allow/expand it to include project leaders and/or Design bureaus? Add a separate field for Design bureaus? Or just change the guidelines to be more lenient, or even allow any of the above uses to be the norm? - BillCJ (talk) 15:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Provide a guideline to the effect that the field is mainly for a single individual that did the vast majority of the aircraft design. I think listing the Design bureau or similar is fine as that's a special case. It should be clear the bureau is not a single person so there won't be confusion. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main problem is that the template gives the quite reasonable guideline comment  but people keep removing the comment. Then others come along and fill in whatever they like. I don't think that on a Tupolev aircraft that the designer space needs to say "Tupolev Design Bureau", it is pretty self-evident in most cases. I have been replacing the comments wherever I find they have been deleted and that seems to fix the problem in most cases. - Ahunt (talk) 16:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the same tact, would it be useful to have a separate entry for Project Leaders/Design Bureau that would accommodate the note that a significant designer/engineer/office was also involved? I am thinking of an important figure such as "Kelly" Johnson who would be a team leader but not specifically an individual designer, especially in his later career. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]

I'll admit that I've also started using the "designer" field for Soviet design bureaux and the manufacturer field for the manufacturing plant - I think to do otherwise seriously distorts our presentation of how aircraft were produced during that era. I've also occasionally done the same for homebuilt aircraft where the "designer" is less clearly an individual than an organisation, and put "homebuilt" in the manufacturer field.

I'm more wary of project leaders, however. The danger is implying a stronger degree of "authorship" of the design to the project leader than was really the case - the infobox is a prominent spot. When the design was by an organisation other than the manufacturer/builder, there's no chance of this confusion (as Fnlayson notes). There's also the problem of knowing whether the senior or head designer of a particular company was actually the project leader for a particular aircraft in question. To avoid these minefields, I'm inclined to suggest that we continue to disallow project leaders. --Rlandmann (talk) 19:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also concur with Jeff (Fnlayson) on allowing Soviet design bureaus to be used in the designer field. I do have one other, similar usage I've seen, and that is putting the licensed builder in the manf field, and the orignal manf. in the designer field. The oddest of of these I've seen was for the CH-124 Sea King, in which Sikorsky Aircraft was listed as the designer, with United Aircraft Canada as the manf. I say odd because UAC (now PW Canada) and Sikorsky are both owned United Aircraft (now United Technologies), and, AFAIK, all UAC did in this case was the assembly. I really don't have a problem with this type of usage per se, but usually we've just placed both the licenser and licensee in the manf. field with a line break. - BillCJ (talk) 22:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Aircraft

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Survivors" - the immediate issues

User:Andrewa has done a great job of picking out the points of contention (and I've added a fifth) - please indicate your opinions here --Rlandmann (talk) 06:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfC/U

A Request for Comment on the conduct of User:Davegnz has been opened here. Community input is invited from editors who have had interactions with him. To see how you can participate, go here --Rlandmann (talk) 01:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AfD nomination of 2008 South Carolina Learjet 60 crash

An article that you have been involved in editing, 2008 South Carolina Learjet 60 crash, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 South Carolina Learjet 60 crash. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice?

Note the Nom's explanation! - BillCJ (talk) 23:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP 0.7 clean-up

We might want to organize a clean-up on the pre-selected articles for WP 0.7. I'd also recommend taking a look at some articles that didn't make it, but should have. One example is the Sukhoi Su-30, which is rated C-class (which I thought we weren't using?), but has very little depth to it. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:52, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Company merge proposals

An editor has propsed merging several companies at Talk:Aérospatiale#Merger proposal. At issue are a set of draft guidelines from Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information which recommend covering all of a companies predecessors on the same page, under the latest name. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 18:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions - US military aircraft

During the various discussions about the "survivors series", the issue of how we name articles about US military aircraft has come up a couple of times.

A little bit of background:

Some of the major driving forces behind Wikipedia's naming conventions have been: to ensure that duplicate articles didn't get created, and to maximise the chance that a new article will already be linked to by former redlinks scattered throughout the rest of the project.

"Designation-name" was adopted back in 2003 as a convention for naming these articles because it was felt (correctly, I think), that people writing articles on, say, World War II topics would be more likely to make a link to "P-51 Mustang" than a link to "North American P-51".

Five years on:

Things are a little different in 2008; the vast bulk of US military aircraft now have articles - really only the truly obscure are left to cover. There are also 5 years' worth of redirects in place, reducing the chance of duplicates being accidentally created.

What we're left with, then, is a situation where a small but extremely signficiant subset of our articles are named at odds with how the overwheming bulk of our aircraft coverage is named, and how entries on these types in aviation publishing are usually titled (for whatever that's worth).

If we were to change the convention, the real work wouldn't be in the page moves - they're fast and easy - but with adjusting the dozens of templates we've been laboriously implementing this year. Of course, that wouldn't have to happen overnight, but it would still be a big job. There may be a bot out there that could do it - I haven't looked into this.

So: could we have a quick show of hands on the following? --Rlandmann (talk) 23:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Assumptions: In the following, it's assumed that

"name" continues to only be official names; thus "Fighting Falcon", not "Viper", no "Aardvark"
article names continue to reflect the most common name for the family and don't attempt to capture every different designation applied to this aircraft and its variants (eg, P-51 Mustang, not P-51/F-51/A-36/F-6 Mustang/Invader/Apache, F4U Corsair, not F4U/FG/F2G/AU Corsair/Super Corsair; B-29 Superfortress, not B-29/P2B/F-13 Superfortress/Washington)

Leave things as they are

Designation-name, except when no name, then Manufacturer-designation
Eg: P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair

I would leave things as they are. With proper redirect pages anything remotely close to the aircraft's name will get readers to the aircraft article, so let's save all the potential labour and work on making the articles better instead. - Ahunt (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Concur. Except that since we're discussing a US topic, it would save "labor". ;) - BillCJ (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of work for little or nothing to gain it seems. Also, there would be discussions/arguments over which manufacturer to use where mergers and acquisitions are involved. -Fnlayson (talk) 02:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem (although I did to start with!) Nimbus (talk) 22:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Better to leave things as they are; wholesale changes would just make things confusing to readers, especially those who might not know the manufacturer but know the name or designation.Minorhistorian (talk) 23:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is my preference only by a slight edge over mfr-designation-name, mainly because of the Wikipedia convention that articles should generally use the most common usage of a name. AKRadecki^Speaketh 04:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Parenthetical question for Rlandmann...in your "assumptions" section above, you said "no Aardvark"...and that leads me to a question...what are we going to use to judge whether a name is official? I'm asking because DoD 4120-15L lists "Aardvark" as the official name for the F-111, but the article's name doesn't use it (it's not even in the lead paragraph, although it's the title of the infobox...I don't care which way we go, but we should a) have some consistency and b) agree on what determines a name to be official). AKRadecki^Speaketh 04:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The F-111 was nicknamed Aardvark until the US Air Force retired it in 1996 and made the name official. That's a rare case for US official names. See F-111D/F Aardvark -Fnlayson (talk) 04:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yet we have SR-71 Blackbird, where "Blackbird", to my knowledge, was never official. I have no problem with "Blackbird" being in the article title, but to exclude "Aardvark" seems inconsistant. - BillCJ (talk) 05:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry guys - Aardvark was evidently a poor choice of example on my part; the nickname was indeed made official at the type's retirement. I included the comment as an assumption because, well, I assumed that's what we were doing! I'm sure I've seen chat about this over the years, but can't point to any right off the top of my head. But yes, I agree with the comments above that we should be consistent, and have some point of reference to judge the "official" status of a name. DoD 4120-15L would seem to be a sensible choice for contemporary types. The Naval Historical Center has a document here for past types - I couldn't find anything comparable for the Army/Air Force. As for the Blackbird, if that name's not actually official (and indeed, it's not in DoD 4120-15L), then notwithstanding anything else that we collectively come up with, I think this would be a clear case of being trumped by "common sense" - the usage is pretty widespread ;) (FWIW, the NASM says the name was official) But are we in agreement that "Fighting Falcon" is better in an article name than "Viper", and "Thunderbolt II" over "(Wart)hog"? --Rlandmann (talk) 06:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue to leave things as they are - I say this entirely for ease of use. On the occasions when I've had to make a link to an aircraft article, I've found the American ones simple to link to, whilst the RAF designations have usually involved a bit of ferreting around to find the right name. Lots of redirects are good, though! Shimgray | talk | 08:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Change to manufacturer-designation

(except for (rare, early) cases when no designation, then Manufacturer-name)
Eg: North American P-51, Chance-Vought F4U

Just to play devils advocate her, but this form would standardize manufacturers of both civil and military aircraft, such as Douglas (C-47 Skytrain = military version of Douglas DC-3) - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Change to manufacturer-name

The "RAF solution" :)
(except when no name, then Manufacturer-designation")
Eg: North American Mustang, Chance-Vought Corsair

Change to manufacturer-designation-name

(leaving out whatever elements don't apply or are sufficiently ambiguous)
Eg: North American P-51 Mustang, Chance-Vought F4U Corsair

The current situation is anomalous and the reasoning behind it is no longer applicable. This is what most reference works do, I think. --Rlandmann (talk) 23:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This would be my preferred solution as it follows standard reference usage. I can continue to (unenthusiastically) live with leaving it as is, though. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something else?

Armstrong Siddeley Nimbus

Eee! Found an engine with my name! Would appreciate a bit of help with this article please. My fairly good reference book has no mention of this piston engine, it does mention that the ADC Aircraft ADC Nimbus was a redesign of the Siddeley Puma (which I think this is probably referring to) and I am fairly sure that it is not supposed to be the Bristol Siddeley Nimbus turboshaft. Any thoughts? Cheers Nimbus (talk) 18:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only google hits on Armstrong Siddeley Nimbus are to the wikipedia article our mirrors so I suspect this is really the ADC Nimbus. Doesnt clear up your question but I did find this on the ADC Nimbus [2]. The Bristol Siddeley Nimbus turboshaft was originally a Blackburn design so I dont think it is connected. MilborneOne (talk) 18:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think this is relating to the ADC Nimbus and Siddeley Puma. Does not fit with the 'big cat' series which is apparent in the navbox. There is not much to merge, AfD? Nimbus (talk) 18:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought a WP:PROD would work. MilborneOne (talk) 18:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Will give it a go, have not done that before, seems a reasonable course of action. Nimbus (talk) 18:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now prodded. Just to add to the fun there are two more AS engines that could be covered, the Armstrong Siddeley Hyena and the Armstrong Siddeley Deerhound which appears to be a dog, not a cat! Doh! Nimbus (talk) 19:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And there's the Armstrong Siddeley Boarhound, another unfeline three-row radial, although unlike the other two it appears never to have flown.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe they ran out of cats! Mentioned in the index of Alec Lumsden's book and mispelt as 'Boardhound' but there is nothing in the text, he does only cover the engines that flew though. It's an educational journey anyway. Cheers Nimbus (talk) 19:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted under CSD 8, have unlinked the section title incase you get red eyes like mine!! It's hard work plodding through these engine articles but I hope I am improving the quality. Nimbus (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kaset Green Hawk

Here is a new article that could really use some serious work, if anyone has the time to have a look at it! I have my doubts about the photos included as they are all stamped for ownership on the photos themselves. - Ahunt (talk) 12:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have had an editorial run though this article, but it could really use a second and third look. - Ahunt (talk) 13:33, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sud-Est/Sud-Ouest

A user has proposed moveing the articles on two aircraft manufacturers, Sud-Est and Sud-Ouest, to other titles, and converting the existing pages to DABs. Input from the WP:AIR community would be helpful. There are two separate but similar discussions at Talk:Sud-Est and Talk:Sud-Ouest. Note: the user has placed five to sixx DAB links on each article. - BillCJ (talk) 21:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Bill Gunston calls them SNCASE and SNCASO, we have SNECMA which is a familiar term to us hopefully, and the Belgians had SABCA so the French speakers seem to have a convention going back many years. I disagree with the other proposal of merging these companies and others into Aerospatiale, many of us are deliberately creating or expanding articles on the smaller (but very notable) companies that were eventually merged with larger US/British companies. Seems just to be a naming problem, the DAB tags look silly, I would guess he is trying to make a point. Nimbus (talk) 22:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I checked Gunston's book on aircraft manf's beforehand, and thst's what it said. I think the Acronym is better than spelling out the whole name, which is what the French and German WPs do. - BillCJ (talk) 05:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Daniels (Defense Consultant)

A user has added an article on Mark Daniels (Defense Consultant). Originally, it had no sources, but there is now a vague link to F16.net. Tho that is primarily a forum site, it does have other content, but without a direct link there's no way to know where the info came from. - BillCJ (talk) 05:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the CSD tag on it! - Ahunt (talk) 10:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that I just knocked back the speedy deletion request. While I very much doubt that this person is notable, the article does make some claims of notability so it needs to go to AfD or be prodded. Nick Dowling (talk) 10:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added the Prod template. Nick Dowling (talk) 23:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P-47 Thunderbolt survivors

Please note that P-47 Thunderbolt survivors has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/P-47 Thunderbolt survivors. MilborneOne (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this can be considered a good-faith nomination, as Dave is deleting this because he still thinks it's his article, it spite of being to to the contrary on many occasions. Also, it's not even been a month yet since the last AFD. Seems to be another disruption to make a point. - BillCJ (talk) 19:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Engine navbox?

Trawling through the engine articles I can see a common system for later US military engines, like J79 (for turboJet) etc. It would be nice to start a navbox but I have no references apart from the articles here. Any thoughts/help? Cheers Nimbus (talk) 01:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment. If you are grouping engines by manufacturer, their web site might be enough for this. Although some companies may just list their current engines, which won't help you. -Fnlayson (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jeff, I just found this, no idea how accurate it is but it's something to look at tomorrow. I was thinking of a navbox for the US military designations but we do still have some major engine manufacturer navboxes missing (P&W, GE, Allison etc). I think the navboxes are great and probably a more useful tool to editors than the reader. Nimbus (talk) 01:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was just about to suggest that site, Nimbus! Andreas is very good, and he usually uses DOD PD documents as his main source, but he cites other works on that page too. The page lines up with everything I've ever read on the subject of US DOD engine designations. I will look around and see if I can find a published work to reference the definitions form, just in case the wonks won't accept this site as a reliable source. - BillCJ (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) Thanks Bill, as it is just for a navbox refs should not be a problem, I saw his list of sources and it looks pretty good to me. Seems to be an awful lot of numbers to put together! What to call it? US military aircraft engine designations? Do you ever wish that you never started something!! Nimbus (talk) 01:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"US military aero engines" Aero engine may not apply to piston engines though. ?? -Fnlayson (talk) 01:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thought aero engine was a British term! :-) I was only going to do the jets and turbines to start with. Nimbus (talk) 02:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see Andreas uses 'aero engine' so can go with that. I have made a start in a sandbox here if any of you guys would like to chip in. Many of the entries have auto-completed to DAB pages and articles on tanks, trains and all sorts of other wonderful things, needs a thorough sorting before moving it to mainspace. I've stuck with turbines at the moment, it could have piston and rocket engines added later or they might be better with their own navboxes. Also need to go back over it to pull out redlinked numbers that did not exist. Great fun, cheers. Nimbus (talk) 12:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reference sources

A while back I was "called out" by the FA people (well, person) because they considered the references in F-20 Tigershark to be unreliable. The references in question were Mark Wade and Joe Baugher, both of whom I consider to be highly reliable. In Joe's work, for instance, the only error I ever turned up was one that was in the original source (Greene).

So, what say you all? Do you consider Joe to be reliable enough to quote here?

Maury (talk) 19:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually we had this debate some time ago. While his work is excellent, the main problem is that Baugher is self-published and thus runs afoul of the Wikipedia policy at WP:SPS. - Ahunt (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care about policy, I care about article quality. Policies are subject to change (see above), trustworthyness generally isn't. Maury (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While sources like this are certainly high quality and trustworthy, technically as self published web-pages by people who are not published experts, they may struggle to meet the letter of WP:RS, so using them will cause problems when trying to get an article through GA or FA review. I think that a compromise could be that, where a source of Equal or better quality that meets WP:RS can be found (such as the sources that Baugher quotes in his articles, then use them. If not, then you may need to accept that the sources may be subject to challenge.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"'While sources like this are certainly high quality and trustworthy"

If you believe this, and I'm assuming you do, then that's all I'm interested in.

If the SPS policy outlaws sources we, the experts in the field, consider "high quality and trustworthy", then the SPS needs to change.

I think it's vitally important we consider the spirit of the law. The REF system is attempting to weed out low-quality sources, that's its entire raison de etre. Most SPS's tend to be low quality. So by generally outlawing SPS's, SPS reduces the amount of bad quality refs.

But as SPS notes, not all SPS's are bad. And I think we all agree that Joe is not bad (right?). We shouldn't be removing a good source because it falls into a category that was intended to weed out bad sources.

If there is any sort of consensus here that Joe's works are trustworthy, then that absolutely overrules the SPS. This is not the first time this sort of issue has come up.

Maury (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the WP:SPS policy needs to be changed. The challenge in doing so is then how to judge a good quality self-published source from a poor one. - Ahunt (talk) 20:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One immediate hallmark of a quality SPS is that it lists its sources, as Baugher does. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]