Talk:F117

F117
Originally posted at User talk:Fnlayson:

The dash may have meaning to an avionics person, but redirects are about common usage, not jargon. They are not meant to educate people by bringing them to the wrong article, when we know perfectly well that it's not the article they were really trying to find. If you look at the pages that link to the F117 page, they all refer to the plane. Right or wrong, they do. And F117 isn't even the designation of the turbofan; it's F117-PW-100. "F117" and "F-117" are lot more similar than "F117" and "F117-PW-100". In fact, at no point in the turbofan article does it say that anyone might at any time simply call it an F117. It might be true, and maybe you have some experience with that, but it is esoteric and way outside the scope of a redirect.

Redirects aren't about getting the punctuation 100% accurate; in fact, they are designed for the very reason that people tend not to get the punctuation right every time. We take terms that people are likely to search for and redirect them to the articles that they are most likely to be searching for. The article that is most commonly searched for in this case is obviously - unquestionably, absolutely - the airplane. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 03:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This particular Gordian knot has been cut by turning F117 into a letter-number combination dab page. (Also, the turbofan is indeed designated "F117"; "F117-PW-100" is the particular variant of the turbofan) - The Bushranger One ping only 04:04, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Where does it say that in the article? Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 04:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, yet; I'm adding it now. However, that's how the U.S. military designation system works. Also: - specifically, "Our F117 turbofan engines are the exclusive propulsion system for the C-17 Globemaster. III transport..." - The Bushranger One ping only 04:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you cite a different variant of the F117, other than the F117-PW-100? Seems to me they're just using it as an abbreviation because the full designation is long and awkward and doesn't lend itself to press releases. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 04:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * At the moment, there are no other F117 variants, but assuming it's "shorthand" isn't how the U.S. military's engine designation system works. It's just like the aircraft designation system; the "F-16" is the basic variant, the "F-16C-42" a more specific one - but even in cases where there is only one variant, the base designation is always the simplest one, in this case engine type (F for turboFan) and sequence number (117th engine designated in the sequence). -PW indicates the manufacturer (Pratt & Whitney), and -100 is the subtype of F117. The -PW-100 part is never part of the base designation, as (while not nearly as common nowadays as in the past) the engine could be subcontracted to other manufacturers, and other variants could be designated (and assuming there won't be falls foul of WP:CRYSTAL). See for instance the LHTEC T800 (which is an out-of-sequence number for reasons the Army only knows why); only one military variant, but only the short-form designation is commonly used . See also  and especially  - a National Research Council publication, hardly a press release. - The Bushranger One ping only 04:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, first of all, assuming there will not be another type absolutely does not fall foul of WP:CRYSTAL. The burden is on you to prove something exists (or is, at the very least, almost certain to someday exist), not on me to prove it doesn't or won't. I'm appalled to see a fellow admin so badly misuse that policy.
 * Secondly, what you wrote up there is exactly the sort of esoteric jargon I mentioned earlier. People who search for F117 aren't interested in a lesson in US military avionics designations, and this isn't the forum to teach them. They just want the article they searched for. We should always be thinking of the readers, not of ourselves.
 * I don't doubt that there are any number of weird little military designations for any number of weird little machine parts, but they don't matter because we go by common usage. Common usage for "F117" is&mdash;far and away, not even close&mdash;the airplane. (1.9 million Google hits for F117, of which 32,000 refer to the engine. So 1.6% of search results for the engine, and 98.4% for the plane. Just a quick and dirty number, I know, but probably not far off.) A disambiguation isn't the worst solution, but I do think it's pretty inappropriate in this case. A redirect to the airplane article with a hatnote link to the engine would be much more useful to the average reader. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 05:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And common useage for the C-17's engine is "F117", not "F117-PW-100". Serving the reader also means not providing wrong information, though. There is no such thing as a "F117" aircraft. The dash isn't esoterics, it's being correct, or as Mark Twain is reputed to have said, "the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is really quite important; it's the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug". Yes, readers might well be - wrongly - searching for "F117" and seeking the aircraft, but redirecting it to "F117" does them a disservice in that it leads them to believe "F117" is a correct designation. The dab both allows them to find what they're looking for, but also informs them that "F117" is something completely different from "F-117". That's neither picayune, esoterical, or jargon; it's simply being correct. There are two things that "F117" could mean, as a short form for the subjects' full names (even at F117-PW-100, the short, commonly used form is still just F117); the dab page provides both options and, perhaps, lets a reader say "huh - I didn't know that" - which is something we should aspire to whenever possible. (Also, neither F-117 or F117 is avionics.) Anyway, if you truly think the redirect would be better, I won't wheel-war over it, but I believe the current solution is the best possible compromise. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought the common name for the engine was PW2000. If not, the article title is wrong. Otherwise, it may be true that the most common military name is the F117, but that is too far removed from normal usage. In determining redirects, we go by most common usage in the English language. Rule of thumb is that if there are two uses of the term, we redirect to the most common one and use a hatnote for the lesser-used term. If there are three uses, we redirect to the main term and disambiguate the others.
 * The first section of a hyphenated military designation of an aircraft turbofan is the very definition of "esoteric" - understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. I strongly disagree with the idea that we should aspire to make our readers say "huh - I didn't know that". This is an encyclopedia, not a classroom, and we are writing articles, not lecturing students. We should aspire to give laymen the information they are looking for as quickly as possible. That means a redirect to the term that 98% of them are looking for, and a hatnote for the benefit of the other 2%. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 05:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The common name for the civilian version of the engine is PW2000. The common name for the military version is F117. And the military name is less common than the civilian version (which was developed first). Therfore it should be PW2000 as the name with F117 redirecting to it. "F117" is not the most common term in the English language for the stealth fighter - it's an error. And honestly I find it quite depressing that providing "technically wrong but useful" information is considered preferable to being right (as with, for instance, the local library cataloging Carl Hiaasen's Kick Ass in the fiction section "since that's where people look for it"), but I don't see the need to clog Fnlayson's talk page any longer. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong, I agree with you 100% that it is an error. But it's a very, very, common error and the point of redirects is to allow ordinary people to make errors and still give them what they were (most likely) looking for. None of this has anything to do with the articles themselves; we're not changing anything in them. We're just considering which article readers are probably looking for and we're giving it to them. It's not our job to educate readers, just to provide the information to help them educate themselves. I don't think that's depressing at all. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 06:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I suppose. Perhaps one day there'll be another F117 thingy for a proper dab and we'll all be happy then! - The Bushranger One ping only 06:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)