Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of first flights by aircraft type


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. There is consensus that this list is not in compliance with our policy on what Wikipedia is not. Barkeep49 (talk) 05:10, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Timeline of first flights by aircraft type

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Not really of any particulary encyclopedic value as it would need thousands of entries, it duplicates the information in the yearly lists in Category:Aviation by year and also the category tree Category:Aircraft by year of first flight. MilborneOne (talk) 15:16, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:21, 7 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete: With about 35,000 aircraft types have been flown, this article is ridiculously incomplete. However if it were completed it would be well beyond unwieldy as to be of no encyclopedic value at all and require splitting by year. Overall this article falls afoul of our policy WP:INDISCRIMINATE. This sort of thing is much better handled by the existing system of categories. - Ahunt (talk) 15:34, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is some value in being able to answer questions like "Which order did these planes that interest me fly in?" or "Which planes flew within three months of this one?" so I have some sympathy for the aims of the article creator. But far the best way to achieve that is with a searchable database. A dumb list of every type flown is totally unsuitable: the list of aircraft has had to be divided into nearly 100 pages to make it manageable, in the process creating nearly 99 page breaks which get in the way of answering such questions easily. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:18, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as indiscriminate. When I saw "aircraft type", I was expecting something like the first flight of a biplane, monoplane, pusher, etc., but no. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:36, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as a non-encyclopedic cross categorization (WP:NOTDIR point 6), especially given the potential scope and inevitable incompleteness. The linked categories should be sufficient. ComplexRational (talk) 22:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep, because the deletion arguments don't make sense. The deleters pose that the list-article can't work out in the future due to various misplaced fears.
 * It is supposed that the list-article will become too large because there exist 35,000 aircraft types, ignoring fact that Duh, if it grew too big, it could be split. Note we have many list-article systems that are larger and which pose no problems (I happen to work mostly on the system of places listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, which covers about a million(!) places individually listed or listed in historic districts)
 * It is supposed that splitting would have to be done by date of first flight. No, that is simply not the only way to split.  Splitting could be done by size of plane, by large types/groupings of plane, by continent/nation/other geographical approach.
 * It is supposed that the list will be indiscriminate, but in fact the list is obviously selective, and there are various ways it could be explicitly so.
 * How is this obvious? Right now, it is not clear how all 35000 entries (for all aircraft) would be selective, nor is it evident how all the entries fulfill WP:CSC (notability for each entry). I am open to more detailed reasoning, so I invite you to elaborate on how it meets these criteria. ComplexRational (talk) 16:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * It is complained that the list is incomplete, at the same time as it is complained that being complete would be bad. Hey, please make up your mind!
 * Not exactly. These are two separate concerns with separate rationales. ComplexRational (talk) 16:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * It is supposed that the list will be developed in a dumb way and be unwieldy, so it is better for readers interested to be confronted with unmanaged categories, instead. Hah!  Well, all the suggested fears apply worse for categories, which basically are unmanaged/unmanageable.  If a list would be indiscriminate, then a category is worse.  A list-based approach to presentation allows for management, i.e. selective presentation or intelligent ordering or other editing to make the list work, which can't easily be done by categories.
 * "Delete" voters seem unaware of wp:CLNT guideline that points out categories and list-articles are complementary and that essentially if a category exists then usually a list-article is justified and vice versa.
 * Indeed they do, but it's not a requirement that a category must have an associated list or vice versa. The merit of this list and its associated category must specifically be discussed. ComplexRational (talk) 16:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I dunno, maybe "Speedy Keep" is justified because there are no valid delete reasons suggested. --Doncram (talk) 13:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep does not cover reasons you might disagree with or unsound arguments (if that is the case), only cases in which the nominator does not advance a rationale and no other user !votes delete; it is thus not appropriate here. Considering that there are already four delete !votes with some rationale, it's better (and in process) at this point to let the discussion play out. ComplexRational (talk) 16:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.