Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Archive 1

Is this ready for the "Wikipedia style guidelines" category?
copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation: "[This] style page is relatively new. Was started in Jan. 2008.  Specific details with it can and should be discussed [here]." -Fnlayson (talk) 03:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So, I take it you guys are still working on this. Please feel free to add the "Wikipedia style guidelines" category when you think it's ready, and let me know so that I can make sure it's alphabetized correctly in the cat. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

notability of airports
This style guide does not mention airports. I recently proposed deletion of Willamette Falls Community Hospital Heliport and Rjd0060 deleted it. It was then undeleted after some discussion and  wherein the basic complaint is that there was no system to the deletion. DGG proposed that I start a discussion in the Aviation project space, so here I am. I would argue that the example that I proposed (Willamette Falls Community Hospital Heliport) does not meet Wikipedia's general guidelines for notability. Specifically, I would point to WP:NOTLINK and WP:NOTDIR, and the nutshell description of WP:NOTE. I would challenge those who would disagree to describe what the article might look like when it is not rated a stub. That said, I would not argue against large lists of airports (as suggested by DGG in this diff). Pdbailey (talk) 03:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The question is, whether, just as we five separate articles for all railroad stations, we should do so for all airports, even small private ones. DGG (talk) 17:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

AFD Notification
There is an airport-related AFD Discussion at Articles for deletion/Chadwick Airport. Thought you'd like to know.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability of accidents
For history, note that this was imported from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force, where it was seen as a work-in-progress. It does not precisely align with WP:ADL criteria.LeadSongDog (talk) 05:28, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Also note that WP:ADL concerns one list page, and was never intended to deal with accident articles, or accident listing in other articles, hence the non-alignment - they aren't the same thing. - BillCJ (talk) 05:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, however WP:ADL depends on the general notability criteria being applied. It there's no article to link, an event is not accepted on the list.  So the list is a strict subset of linkable articles.  IMHO, aligning criteria should at the least be considered. A lot of thought has gone into them over the years.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * IIRC, ADL was considered when the AATF guidelines were being formulated. The problem is, as you point out, the AATF are also designed to consider accidents and incidents that may be notable to an aircraft type or an airline, for example, but not notable enough for their own article. Also, the AATF guidelines are there to determine what should become an article, while the ADL deals with articles that are already written, and presumable have passed notability tests. AATF also deals with non-commercial events, which can very well be notable. In a nutshell, ADL is a list guideline only, whe AATF deals with everything else. As such, ADL is incompatible with the AATF guidelines. I'm not certain, but it sounds like you want to make ADL the guideline for the AATF, solely because it's older, and because a "lot of thought has gone into them over the years". Again, these are two different guidelines developed for different purposes. Are there specific elements in the ADL you feel that the AATF should be aligned with, other than the accidenbt article criteria? Also, you seem to be stating that AATF is not based on general notability criteria. What specific points do you believe are in conflict with notability guidelines?


 * As I see it, once the AATF guidelines are fully accepted, the notability aspects of ADL can be deleted, and it can become solely a style guide for the list article, with the criteria that all events msut have articles that have passed the WPN and AATF notability requirements. Is that what you are asking for? - BillCJ (talk) 18:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I just took a drubbing at Articles for deletion/American Airlines Flight 31, largely because this notability-guideline-in-the-guise-of-a-style-guide is being applied as if it had already been accepted. Accordingly my objectivity may be somewhat off at the moment.  Still, I've previously argued that it shouldn't take carnage to establish notability.  Lapses in safety margins are what defines an "Incident".  The reason we exclude most runway incursions is that they are so common the forest would be lost in the trees, not that they don't individually matter.  Every loss of positive control is potentially disastrous in aviation operations.  To have to accept an assertion  that smoke in the cabin air, causing emergency evacuation from an ETOPS-180 certified aircraft is so common as to be non-notable beggars the imagination.  If we are going to degenerate to needing blood before an incident is notable, that ought to go explicitly in the guideline.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

"Note: momentary news coverage, which would not last beyond the immediate timeframe of the accident, does not confer notability." - Is this intended just for General/Corporate aviation, or for all aviation accidents? It reads like the former, but it is being interpreted as the latter by some editors.LeadSongDog (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The guide for inclusion of accidents and incidents to airline and airport articles was agreed by the sub-projects earlier this year. The effort was made to make airlines and airports similar and the latest airline version from WikiProject Airlines/page content is:

Accidents or incidents should only be included if:
 * The event was fatal to either aircraft occupants or persons on the ground;
 * The event involved hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft or airport;
 * The event resulted in changes to procedures, regulations or processes affecting airports, airlines or the aircraft industry.

As you can see this is not the same as the one in this guideline!! and we have instances of this guideline being used when the projects are using the page content guidelines. Just thought i would mention it! MilborneOne (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a temporal problem that keeps coming up: sound investigations often take as much as two years from the time of an accident before tehy are published. By then the extensive-but-transient sources in the news media are much harder to locate. If we delete articles before the investigation is complete we don't have the content that was in the news media, so the articles are weaker.  Is there any reason not to use a Holding pattern (outside of article space) rather than completely deleting in such cases?LeadSongDog (talk) 18:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I would be ok with a holding pattern.  AK Radecki Speaketh  19:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Bit like Talk:List of accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft/Holding zone. MilborneOne (talk) 19:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I very much doubt that an article written on an accident, with the benefit of an official report by the NTSB or similar, could be "weaker" than something based on the usual variety of half-truths and down-right fabrications that appear in the general media following any high profile accidenmt. Indeed, the only problem I would see is the difficulty of avoiding simple plagiarism or copyright violation, as the official report likely contains everything needed for the article, and in much the same form. Would it not be better, where the accident is acknowledged as "under investigation" by one of the major agencies to somehow tag it as such, so that people know (a) that the 'facts' within are not official/final and (b) someone knows to go back and clean it up once the official report comes out? MadScot (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The comparison is between articles with just official source or both official and press sources. Both types will almost always yeild  more comprehensive articles. Consider Swissair Flight 111.  Ten years on, there are still new official publications.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability section move to separate guideline?
Notability is simply not a style issue. Compare WikiProject Biography, which uses the specific guideline Notability (people). Is there any reason the Notability section shouldn't be moved to a separate guideline Wikipedia:Notability (aviation)?LeadSongDog (talk)

Named plane Italics
Per this comment I added a section on italicising named aircraft. Comments? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 01:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree, but should we add the term individual as in individual named aircraft should be italicized. just in case users think we are talking about model names. MilborneOne (talk) 09:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)