Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports

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Airport notability proposal

(discussion moved - see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Notability)

Suggested guidelines for 'External links' content

I added guidelines and suggestions to Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content#External links on what to include or avoid in External links sections of airport articles. I had a strange circumstance which prompted me to do this. An editor whose self-proclaimed specialty is removal of linkspam went through my edit history and removed links to any kind of businesses and organizations at all the airport articles I've recently edited, including some links I added and any other external links that were already on these pages. I restored one page with an explanation on its talk page. Aviation-related businesses and organizations can be relevant parts of the description of an airport, whether looking at them from the ground or air, since the airport operator/owner usually doesn't perform all activities that occur there. These sites, when they say they're at the airport, can also contribute to the overall notability of the airport. Of course, WP:SPAM and WP:LINKS guidelines apply - so they have to be presented equally and in a neutral way. Before repairing the rest of the articles, I wanted to document guidelines on what is relevant at an airport, what isn't, and how to tell them apart. Comments? Suggestions? Ikluft (talk) 06:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If there no objections, I'll use this as the guideline behind restoration of aviation-related external links for on-field businesses and organizations that are part of the notability of these fields (airport information beyond government databases) but were removed from Watsonville Municipal Airport, Hollister Municipal Airport, Kingman Airport (Arizona) and Mountain Valley Airport on Aug 26. Ikluft (talk) 18:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I could still be convinced either way, but I'm leaning towards not including them on the basis of WP:NOTDIR. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Reid-Hillview Airport is a good example of what not to include in an airport article - most of the links in that article should really be deleted as they are not really relevant as per WP:NOTDIR, need to be carefull that the rationale is just a licence to WP:SPAM. MilborneOne (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Also suggest that Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content#External links is reverted until a consensus is established I appreciate being WP:BOLD but if Reid-Hillview Airport is a good example then it needs to be discussed. One day is not really long enough to allow various editors from different time zones to consider the proposal. MilborneOne (talk) 21:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm taken aback by these responses. WikiProject Airports is "dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of airports", yet the responses I'm seeing here seem like editors who volunteered to help with that purpose are actively working to dismantle WP's coverage of airports. How can you improve coverage of an airport by eliminating information about what's on the field? It's getting hit from two directions (though I realize no one editor has done both)... On one hand, there was resistance in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Notability when I suggested having a basic level of notability for public airports at a stable and easy-to-define level from which a stub article can be established. We did agree that previous AfD discussions and results supported the principle that government airport lists provide only verifiability but not notability. Some wanted an exception for airports with airline service, which alone is unbalanced favoritism toward one kind of aviation business, but were adamant against inclusion of public airports even though those had support in recent AfD history. Now it's coming from another direction - now systematically removing content of airport articles. There's the deletion of links to relevant on-field sites and the proposed AfD of all the US-airports templates. WP:NOTDIR was not intended to dismantle whole categories of info on WP just because some editors are uninterested. I'm surprised that editors in WikiProject Airports are not getting that - airports are handled differently in different countries.If WikiProject Airports is to have any purpose at all, it must set limits to protect data that supports notability, verifiability and/or reliable sources for airports. Either that or call the project a sham and shut it down for failure to perform its purpose. For those of you in Europe (including the UK), efforts to exclude the way the US does things is just as unacceptable as if we tried to make a global standard based on the US only. I know you'd object to that - how can I convince you not to try to do the same to us? If you're serious about improving WP coverage of airports, then it needs to be inclusive of different ways that different countries use them! Ikluft (talk) 02:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no comment about notability but looking at the airport articles without previous involvement they appear to be just a link farm, loads of external links to almost everything that somebody can think of about the airport. External links in the body of the article (against WP:EL) mainly for non-notable, example a lists of taxi operators, lists of FBOs, even lists of charities and local orgainisations!. A link to current weather can not be deemed encyclopedic but I will not go over the arguments from the AfD. I suspect the some users have mixed up an encyclopedia with a flight planning/travel guide. But to move on I think we need a sensible discussion on the external link guidelines which should then sort out what should and should not be in the article.MilborneOne (talk) 07:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added some suggested words at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/page content for consideration and discussion. Thank you. MilborneOne (talk) 13:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Now we're making some progress. MilborneOne's suggested words have been merged into the guideline. Ikluft (talk) 16:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I split up multiple sentences into sub-points and added some points that were suggested by User:Gladtohelp. These changes emphasize finding balance. Note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content#External links now has the shortcut WP:AIRPORT-LINKS. What else does this need to reach the point of a balanced guideline? Ikluft (talk) 02:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just removed the sentence "If free maps or images of the airport are not available for use in the article then links can be added to provide additional information." Adding links like that goes against Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided, #1, #4,#10 and #11. As to the MfD of US-airports templates that has to do with the removal of external links and not removing information from an article. If the information in the external links is important to the article then it should be in the article and not available only through an off-Wiki link. Frankly I don't see this as some sort of anti-US effort but it looks that way because the US has better web coverage of airports than other countries but that doesn't mean they need to be included. I'm not sure why we need to provide links to businesses located at any airport if the company is not notable enough for it's own article. In articles about a city we don't have external link sections for the companies located in the city so why do that for airports?

MilborneOne, I agree that real-time weather links shouldn't be in the article. Of course I'm the one that added them to multiple Canadian airports, {{Can-arpt-wx}}. However, at the time there were spamming effort on to include links to private weather mashup sites. Given the choice I would rather see a link to the site of the organisation producing the weather rather than a redistribution site. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 06:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

ICN destinations

Came across Incheon International Airport and discovered that the destination list is in another article, Airlines and destinations at Incheon International Airport. Shouldn't the destinations be in the airport article itself? pikdig (talk) 06:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Nothing that I recall says they have to be in the article. Having said that, the article layout does not seem to follow the projects layout guide. Those separate destination articles probably would not pass at AfD. The content is full of issues, starting with the flags and making this into a travel guide. Even the templates used in there are useless since you can't read the top bar! Don't even know where to begin on a cleanup approach. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I propose redirecting the page to Incheon International Airport and recreating the destination list in the standard format as described on Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content. As much as I like the idea of this format, it doesn't really work. There's too much redundant information, not just the flags as Vegaswikian pointed out, but also repeating the operating carrier's IATA and ICAO codes on every line. Shanghai Pudong International Airport has the same format integrated into the article, rather than on a separate destinations list, and I feel that it's just too big. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree. They are simply hard to read with each destination occupying one line and airlines, cities, and airports repeated who knows how many times! HkCaGu (talk) 18:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think part of the objection is with the readability since there is a lot of comma seperated data in there. Maybe formating this in a different way might help, say like in this example:

• Southwest Airlines

Albany

Albuquerque

Amarillo

Austin

Baltimore/Washington

Birmingham (AL)

Boise

Buffalo

Burbank

Chicago-Midway

Cleveland

Columbus (OH)

Denver

El Paso

Fort Lauderdale [begins November 2]

Hartford

Houston-Hobby

Indianapolis

Jacksonville

Kansas City

Little Rock

Long Island/Islip

Los Angeles

Louisville

Lubbock

Manchester (NH)

Midland/Odessa

Nashville

New Orleans

Norfolk

Oakland

Oklahoma City

Omaha

Ontario

Orange County

Orlando

Philadelphia

Phoenix

Pittsburgh

Portland (OR)

Providence

Raleigh/Durham

Reno/Tahoe

Sacramento

St. Louis

San Antonio

San Diego

San Francisco

San Jose (CA)

Seattle/Tacoma

Spokane

Tampa

Tucson

Tulsa

Washington-Dulles

Or a more compact form like:

• Southwest Airlines

Albany

Albuquerque

Amarillo

Austin

Baltimore/Washington

Birmingham (AL)

Boise

Buffalo

Burbank

Chicago-Midway

Cleveland

Columbus (OH)

Denver

El Paso

Fort Lauderdale [begins November 2]

Hartford

Houston-Hobby

Indianapolis

Jacksonville

Kansas City

Little Rock

Long Island/Islip

Los Angeles

Louisville

Lubbock

Manchester (NH)

Midland/Odessa

Nashville

New Orleans

Norfolk

Oakland

Oklahoma City

Omaha

Ontario

Orange County

Orlando

Philadelphia

Phoenix

Pittsburgh

Portland (OR)

Providence

Raleigh/Durham

Reno/Tahoe

Sacramento

St. Louis

San Antonio

San Diego

San Francisco

San Jose (CA)

Seattle/Tacoma

Spokane

Tampa

Tucson

Tulsa

Washington-Dulles

Vegaswikian (talk) 18:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't work in Safari. Both appear as a single long list. I hesitate to use multiple columns to reduce space, since I doubt it works in IE either; I recall the documentation for {{reflist}} notes that multiple columns there don't work in IE; the reflist multiple columns do work in Safari. I thought we had some discussions towards a table format for this before, let me see what I can find. Maybe it was for the airline destination lists, though. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 18:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, found it: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 8#Destination lists as a table?. Looks like the discussion just sort of ended without any consensus to do anything. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Right or in IE, just checked both. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually I looked at reflist and used their coding, seems to work on safari but not IE. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Well these parameters are defined in this CSS3 draft. That probably explains why it does not work in IE. This draft appears to be about the only auto flowing of columns that I could see. So the table may be the only other option, at this time. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Service end date and removal of destination from listing

I just reverted a large number of premature removals of destination listings. Today, Labor Day, Monday, September 1, 2008, is the last day of operation of many routes in the United States. The cutbacks begin tomorrow, Tuesday, September 2. It's now 3 am PDT and 6 am EDT, and the last day of flights has barely begun. Until the last flight to a certain destination departs, there is still that service and it shouldn't be removed. Conversely, removing a listing one or two days late is not wrong, as it plainly states "ends September 1". HkCaGu (talk) 10:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you're getting a bit nit picky here. IMO, as long as it's at least the correct day GMT, I'd let it slide since we're only dealing with a difference of a few hours and in the end it won't be there anyway. I agree there's no problem with removing a day or two late since the end date is specified. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

An additional issue that comes up is what exactly is meant by "ends September 2". Does this mean that the last flights are on the 2nd or the 1st? ExpressJet Airlines is a perfect example; their branded service had been listed as ending September 2 based on previously released information, however the last flights were actually on the 1st: [1]. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, based on the information provided by sources like airline press releases, printed or web schedules, OAG and GDS listings, etc., "ends Sept. 1" means that Sept. 1 is the last day of service, and that's what we should use in Wikipedia. That said, I strongly agree with Hawaiian717 that a difference of a few hours or days is not really significant. The route listings are meant to be generally indicative of airline service, and Wikipedia is emphatically not a provider of precise schedule information. (See WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:NOTTRAVEL.) --MCB (talk) 18:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Linking of dates

Remember those old discussions? Well the MoS has apparently been changed. See this which I believe basically says don't link dates. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah when I found that out I made a point to remove that clause from the project guideline that was changed a few months before. NcSchu_(Talk) 01:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for Review

I've put together an essay at Wikipedia:Pocket Consensus that I think your project members may like to review. The idea started to come together in my mind during recent AfD discussions on airports, so I thought that you might want to review and comment.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Kingfisher flights to SFO

Is Kingfisher Airlines beginning flights from Bangalore to San Francisco on November 1. Since this website[2] states they are indeed flying to SFO from BLR on Nov. 1 but I went to the airline's website and attempted to book a BLR-SFO-BLR flights and no where is SFO in the booking engine. I want to know if this is correct? 74.183.173.237 (talk) 03:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Where are the FAA codes?

I found this http://www.boeing.com/commercial/noise/part91.html I saw: "Harbican Airpark Airport, Katy, TX....... 9XS9 1,200" - Which one is the airport's FAA code? Or are none of them FAA codes? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright - I found out the identity of Harbican Airport - But I am trying to see if these other Katy, Texas area airports listed here are still active, and/or what their airport codes are http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/uav/support/docs/FAR_Part_91.pdf WhisperToMe (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

List of local identifiers is at http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/LID/LIDHME.htm It has 56TE Cardiff Brothers Airport, 2TA0 Darmar Medical Emergency Heliport, TX28 Dewberry Airport, 59TE Hoffpauir Airport, 6XS0 Rwave Heliport and 9X9 Sack-O-Grande Acroport Airport. MilborneOne (talk) 10:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! :) WhisperToMe (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability of heliports

I started some articles about some privately-owned, private use heliports. (i.e. they are NOT for fixed wing aircraft) Then I realized how numerous they are. What are the notability of privately-owned, private use heliports? For some (of news stations, hospitals) I would simply redirect the heliport name and FAA code to the organization. But what should I do with private heliports that are not owned by notable people or groups? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

One problem that I have noticed with including heliports in other articles occurs when you add an infobox. It can make the article formating look rather bad. Not saying this is a wrong decision just commenting on appearance. Also which talk page would the project banner go on? The redirected page or the target or both? Vegaswikian (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I placed the project page in the final destination article (I.E. University of Texas Medical Branch - that one has two heliports). WhisperToMe (talk) 05:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

See the current proposal for Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/Notability and let us know on the talk page if you have anything to add to make it better. So far the advice is that heliports are usually part of another facility and rarely notable on their own, unless there are reliable sources excluding government databases specifically about the heliport. Ikluft (talk) 16:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Copa Holdings

User:Luisfege has been putting Copa Airlines and AeroRepública under Copa Holdings in what seems to be almost every airport the airlines both fly to. I haven't reverted any of these even though I think it's a bit strange. Thoughts? NcSchu_(Talk) 00:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Airport

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Featured article candidacy of Melbourne Airport now open

The FAC for Melbourne Airport is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 14:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If anyone could give Melbourne Airport a copyedit, it'd be very much appreciated. A copyedit would do wonders for this article. Mvjs (talk) 08:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit War on Los Angeles International Airport

Due to the many recent edit wars that occurred on this article, Los Angeles International Airport has now been protected indefinitely. We are trying to resolve a major dispute in a fair and fashionable way without people calling each other names. Recently, Qantas, Mexicana, and Virgin America have been added to the introduction saying that LAX is a focus city/secondary hub for them. We are trying to determine whether this is true or not. If anyone is willing to help resolve this issue, please discuss your suggestions at the article's talk page so we can get this unprotected and get on with making useful edits to this article. Thanks! Cashier freak (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi, I'm not a member of this WikiProject, nor am I planning to be, but I was thinking about dividing into a WikiProject specifically for Canadian airports or American airports or British airports, etc... I would have joined the Canadian one if there was one, because I am only interested in helping with Canadian airport articles.

Loghead1 (talk) 00:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)