Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports

AfD notification

I've nominated the article Ballyboughal Aerodrome for deletion; the discussion can be found here. Any comments by folks with more knowledge of airports than I will be appreciated. Deor (talk) 20:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Statistics section

Since Continental and United combined operating certificates on November 30, 2011 and the previous discussion regarding changing all operation where UA and CO operated to all UA, i noticed that under the statistics a lot of IPs changed the carrier for the cities formerly served by Continental to United (where as the date range for the statistics are way before both airlines got the single certificate). Do we go ahead and change them to UA since CO is defunct or do we leave them until new passenger numbers have been released and then change to United? Snoozlepet (talk) 20:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I would say that since the two airlines were separeted at that time, then the figures should be shown separately for each. Slasher-fun (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

EZE-SCL-JFK

Can anyone please persuade this user that LAN Airlines operates the Buenos Aires-Ezeiza–New York-JFK route via Santiago? S(he) keeps reverting, erroneously arguing the flight doesn't exist. I'm already over my 3RR. Thanks.--Jetstreamer (talk) 01:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

London Southend Airport

How do we list this airport as a destination? Snoozlepet (talk) 05:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

London-Southend? Gertjan R 08:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

We already have London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick, and London-Stansted. Hence, London-Southend.--Jetstreamer (talk) 10:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I am gaining a consensus on this matter at the last thread below on how to list it. Apparently many people disagree with "London-Southend". Please put additional thoughts on the last thread of this discussion. Snoozlepet (talk) 04:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

NARA on-wiki ExtravaSCANza participation

Please see User:The ed17/NARA to brainstorm ideas and a structure on how we can help make the National Archives ExtravaSCANza a success, in the hope that such events will continue in the future. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Listing of London Southend Airport as a destination: Consensus Needed!!!!!

I am now gaining a consensus on how to list Southend Airport as a destination in airport articles since it is causing many disputes and edit warrings on various airport articles. Please write down either "London-Southend" or "Southend-on-Sea" and don't forget to sign your name after your choices. Thanks! Snoozlepet (talk) 04:09, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• "London-Southend", definitely, to parallel "London-Gatwick", "London-Heathrow", etc. The phrase "Southend-on-Sea" is not even used in the London Southend Airport article except in a category name. Using Southend-on-Sea in the airport destination lists would be no more useful than listing Grapevine or Paradise or Hebron instead of Dallas/Fort Worth, Las Vegas, or Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• Wanting to repeat the "London Manston" farce? It was always Southend, and that has always worked. I can't see the need to add "-on-Sea" either. Jan olieslagers (talk) 10:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• London-Southend: airport is called London Southend Airport and serves London. Gertjan R 09:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
• "London Southend", because that's what sources prefer. This is an encyclopædia; our first duty is to reflect real-world usage rather than changing names to fit our own internal conventions. (For example [1] [2] [3] - I would be happy to change to a different name if it can be shown that good sources prefer a different name.) bobrayner (talk) 09:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
• Southend should suffice, and London Southend if the "London" qualification is absolutely necessary (this may vary from list to list). As factually incorrect the "London" bit of London Southend may be, the airport's operators do use "London Southend" as their official name, as do airlines flying into it. Deryck C. 13:46, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
• London-Southend.--Jetstreamer (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
• The airport was Southend Municipal from 1947, and only rebranded London Southend in 1993. The NATS AIP listing still has "Southend". HkCaGu (talk) 07:04, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
• London-Southend: airport is called London Southend Airport and serves London. It has been operating as London Southend Airport since 1993 and has good industry recognition as that. Airlines use 'London Southend', for passengers it describes the expected main market, and it has direct rail service linking with London. The CAA itself (industry regulator) have it listed as a London Airport for economic reporting, and have done since the 1950's - this is because they recognise it's market is inextricably linked with London itself.Thames Gateway (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
• I don't see a problem with London-Southend: it's certainly much more plausible as a "London" airport than Oxford or Manston--it's around the same distance from Central London as Stansted is, and has a direct rail connection. Also, "London Southend" is how Easyjet are referring to it, and as they will shortly become the dominant carrier at Southend, this will likely become the WP:COMMONNAME. --RFBailey (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Aircraft carriers

FYI, a discussion on aircraft carriers is currently occurring at WT:AVIATION. You may be interested.

76.65.128.132 (talk) 10:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Cikgu Jasmin Airways

Just FYI, an IP editor has added this alleged airline to 18 airports; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Cikgu+Jasmin+Airways. Goggle suggests NO such airline exists. [4] 39 Ghits! Regards, 220 of ^Borg 13:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd say remove it as this pretty clearly fails WP:V. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As I was going through trying to clean up the mess, I noticed a claim that Cikgu Jasmin Airways was formerly Miwon Airways, and Cikgu Besar Airways was formerly Kencana Airways. However, neither of the previous names have Wikipedia articles either, so that doesn't help their credibility. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that Hawaiian717, and others who reverted. I rechecked and reverted a few that got missed. I rolled-back to September 2011 at Rafha Domestic Airport where the editor changed the infobox to read "Dabur Honitus Arabia International Airport", which had exactly one hit on Google, from WP. And if you Google "Dabur Honitus", you get a cough syrup! Don't know what to make of it. - 220 of ^Borg 14:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

At Abha Regional Airport they changed the infobox title to Al-Manas International Airport. A change made after they were warned to give sources and asked to give edit summaries, which they have again not done. I have again reverted.

* I just checked again and they have again added "Cikgu Jasmin Airways" [5], 9 instances today from 4 yesterday, (in about 8 hours) - 220 of ^Borg 22:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I have reverted all instances now. This edit here on 11 January to Irkut MS-21 (a proposed series of twin-engine Russian jet airliners) is particularly revealing. The source at flightglobal.com used as a 'reference' for Cikgu Jasmin Airways ordering this aircraft.makes no mention of that alleged airline at all. And here changing AlMasria Universal Airlines to Mei Mei Airlines, which I am unable to verify as existing, except where it appears on Wikipedia! (7 instances here). This certainly calls into question all edits by this editor, not just the unverifiable airlines. Has this editor made any useful contributions? Should we revert on sight? - 220 of ^Borg 01:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I have left a final note on 78.101.101.192 (talk · contribs)s talk page here to try and get their attention. Unfortunately I didn't get a single comment at WP:AN/I, before it was archived! I will likely un-archive my post there if this situation continues. FYI the same editor appears to have been 78.101.67.111 (talk · contribs) , and 78.100.184.174 (talk · contribs) previously. All IPs 'Geolocate' to the same place and ISP. :-/ 220 of ^Borg 06:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm seeing edits following the same pattern coming from 89.211.240.233 (talk · contribs). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the Cikgu Jasmin Airways and Cikgu Besar Airways from Gurayat Domestic Airport along with all the other somewhat fantastical notions of current and future operations. Also removed the |United Airlines|Al Arabiya Cargo services to Doha, Jakarta, Damascus. Same process at Qassim Regional Airport, also full of fantasy airlines and destinations, also undid the vandal work on the infobox. Same again at Rafha Domestic Airport. -- Felix (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that too, that the editor is linking "Al Arabiya Airlines" to United Airlines, the United States-based carrier. I'm taking a revert on sight approach. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple IPs being used and it goes back a fair way into the histories in some articles. -- Felix (talk) 20:01, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Felix, you removed (correctly) where the editor changed General Authority of Civil Aviation to Tadika Mesra Aviation on Qassim Regional Airport. I Googled 'Tadika Mesra Aviation' [6] and found it on the French Wikipedia. I though we had an inter-wiki vandal, but the fr:Qassim Regional Airport, fr:Tabuk Regional Airport and other pages on fr:WP are new pages. Unfortunately the creator has apparently based theirs on the vandalised version of the en:WP pages. I will attempt to advise them of the problem. - 220 of ^Borg 03:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, as some of the much earlier edits have been sitting in the system for a while they have also trickled down into the content of the many aviation sites that mirror WP info. I am not surprised if some of them have been inadvertently mirrored in WP alt language versions as well. It appears this person started doing this a while ago and has been placing erroneous content into articles for an extended time. In the earlier edits it has sometimes been combined, or associated with some quite normal appearing corrective edits. Some of those earlier contributions were queried or corrected by other editors, many apparently got through and several IPs have been used with similar characteristic pattern and content editing in the same time frame. -- Felix (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not so much a 'mirror' site, they just seem to have picked some text off our pages as they are writing theirs from scratch. I have left a note at 'Utilisateur:Noel.guillet' on the French Wikipedia, telling them the the false names being added.
• We can also add 89.211.197.136 (talk · contribs) to the 'list', who appears to be the same editor (edits/ ISP & location match) and has been blocked previously in September 2011 [7] --220 of ^Borg 05:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I had a reply on my talk from our French colleague who says "I will correct this mad things". - 220 of ^Borg 09:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Since all of these IPs are doing the same pattern of edits, I suspect sockpuppetry is the case here. Snoozlepet (talk) 06:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not mere sockpuppetry Snoozlepet, more like an entire elaborate multi casted puppet show. -- Felix (talk) 07:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Borg, I have also seen the bogus material mirrored on many sites now when I have done google searches on some of the more obscure bogus airlines and destinations. Of course as you are no doubt aware, a couple of the so-called airlines do not even exist. I have since gone back to Sanya Phoenix International Airport and dug out more apparently bogus airline/destination listings. I saw other suspicious listings doing earlier clean ups but did not have the time to painstakingly research each airline and destination. A 'tell' is an unlikely Indonesian or Singapore based operator flying into an improbable destination. I have been spotting some of them due to a familiarity with the ops of some of these airlines and my suspicions have been immediate. Other airlines I am less certain of. Any edit in the last few months by anon IPs editing in a range of middle eastern, north african and asian regions should be viewed with a very enquiring and questioning eye. I suspect there are many more as this person has been using several IPs. Some are obvious like Qantas commencing services into a regional Saudi Arabian airport, or United Airlines starting up services to a small Saudi Airlines whistle stop, however others, especially those attributed to vague 'charter' and 'seasonal' ops should also be viewed with considerable skepticism. In some cases <ref> links have been provided but lead to bogus pages, or the attributed info is not there. This idiot seems to have a fondness for routing regional Indonesian and Singapore airlines into un-scheduled Saudi and Chinese airports but they are not shy of sending some mainline international services into small regional airports as well, and using multiple IPs in an edit series to confuse the provenance of the added content. -- Felix (talk) 07:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Concur, but I would suggest that any edit by any IP to an Airport (or related page) geolocating from "QATAR, AD DAWHAH, DOHA" through "QATAR TELECOM (QTEL) Q.S.C" be checked, or even just reverted on sight. These are IPs the 'Cikgu Jasmin Airways' vandal has been using, in order of use:

• 89.211.197.136 (talk · contribs)
• 78.100.184.174 (talk · contribs)
• 78.101.67.111 (talk · contribs)
• 78.101.101.192 (talk · contribs)
• 89.211.240.233 (talk · contribs)

• I suggest that as soon as they start editing again, if possible we lodge a report at WP:AI/V (Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism). Maybe a preventative block will get their attention. If they change IP then WP:SPI (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations)

• I have also posted a note at the Wikipedia talk:Subtle Vandalism Taskforce, but it seems dormant at this time. - 220 of ^Borg 09:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I have had a reply from Shadowjams (talk · contribs) of the Wikipedia:Subtle Vandalism Taskforce (WP:SVT) - 220 of ^Borg 23:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Start dates (Need new Consensus)

I know it has been a while since this discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive_10#Years_for_Start_Dates_.28Oh_my_Lord.21_Here_we_go_again.21.29 but some registered users and IPs are now removing the year for new services that is to commence between March 2012 to even as late as October 2012. Since the year is now 2012, we need a new consensus: here's 2 options: 1. Just include the year as we have suggested in the past to avoid confusion and end this foolishness or include the year for services that are to begin the following year (i.e. it is 2012 and XXX Airlines will begin service to Y in 2013) and remove the year once that year begins. I know that since that discussion has ended, the consensus was to always include the year no matter what. Snoozlepet (talk) 16:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Always include the year. It wasn't that long ago (August 2011) that we made the decision to move to always including the years. I'd assume good faith, and gently point the editors to the discussion as they may not be aware that consensus changed and that the year should be included. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to let you know, given that this very discussion at WP:AIRLINES did not succeed, I'm using the same criteria adopted here for airline destinations articles. Regarding the proposal above, I suggest sticking to the first choice, i.e. including the year no matter how close is the date of beginning/closure of services.--Jetstreamer (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree. HkCaGu (talk) 18:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

However, a whole bunch of people will say no consensus was reached in that discussion and will' continue to not include the year just as a user did with my edit here at the Malpensa Airport article:[8]. 15:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I suspect anyone who disagrees with whatever decision was reached will always claim that consensus was never reached, since they don't agree. However, there are two definitions of consensus, one clearly based on a majority, while the other suggests total agreement. WP:CON uses the first. If people can't accept that, remember WP:3RR. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 15:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I believe we have to state somewhere within the project that the whole date will be implemented, once and for all, just in case this discussion arises again in the future. The matter is the way we implement this, since voting is not permitted.--Jetstreamer (talk) 15:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

At WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT we have examples that don't match the text instructions. I'll go fix that. HkCaGu (talk) 16:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello everyone. I am the dreaded user who always disagrees with everyone and in this case removed the year dates. As far as I could see in the discussion I was linked to at MXP airport, there was no consensus reached. Then apart from that I don't see the point of including the date because:

• It is unnecessary - only if the destination starts in a year and a day or more is the year unclear.
• It is usually not included, so for consistency we should keep it that way.

Regards, Speed74 (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I do not want to repeat our arguments again, but looks like you haven't even read them. HkCaGu (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The argument I read was that years might be confusing because pages may not have been updated, however this would only apply to destinations starting in a few days less than a year from now, not for destinations starting in March or October 2012, and in those cases editors should see in the history that it was a recent edit (otherwise the year would have been added). Speed74 (talk) 19:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong because that is not my four years of experience. We did not want to argue more than once every year whether the cut-off should be 3 months or 6 months or 9 months or 12 months. Last August, everyone who participated in the discussion agreed, eventually. HkCaGu (talk) 19:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Why am I "wrong" exactly? The consensus used to be 13 months and remained as such for a long time. Now that years are sometimes included there is inconsistency, even within articles. Speed74 (talk) 20:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Simply put, the MoS as I recall does not require years if the year is clear from the context. Adding the year when it is not required is unnecessary and it can upset some editors and add no value. I did not comment on the last discussion. But this discussion points out the problems with changing from the recommendation in the MoS. If you don't need the year, don't add it! If someone decides to remove the year, let them and don't revert. End of problem and no confusion. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem with not including a year is that it is not easy to tell if, say, "19 June" is in the past or the future. Anyone who reads Wikipedia regularly knows not to trust absolutely that a particular page has been properly updated recently---but they shouldn't need to go trudging through the page history to find this out. Also, we should not expect a casual reader to be familiar with the ins and outs of a WikiProject's policies (say, about some arbitrary cut-off date).

In the case of larger airports (e.g. Heathrow, LAX, JFK, Pearson), which are watched by a lot of people and updated frequently, this shouldn't be a problem. The problem is with smaller, out-of-the-way places or in relatively obscure locations (such as countries far, far away from where most WP editors reside)--one can't always know when the page was last updated.

Speed74's argument "It is unnecessary - only if the destination starts in a year and a day or more is the year unclear" only works if pages are always kept up-to-date. We all know that this is not always the case.

Regarding what the MoS says: perhaps Vegaswikian could indicate which section of the MoS contains this recommendation. However, how is it "clear from the context" which year is being referred to if all that is written is an isolated "[starts 19 June]"? --RFBailey (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:DATESNO. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

...which states: "Yearless dates (5 March, March 5) are inappropriate unless the year is obvious from the context." My earlier point stands. --RFBailey (talk) 04:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly since if there is no year specified the context of starting and stopping says it is within 12 months hence the context is clear. As I said above there is a simple solution. Of course one can choose the lets go around in circles approach. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:32, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You're missing my point: if the article is clearly up-to-date, then "19 June" most likely means the forthcoming one. But, as I have already stated, when reading an article (particularly if it's about a relatively obscure airport), the reader can't be certain that didn't actually mean "19 June 2009" and that the article (or at least the destinations list) hasn't been updated for three years. By including years as a matter of course, it avoids this potential ambiguity.

WikiProject members and regular editors should never lose sight of the fact that we're writing for the general public, not ourselves: what might be clear to us is not necessarily clear to the reader. --RFBailey (talk) 06:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• We should always include the year. A yearless date will not always be clear to readers, even if the person who added it is thoroughly familiar with their preferred interpretation of wikipedia's date conventions. Content can often go out of date, too. If an editor says "1 June" in an edit today, is a reader supposed to interpret that as June 2011 or June 2012? What about when the text is still standing a year from now? Two years? Are readers supposed to now believe that the date (in reality long since past) is actually in 2013 or 2014? The year is not clear from the context. If you were writing about the 2012 Olympics or the Hundred Days, then dates in the body of the article are clear from the context; if you were writing some prose in chronological order and you say "In March 1980..." then later "In June..." it's reasonable for readers to infer that it's June 1980. However, that's certainly not the case for the ebb and flow of airline services - various services have been starting and stopping each year for many decades and will continue to do so in future, and the setting does not give enough background information for readers to reliably fill in the gaps, so we should tell readers which year. bobrayner (talk) 10:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
  • So, which is the consensus then? Do we keep dates in the long format, i.e. including year?--Jetstreamer (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a complicated matter. For now we have created a mix of year-including and yearless dates, with no clear rule. It may have been best to leave the 13-month limit originally. However it does seem that most editors don't mind including the year. It will be difficult to make a rule for all articles, so we may simply have to leave it as an "include if you want to", with no one allowed to change from year to no-year or vice-versa once the date has been written, unless the date is effectively a year and a day or more away. It does create unevenness, but I don't see another solution. Speed74 (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No there is nothing complicated about it. WP:DATESNO does state that yearless dates are basically inappropriate. Life CAN be simple, you just have to let it be. Jan olieslagers (talk) 19:14, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything complicated either. The reason we have a mix is that not all old listings have been updated to the new consensus, and some editors aren't aware of the change. Thus, all new edits should include the year. Feel free to add the year to existing entries. If you see an editor adding new entries without the year, add the year and post a note on their talk page pointing to the updated guideline. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)