Template talk:US-airport

Discussion

Why is it that airnav seems to get preferential treatment in Wiki articles? Just because they were the first to be listed in the template doesn't mean that they should reign superior for the rest of time. I find there archaic layout and old technology to be so obsolete that I always go elsewhere for better information. Isn't it time we chose something better? Gladtohelp (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

Sorry to be making bold (and worrysome) moves for such a new editor. I have added a link to my service (rsvpair.com) in this template, because I felt it would be helpful for readers to know what planes are available for air charter: As far as I know, we provide a unique service, the only resource that makes this data available - which we and the operators themselves maintain on the site. It was not intended as link spam, and certainly not meant as an aggressive move.

As my partner has mentioned on another page ( Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rsvpair ) we want these steps to be the first in a long future of working together with wikipedia - sharing the unique data we collect and maintain, both directly in wikipedia, and as links to available external (and changing) content. What do you think - how should I proceed? Rsvpair 18:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

At first blush, I think the link is a useful addition. Unless someone can suggest a better source for similar information, the link should stand. Demi ^T/_C 21:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the usefulness of the info - it just seems like commercial linkspam to me. Physchim62 (talk) 23:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, this doesn't tell me a whole lot. You don't think a link to a directory of charter services is useful? Or you don't think this directory is useful? Demi ^T/_C 10:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, there are 5-10k charter operators in the world operating countless private aircraft. The regular location of an aircraft available for charter is moot because they are so transient and clearly mobile. The FAA and ICAO offer a list of licensed/registered charter & air taxi operators. This is a commercial attempt at creating a advertising index with free and commercial listings that is otherwise plagued with advertisements. Any airport information included on any page is a weak replication of the Airnav.com link, which already exists and is much more in-depth. Additionally, seeing as this is a template change with hundreds of pages using it, it's notable that lots of airport pages have no charter content on the destination page except for replicated content and advertisements. For example, Adirondack_Regional_Airport and Oxnard_Airport. In the case of a major airport like LaGuardia_Airport, where people are most likely to be looking, the site has one link to a charter aircraft that you can wade to at the very bottom of a page that has a 9:1 advertisement:charter link ratio. I became aware of this link spamming when I saw the AFD and am surprised that anyone has fallen victim to this attempt to capitalize on WP's userbase. I don't think re-inclusion after multiple reverts on the basis of insufficient argument against it is appropriate; lack of justification for inclusion is a more valuable metric. Dbchip 22:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly open to the idea that it doesn't belong, but I'd like to frame the distinction between it and the links that are currently there. On what basis do we include some of these and not others? Wikipedia isn't a how-to, not even a how-to fly into a given airport. I don't think any of these links are "necessary." So what distinguishes rsvpair.com from flightaware.com? Or AirNav.com? FlightAware is ad-supported. A large section of airnav.com is given over to a mapquest-style directory of local businesses--the kind of directory we routinely remove for city articles. Are the three ad blocks on rsvpair.com too many? If so, what's kosher? One?

My second question, you say "The FAA and ICAO offer a list of licensed/registered charter & air taxi operators." Can we somehow link to that list instead? Similarly, are there more free sources of information for what airnav.com or flightaware.com provide? Demi ^T/_C 23:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

possible addition

I came across this website in a search for crash info for airports. This website lists details of all accidents/crashes at an airport; it will work with the current template, as the website uses the three letter airport code

as an example:

Midway Airport or "MDW" is http://aviation-safety.net/database/airport/airport.php?id=MDW

this works with nearly any airport, though not minor ones.

It just seemed that this info maybe useful to people checking out an airport.

Just let me know what you think.

--MJHankel 10:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I know there has been much link spam recently, and I just would like to be clear that, I am not affiliated with this link in anyway.

I am not trying to force anything on anybody and if you feel that this link should not be in this template just tell me and remove it. I found it very useful though as it provides history and details about accidents at airports, including plane types, operator, cause, and description, some even have pictures. Seeing as how this is an encyclopedia, this info seems useful, though if not, please know I mean no contempt. I am perfectly fine either way. --MJHankel 01:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

How about linking directly to the NTSB/FAA incident database, which is where aviation-safety.net appears to be getting their information from? -- Bovineone 01:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

just let me know the link, that is fine as long as it works with the airport code --MJHankel 14:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This link expects a 3-letter IATA code. For most U.S. airports that is same as the FAA identifier provided when calling this template, but if not the ASN link is invalid. To resolve this I have updated the {{US-airport-ga}} and {{US-airport-mil}} templates to allow a second parameter for the IATA code; other templates will be updated only if needed. For more information, see: Template talk: US-airport-ga #Updated template to handle airports with different FAA and IATA identifiers -- Zyxw 08:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition: Airport Weather provided by MyMetar.com

Howdy. I posted a link to MyMetar.com, which is a free web service that provides aviation weather for pilots. I did so without understanding the protocol for edits, and for that I humbly apologize.

The weather information provided on MyMetar is sourced from the National Weather Service (and international sources) and adds plain language interpretation of the encoded METAR as well as the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF), which is the forecast weather for the next 12 hours. In addition the plain language and TAF information, a visual indicator is added that represents the flight rules in effect as a result of the visibility and ceilings: VFR, MFVR, IFR, and LIFR.

I thought the link was justified given that AirNav and FlightAware have links present, that the weather delivered is specifically tailored to pilots, that the weather is enhanced with visual indicators for the current flight conditions, and that both current and forecast weather is provided.

Shortly, the relevant radar imagery will accompany the weather for that airport, further simplifying the steps required to get weather for a particular airport. If you're a pilot like me, you'll understand the hoops that you have to go through to get a composite view of weather for a particular ICAO station.

MyMetar also provides weather observations for airports around the world, which means the applicability goes beyond just US airports.

The URL form for accessing airport specific weather is http://www.mymetar.com/metar/[icao code], or http://www.mymetar.com/metar/KSFO for San Fran.

Tweihs 04:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well all I know to tell you, is that that template affects multiple articles. Basically, I can tell you two things I know regarding the situation.

A. You should troubleshoot to make sure that your link properly works with at least the majority of all the airports.

B. Try not to totally revamp the template, simply add your link in similar fashion as to the other links. (Aside from the FAA link they are in alphabetical order).

As it is, I did not create this template, so I do not know the whole deal regarding the Airnav and FlightAware, though I do know that they have proven to be overall compatible. and FlightAware offers a flight tracker. I have no problems personally though I would definitely avoid removing other links as this may be taken poorly by others. If someone says something regarding it later, you will have your chance to defend it. I just try to help avoid controversy. --MJHankel 02:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Tweihs seems to be affiliated with mymetar.com based on his comments. I would be concerned about his attempts to use wikipedia to promote his site (Wikipedia is not for self-promotion or advertising). MyMetear appears to be a very new site with very little established net reputation (very few google hits, very low Alexa score). Using this template to link to other well-established destinations (such as Airnav, FAA, and the others that are already listed) is acceptable, since they are already well-known. -- Bovineone 00:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are there two links to weather observations???

There is some... erm... stupidity going on with the whole linking of supposedly "current" observations and "historical" observations from NOAA. That stupidity is the fact that the "current" link goes back a day, while the supposed "historical" link goes back... you'll never believe this... 3 days! I suggest STRONGLY that the "current" link be dumped and the "historical" link be called simply "weather observations from NOAA"... the current linking structure is, IMHO, false advertising.Famartin 03:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I would firmly agree, with that change, but I am sure there was a reason initiallly and maybe somebody else can shed light on it. --MJHankel 22:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that it is because the supposed "current" ob link has "current" in the URL while the supposed "historical" ob link has "history" in the URL... IOW, someone just looked at the URL's without firmly investigating what each link provided, and the fact is there isn't much difference between them, except that one goes back 1 day in time and the other 3 days. Famartin 00:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Since there has been no additional debate, I am hereby removing the duplication. Famartin 10:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

SkyVector

I fully see the usefulness in this link, but they offer this on the airnav site as well, I don't know it just seems to me that the Airnav one suffices as they directly link to the skyvector one. --MJHankel 22:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe the SkyVector.com link was added sometime before AirNav.com started including it at their site. I suppose one could also argue that AirNav includes the FAA airport diagrams, so we shouldn't include links to those (see LAX#External links for an example). Or that AirNav shows the coordinates and has links to maps, so we should take the coordinates link out of the infobox. But I like having those direct links in the Wikipedia article. Also, as useful as AirNav is, we need to be careful of favoring one site too heavily over others - particularly those which might be making money as a result of increased traffic due to all these links (as of this posting, the English Wikipedia has 1863 pages containing links to *.airnav.com). -- Zyxw 19:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't get me wrong I was just wondering if this had been considered. I have no ties to anything and was just pointing it out. Sorry if I caused any undue announces/stress. --MJHankel 05:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

No stress here, just offering my thoughts. I also have no connection to any of these sites and no idea if those with advertising (AirNav, FlightAware, SkyVector) are doing it simply to meet expenses or if they make a profit. However, there is often controversy over the attempted addition of new sites (FBOweb, FlightView, MyMetar, RSVPair) and I imagine the same might happen if certain existing links are removed. Due to the lack of comments here, perhaps the only real way to find out is to be bold and remove it, then wait to see if anyone complains or reverts it. -- Zyxw 07:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding theAirdb to resources?

There is avery good resource for airport in general, that gives destination routes and statistical information for all airports worldwide. This kind of information are not available in the resource we heve now. The format is

http://www.theairdb.com/airport/IAD.html

Where the last three upper case letters are the IATA code of the airport (in this case Washington Dulles Intl). IMHO this can be a valuable resource to add. Vitoque 14:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

With no debate to the contrary, I'm going to add theAirDb Vitoque 14:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BruceMount. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. Touchdown Turnaround 11:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I read (even before) the external link guidelines. Can you please let me understanstand exactly why this link (theairdb.com) is not accettable? In my opinion:

1. theAirDB provides a unique resource beyond what the airport article would contain. It contains up to date destinations, statistics such number of dtinations, countries and continents served, average Route Distance.
2. it is a free resource, without commercial link, or whatever
3. Site doesn't require registration or a paid subscription
4. It is in english

Again, I don't wnat to be confrontational, but I just wnat to understand the exact reason. I also invite other member to give their opinion, what ever this is positive or negative about this link.

Thanks for any explanation you will be willing to provide, other than a unspecified "it is spam" Vitoque 14:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Your only edits are promoting the site and that's not what Wikipedia is for. Your time would be better suited improving and expanding your site such that it becomes a popular Internet resource -- not the other way around. Touchdown Turnaround 22:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition: US Airport Fuel Map

Hey all, what about this one? I don't know what we would call it but just check it out. Its a map of the airport and not on any of the others.

http://www.globalair.com/airport/fuelmap.aspx?aptcode=SDF  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerien (talk • contribs) 23:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC) 

This is a great tool! Is there any reason this isn't on the template? PuritysDisciple 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

With no negative response, I'm going to go ahead and add this! PuritysDisciple 21:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BruceMount. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Your only edits are promoting the site and that's not what Wikipedia is for. Your time would be better suited improving and expanding your site such that it becomes a popular Internet resource -- not the other way around. (copied from above since it's the same issue) Touchdown Turnaround 22:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't see where you are coming from. The map link that Jerien suggested gives pilots information about what airports and fuel are around airports in an effort to give them a better picture of fuel prices in the area. Please let me know as to why this is not a good link. As far as I can tell it follows guidelines and is a valuable resource to pilots coming into airports.PuritysDisciple 14:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been trying to talk about this link for the past few weeks and no one seems to want to talk about it. Pilots I have spoken to (myself included) think this is a great tool and I want to give everyone access to it. I am posting it back on, if anyone wants to discuss it thats great, but at least give reasons as to why it shouldn't be on there.PuritysDisciple 16:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Please stop spamming this link -- that has been your only "contribution" to Wikipedia so it's quite clear what your intent is. The links are considered spam because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability, violates Wikipedia:Spam and appears to violate Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. Also, please read Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule . Touchdown Turnaround 16:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to ask, how do I contribute to Wikipedia if the information that I am providing is being taken down? As far as I can tell, it doesn't violate any of the ToS for wiki. I am glad to follows these restrictions that wikipedia has. As far as I can tell AirNav and FlightAware both give the same information, which I would think they would violate some kind of external link policy. The link I am trying to put up is brand new (on Wikipedia) information that people want.PuritysDisciple 13:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear that Airnav is receiving preferential treatment. In spite of the fact that it has been superceded in usefullness by several other sites, it seems to be the only one that is allowed. I would suggest a link to a wiki article, maybe something called "Airport Resources". Replace Airnav, SkyVector and the rest with "Airport Resources" in the template. Then in Airport Resources, list them all. Of course, that negates the ability to pass a particular airport ID to the external site. Another option might be breaking the template into parts such as "Airport Data", "Airport Charts", "Airport Weather", then nominating two sites for each category without regard to the current list. Gladtohelp (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)Gladtohelp

Agreed. All the reasons mentioned as to why AirNav belongs here and others don't (i.e., notability, etc...) are self-fulfilling. Of course AirNav is the most notable--all others are being reverted! Spam? How is a different yet similar site any more Spam-like than AirNav itself? Conflict of interest? Nearly impossible to prove, and couldn't conflict of interest also be applies to the reverters as well as the posters? I totally get that this is not a link-fest, but at this point, Wikipedia is not representative of the best options on the internet. Which is why I agree with Gladtohelp. But why stop at just two? Then we're back to the same problem.Fletch07 (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You guys have got to be kidding yourselves if you think anyone is naive enough to not see through your thinly veiled attempts at promoting your web site. AirNav is not notable because of Wikipedia and I'm sure is not being sustained by being linked to as a credible resource. All the duplicate links people are adding are considered spam because they have no credibility, no verifiable user base/recognition, no significant difference to the sites already linked, and are usually clearly being linked to by the creator of the web site. People work hard to make Wikipedia a consistently valuable, credible resource -- please stop trying to make it your commercial promotion playground. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 03:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I am affiliated with Navmonster.com. And for the record, I hope that some of the others here, particularly Touchdown Turnaround and Bovineone will also disclose their biases and/or affiliations. I posted a link to this site because it has better (and more accurate) information about airports, FBOS, and airport weather conditions than all of the current sources that you appear to be protecting. Just because a site has a significant user base doesn't mean that it's credible and useful. And, just because someone has an interest in a site doesn't by itself mean that the site has no value. THAT is a logical fallacy. I wish that instead of protecting the status quo, we'd at least take the time to evaluate the sites that others are posting as well as continually evaluate the current roster. Let's consider the current listing on its own merits and compare them to the Wikipedia criteria.

AIRNAV: Not credible because it's incomplete and far less useful than other sites. Did you know that they don't list an FBOs unless it has advertised with them now or in the past? Time Zone data is also not to be trusted 100%. Did you know that all the airports in the Navajo nation in Arizona do in fact observe DST unlike the rest of the state? Airnav ignores this nuance. And as for weather info, all Airnav gives is the coded METARS and TAFS. Many of the modern sites decode the TAFs for the user, which is much more helpful. And finally, how does one verify that they have a significant user base? Did someone audit their records. Not likely.

ASN: This site is run by an arm of AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assssociation) which is a non-profit, but they still have an agenda. All they are doing is linking to the NTSB data which can be found here, straight from the source. http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp I suggest we simply link to the government site and take out the middle man. After all, what could be more credible than the government itself? <grin>

FlightAware: This is an excellent site for real time flight tracking, but you maintain a link to its airport data which is of course redundant with AirNav. I suggest maintaining FlightAware for flight tracking, but not for airport information as they have no notability or credibility in this area.

NOAA/NWS: This is possibly the worst forecast data for pilots and is certainly of limited value to the general public as the METARS and TAFS are coded. Better info can be had at www.aviationweather.gov or www.wunderground.com.

SkyVector: Outstanding site that deserves to be here because they have a unique solution for displaying sectionals and low altitude airways.

FAA DELAYS: No issues here. This is legitimate data.

As you can see (I hope) there are issues with the current list and in some cases, the wikipedia criteria are being contradicted. So instead of just accusing everyone on this discussion of having a conflict of interest, you need to look at yourselves too to see if the "policing" you are doing is making Wikipedia better or worse. Do not accept the status quo...be skeptical and consider that just because something is new and different, it may actually be better than the status quo. I'm not going to undo your revert, because you'll revert it again. I'm also not going to remove any of the other entries since those too will get undone. However, I do hope that we can actually discuss some of the issues I've brought up without accusation and speculation. Discuss.Fletch07 (talk) 15:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there anyone else here or is TouchDownTurnAround the only user opposed to changing the way these airport external links are handled? If he's an army of one, I think he should thoroughly research every site that is appropriate to the template before he makes such broad assertions.

TD: "Airnav is not noteable because of wikipedia"? TouchDown, if you think over 2,000 links don't provide extreme noteability to a site, then you are the one being naive. I will wager that wikipedia is one of Airnav's "highest producers."

TD: "All the duplicate links people are adding are considered spam because they have no credibility, no verifiable user base/recognition, no significant difference to the sites already linked,..." TouchDown, are they really "duplicate links?" How do you know they have no "credibility." Since you require a verifiable user base, please explain how you have verified the user base of all the listed sites. And you say there are no significant differences. How exactly to you know that? Gladtohelp (talk) 22:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

We should definitely try to avoid redundant links to sites that overlap significantly in functionality. Extra links just unnecessarily increase the length of the footer templates. Additionally, using well-established sites that are already notable and popular should be a requirement. Sites should be in existence and with non-trivial popularity for longer than least a year. Alexa is one way to judge relative site popularity. For example: Alex comparison, another comparison, Alexa site detail for aviation-safety.net. -- Bovineone (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Bovineone, I think you (and others) are making up the rules to suit your behavior and decision-making. I have read through the External Links guidelines and I am not coming to the same conclusions as you. For ARTICLES, I agree that links ought to be limited, be notable, etc..., but isn't the whole idea of EXTERNAL links to give the reader OPTIONS (several of them) to related information? I think it is, or at least ought to be. Alexa is interesting, but it measures only one dimension of a site's value (i.e., traffic volume) which, as Gladtohelp points out, can be self-fulfilled by a site's inclusion in WP. Even if Alexa was to be used as the yardstick, then FBOWeb deserves a place in the listings. I thought I went through a fairly thorough point-by-point analysis of why some of the references are not that accurate, complete, and reliable. I'm sorry, but you have failed to make your point, and it seems that there are more voices here for expanding the list of references rather than protecting the current ones. If you don't want to include NavMonster, FBOWeb, etc...that's fine...but you must defend that position with valid arguments that relate to the Wikipedia guidelines. Lastly, I have clearly stated my affiliation to NavMonster, so everyone knows where I'm coming from. It has been pointed out in other discussions on WP that you may not be totally neutral with respect to the referenced links. If you are going to be reverting and deleting posts, I think you owe it to this audience to come clean on your connections, if any, with the "favored few" sites. Fletch07 (talk) 00:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

As a pilot I am constantly looking for updated weather, flight planning, FBO, TFR, and airport information. That being said why are some editors constantly removing resources from aviation related topics that would be of assistance to me? Airnav just doesn’t cut it anymore. Many of the newer sites have active, more up to date content with better (read more intuitive) interfaces. I probably have a half dozen or so sites that I visit on a regular basis to gather flight information. The linked resource is pretty far down on my regular use list (if it is on my list at all) because you can’t even get real weather reporting on it.

While new to Wikipedia as a logged on user, I’ve been lurking for some time, and I don’t see this as a fair use of these pages or of the rules set in place to govern the encyclopedia. I don’t agree with the editing style being used here.

I’ve got no dog in this fight, but why not use the external links to link to the most accurate, up to date, user friendly sites? Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Revamp the Template from Scratch

Since there seems to be a significant contengent that believes the airport template could be improved, I suggest that we embark on a complete reselection of the external links. I propose that we include any reasonably useful sites, in alphabetical order, than have the ability to be linked to by individual airport identifier. So how does this sound for a start? Gladtohelp (talk) 03:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

I think that makes sense. Do you have a list of nominees?Fletch07 (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Guys, it's my (pretty obvious) observation that the entire contingent is comprised of individuals attempting to use Wikipedia to promote their web site. It is Wikipedia's policy that adding external links to an article for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Since the sites being promoted have virtually no popularity (according to Alexa and Google) and are clearly being promoted by the creators and sockpuppets, this is a blatant attempt at abuse. I think the best course of action would be to focus on improving your new web sites (flight central, nav monster, global air, theairdb, etc.) so that they gain organic popularity and should be included on their own merit. Touchdown Turnaround (talk) 15:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that list provided by TD is a good starting point:

FlightCentral.net Navmonster.com Globalair.com Theairdb.com Probably add FBOweb.com, too. Any other suggestions?

Gladtohelp (talk) 16:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

I was under the impression that the point of this whole wiki thing was to have a growing, changing, living resource, not a static one. I don’t much care what particular site is the one that garners the coveted link; I am concerned that the ONE link you do allow is not relevant anymore. Yes, there are guidelines. They are just that though, guidelines. There will always be shades of gray. If I were to try hard enough, I would imagine I could find a reason to undo any edit ever made on this or any other template. Is that the goal? No, of course it isn’t. There wouldn’t be much of a wiki if we did that. That being said, I can see where that is exactly what seems to be happening here.

Honestly, while some of the edits/undos have had merit, and I applaud those that stood up and said their piece, there are a number of edits that I can see on this template alone (yes I went and read through the history of edits and undos. . . hey, my interest was piqued ) that are the direct result of what appears to be a tendentious editing style that some members possess. This style in some instances has led to edit warring.

“Edit warring is an unproductive behavior characterized by repeated, combative reversion of others' edits. Wikipedia is founded on the principle that an open system can produce quality, neutral encyclopedic content. This requires reasoned negotiation, patience, and a strong community spirit, each of which are undercut by antisocial behavior like incivility and edit warring.”

I’ve no doubt that those doing the link removal or stonewalling of any changes have the best of intentions. Maybe, just maybe, some are guarding the castle a bit too tenaciously to the detriment of the kingdom as a whole. Bearhawk949 (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Gladtohelp, I think the following links ought to be there in addition to the ones you mention.:

AirNav.com: There's little doubt that this site is of value.

FlightAware.com: Provides a unique service in a great format

SkyVector.com: Again, pretty unique and specific functionality

100LL.com: Has fuel price data that's gathered by calling FBOs. This is very different from Airnav that relies on user and FBO updates (i.e., no active outbound calling).

There are probably others. Thoughts? Also, once we have a list together, I submit that the entries be put in alphabetical order, just as they are now. The ASN link to aviation accidents seems to lead to a page that's not about accidents. We could link to the NTSB site, but unfortunately, I don't think you can go to specific airport by URL.

TD: You make several points, which I'd like to address one by one.

1) You (and Bovineone) keep offering up Alexa and Google rankings as the litmus test for whether or not an external link ought to be on WP. While not completely useless, traffic data does not speak to a site's value. (My guess is that's why this metric is not included in the AP guidelines) That takes intelligent and thoughtful human beings like us. And, I think that's what we are trying to do--use our collective expertise on these subjects to make objective decisions.

2) You and B1 continue to accuse me (and others?) of promoting our sites as our only motivation. I cannot speak for others, but I have clearly posted my affiliation to NavMonster.com on this discussion. However, my affiliation has no correlation to the site's value on WP. Again, I think that's for us to decide collectively. For the record, I feel strongly that the site does offer unique value to pilots and others and is worthy of consideration. If you/we don't feel the same way, then feel free to tell me and explain why. But I respectfully ask that you site more than questionable internet traffic metrics. The WP guidelines for external links state that anyone affiliated with a link not post it but rather open it up for discussion first. I erred on this point the first time around, but then again, so did you. You reverted my link without telling me why. I am now taking the recommended route and I ask for legitimate consideration.Fletch07 (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Google test (including Alexa) is a standard method for establishing notability of things on Wikipedia, including external links. The guidelines for external links says that you should avoid "Links mainly intended to promote a website". Websites that are not already popular/notable generally have higher motivation to insert themselves on wikipedia for promotional purposes.

As you point out, it is not possible to mechanically judge the "value" of a site's functionality so that must be done by hand. However, keep in mind that wikipedia is not a collection of links--just because something is "neat" doesn't mean it should necessarily be included.

I would also caution against biasing link selections based upon too narrow a scope of interest. It would probably be reasonable to guess that most Wikipedia readers looking at a major airport's page are not necessarily General Aviation enthusiasts or looking for pilot or flight planning details. I should actually hope that pilots are not using relying on random links on a globally editable wikipedia page for planning their cross-country flights. Although there have not been any guidelines established for this template yet, I would expect that links appearing on common footers (like this one) have as much general interest as possible. Aviation gas prices seems excessively narrow in interest scope, and I would not expect an aviator interested in planning a fuel purchases to begin such an activity by beginning at wikipedia.

As for my affiliation, I am not currently nor previously employed by any aviation related company, nor am I stock-owner in any of the companies being discussed in this template. (I develop software that is used primarily by pharmaceutical research companies.) I do know people who are pilots, although I am not one myself even though I do enjoy commercial airline flying. I value wikipedia for its quality and conciseness, and am motivated to maintain it that way. -- Bovineone (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, Bovine. We clearly do need to establish guidelines so that one or two editors cannot dominate the decision-making here. Every person here has equal right to consideration. Since there is a clear consensus that something should be done, I suggest we begin the development of guidelines that we all can generally agree on to define what site is acceptable as an external link, and what isn't. Since there are now a variety of sites that offer airport information, we need an objective measure that can determine which "get through" and which don't. Gladtohelp (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)gladtohelp

My main frustration is that the "Resources for this airport" is primarily aimed at pilots. While I don't object to having that information, there are MANY MORE passengers than pilots out there. Personally, I would like the airport pages to point to information that would help a traveler going to/from that airport. I know that is borders on the edge of Wikipedia's policy on non-commercialism, but that's what would be most helpful to me....after all, MANY more people care about that than care about buying airplane fuel. Just my 2 cents....