Talk:Olympic Airlines

Big paragraph

I edited this page a lot. Something that still bugs me is the big paragraph, which is probably accurate but does not seem to have an NPOV. Comments? --Twinxor 02:07, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Misleading claim about safety record erased

There was a part of the article which misleadingly claimed that "Olympic's safety record is one of the best among European and North American airlines." I called the author's bluff, and followed his link only to find out, to my surprise, that in fact, Olympic's safety record is slightly below average, in comparison to European airliners, and not the other way around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.92.229.85 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The Rise of OA

I would like something on how Onasis made the airline such a success. His target customer in the 60's and early 70's. OA was famed for its lavish upper class, the first airline to fly to all 5 continents, its exotic routes. I would like to see how Onasis created such a wealthy and successful airline, what passengers ie upperclasses, foreign holidaymaker ect ect were OA's target customer and how perhaps the rise of the Junta and mass tourism helped OA rise to success. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reaper7 (talk • contribs) 10:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Translated

Hi! I translated your article into German, you can find it on wikipedia.de. Thankx to all contributers here, I was searching the net for ages for interesting facts about Olympic - I hope these are not just rumors... some references would be helpful - I'll come back frequently, here seems to be a lot of traffic and updating! Keep on!--Iris Koenings 20:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"The Future"???

This section refers to what "will" happen in fall 2006. Someone update it! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.132.143.43 (talk) 23:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent edit warring and misleading use of citations

There has been an edit war going on over the inclusion of an edit that "Olympic has lost its credibility. The passage that the anon tries to insert reads as follows:

Apparently there are customers who have a different opinion, considering service during recent months "tragic" and that Olympic "has lost its credibility".

However the Google translation of the citation mentions only (and I quote the whole article):

Foreign (ed. note:Xenia) Kostiopouloy, 30 years old private employee: «emotionally bothers me that the Olympic will close in its current form, but the last few months have been tragic for the company. I travel because of my work and often by a point and then began to shun their reservations to Olympic because it had lost its credibility. The delays of flights was given, and was sometimes faced with cancellations which of course has jeopardized my job. I am pleased that the new company will retain its name and brand of Olympic, which we all know, however, it saddens me that I do not know yet how many destinations will fly the new company. The economic problems not with the Olympic great, but a passenger who paid the price of the ticket, just me the wrong way to manage the company from the governments and administrations. As a passenger, I can not accept that my obligations towards the company are covered, and that can not be sure that I will fly this time and day, as I planned. When it does not move for professional consider unacceptable the customer to bear the delay or even cancellation ». Vangelis Topalidis, 47 years old, employee: «In fact here who have reached the things I do not care for either the name or the brand new company, enough to fly on time. I want to know that there is a reliable company, which can rely and to know that they will carry with me to the destination scheduled time and safely. I do not care where to fly and whether to limit the destinations, although I would prefer to offer more choices. What is important is to fly on time ».

Here we have a single customer (Xenia Kostiopoulou) who said the comments the anon attributes to "customers" (plural). This is misleading. Dr.K. (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

And this is on top of being called "Olympic watchdogs" and "Greek Nationalists" in the IP's edit summaries. This is editing by attempted intimidation and name calling. Dr.K. (talk) 18:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

When a paper of repute cites opinions of small number of people it clearly implies that such opinions represent a significant number of others, not necessarily cited. This is self-evident. No serious reporter would just go and cite his/her neighbor's ramblings on any issue.

The mere fact that the deletion of any critical information regarding Olympic airlines happens so fast, and at any time during the day suggests that there is a number of editors using the same ID. The fact that this is very unusual for Wikipedia articles suggests that we do indeed have a group of Olympic watchdogs, who simply censure what they do not like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.249.159 (talk) 23:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

This is called a personal attack. Please read Wikipedia policies about civility (WP:CIVIL) and about personal attacks (WP:NPA) and modify your behaviour accordingly or you will be blocked (WP:BLOCK). Thank you. Dr.K. (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

Hi everyone! My first thought is that this reference [1] must be translated by a native Greek speaker. Google is no where near good enough for translating references, especially negative ones. This must be done, or it can not be used. This has to be done before we can debate its merits. fr33kman ^{t - c} 14:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Fr33kman, I can attest that Google essentially captures the essence of the translation, in that it is the opinion of a single customer (Xenia Kostiopoulou) who says what I wrote above. The question is can we use a single customer's view and generalise it as if other people say the same thing? Thanks. Dr.K. (talk) 15:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the clarification. It is still not the best idea to use an automated translation service, especially for references. That said, the view of the person in the reference seems to be an opinion. Does opinion have any place here, that's the question. If this person's view of Olympic Airlines is a prevalent one, then additional sources that back his opinion up should be easy to find. If not, then it's the opinion of one person. We can assert fact about opinion, but not opinion itself. Therefore it is acceptable to state something like; "customers have said that they are upset with the service provided by company X" but not "customers are upset with the service provided by company X". You can assert what others say, but must credit them and make sure that the reader (and they are the only important ones here really) is left with the knowledge that the encyclopaedia is not claiming such-and-such, but that the person quoted is. Having said that, I still maintain that if this is a common viewpoint, then other sources should be easy to find; if not, then it shouldn't be included (it's just the opinion of a single person). I could call up my mate at The Sun Newspaper (UK) tell him "Wikipedia sucks" and get that quoted on the Wikipedia article. That, surely is wrong. Now if many people have that view and express it to many newspapers, then it's going to get included; indeed it must be included in those circumstances. Comments? :-) fr33kman ^{t - c} 15:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. If there are other citations backing up Xenia Kostiopoulos' comments then by all means it is our duty to report them. But citing Xenia's comments alone clearly, I am in agreement with you, will not suffice to support the statement given by the anon that:

Apparently there are customers who have a different opinion, considering service during recent months "tragic" and that Olympic "has lost its credibility". [1]

If the anon comes up with additional citations backing up this statement then it can be inserted. If not, Xenia's opinion, valuable though it may be, is not sufficiently notable to be quoted. To quote you:

"Having said that, I still maintain that if this is a common viewpoint, then other sources should be easy to find; if not, then it shouldn't be included (it's just the opinion of a single person)."

Many thanks for the great and thoughtful work Fr33kman. I really appreciate it. Dr.K. (talk) 16:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If the reporter made a choice to quote the remarks of Kostiopoulous and Topalidis, then I believe this article is as usable, and citable, as any other newspaper article. You could summarize by saying "A reporter for Kathimerini quoted two customers as saying..." Literally, these customers speak only for themselves, but the reporter's quotation of those people makes them quotable by us. I would avoid using the phrase Apparently there are customers who have a different opinion.. because that is WP:SYNTHESIS. The views of these two customers as quoted by the reporter are a real data point, and they can't be excluded by saying 'surely you could find other data points if you tried.' There are no grounds for excluding them unless they are not interesting or relevant, or if their views duplicate other information that deserves more weight. E.g. if a survey of 1,000 customers is published somewhere, we would prefer that, and might omit the views of Kostiopoulos and Topalidis. EdJohnston (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Even if I accept your position this piece bears no name of a reporter. It has no structure such as the name of the reporter or the circumstances of the interview or any other identifying marks to specify its origin. So we cannot say "a reporter wrote this" because it is unattributed. As far as I know it could be a letter to the editor. Dr.K. (talk) 19:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I wondered about it being a letter to the editor, but don't think so. Each customer's opinion is introduced by 'Firstname Lastname, Age 30, Private-sector employee', followed by their remarks in quotes. This is almost certainly written by a reporter who selected the material. Regarding attribution, the majority of the articles in Kathimerini are unsigned by the reporter, even those that appear on the front page. EdJohnston (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

For example this article from the same source has the reporter's name clearly visible. Dr.K. (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your suggestion of including an unattributed article mentioning the opinions of two people falls under WP:UNDUE, in my opinion and it is pointless given that it only highlights the opinions of two people. Including it in the article, IMO, adds nothing to the article and it confuses the reader because I don't think there is a precedent of such usage in any other Wikipedia article. Can you provide me with an example in which two otherwise unnotable persons' opinions have been cited? Why should we use this article to establish such a dubious precedent? Dr.K. (talk) 19:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) And in fact it is not even about the opinion of two persons. It is only about the opinion of Kostiopoulou. The anon used her statements, not Topalidis'. Topalidis' statement actually is quite neutral. It says he doesn't care what the company name is, he just wants to fly. The drama lies in Kostiopoulos' statement where she mentions that it is "tragic" for Olympic etc. So what are we going to say? "According to a reporter a passenger said that the situation is tragic"? What would this add to the article? How notable is that? Dr.K. (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article could be used but it has multiple problems of reliability, no name of reporter, it seems to be one persons opinion. If this was a prevalent view of the airline's customers I think it would be more widely reported and sources would be easy to find. Are they ???? fr33kman ^{t - c} 23:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

How could this be used? How can a single person's opinion be used? It's not even the voice of a minority. It's just one person. I quote from WP:UNDUE:

From Jimbo Wales, paraphrased from this post from September 2003 on the mailing list:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

So I ask: Is Ms Kostiopoulou's opinion the majority opinion? Is it the minority opinion? It is neither because no adherents can be found to substantiate it other than Ms Kostiopoulos. So it's worthless according to Jimbo. There is no doubt that Olympic Airlines has problems, big problems. Amidst all this maelstrom of Olympic news in the media and the internet, is this the best citation one can produce? This anonymous user knows well how to attempt harassment and intimidation of people he disagrees with, including myself. Yet he eschews participating in the discussion. And all of this for this lousy citation. If the anon could dedicate half the time he/she spends edit warring/trying to intimidate people to finding a better citation this problem wouldn't exist. I simply can't believe sometimes how bad things can get over a virtually worthless piece of information. Yet one thing is for certain. Wikipedia must be protected from aggressive editors with a WP:POINT to make and no citations to back it up. Dr.K. (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's analyze the anon's edit a bit closer:

Apparently there are customers who have a different opinion, considering service during recent months "tragic" and that Olympic "has lost its credibility".

Now let me ask you something. Are we really going to find anyone, other than Ms Kostiopoulos, that actually think this situation is quote: "Tragic". Wait a minute here. These are Ms Kostiopoulos' thoughts, her words. How many adherents among the general public are we going to find that think that Olympic's predicament is exactly "Tragic" and not, say, "Bad", or "crazy" or "unacceptable" etc. etc. "Tragic" is a very specialised term. I would love to know how many people adhere to this exact term. Let's be real now. Let's cut this ___. Dr.K. (talk) 02:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't be used and I've already said it was unreliable, therefore should not used. It could be used based on current practice at wikipedia, but it shouldn't. Even JW admits that it can be used in an ancillary article. Pesonally, I think that there probably are others who feel the same way, but how do we know, where's the proof.fr33kman ^{t - c} 02:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Precisely. I have no doubt that there is a set of people, how big I can't say, that think Olympic's situation is bad. Others that think Olympic's situation is nuts. And so on. Now out of all of these groups here comes the group that thinks Olympic's situation is "tragic". I mean who can know the size of this "tragically thinking" group? Let alone quote it in the article as was attempted by the anon. Now as you mentioned, according to Jimbo we can create an ancillary article: Public comments about Olympic's plight where we can mention the "tragic" comment. I'm all for it. Just don't expect me to create it. I'll wait for another editor to do this great service. Dr.K. (talk) 02:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, don't create it, bandwidth is shorter than that page would be :-) fr33kman ^{t - c} 02:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

How tragic. You just stopped me in my tracks. And I was just thinking about its DYK possibilities. Don't laugh. "It coulda been a contender". :-) Dr.K. (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

So, do we think that we're done here then? :-) fr33kman ^{t - c} 17:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I would think so. But in an encyclopedia that anyone can edit this is not completely over until it is over. So we have to see. In the meantime thank you very much for your efforts here and for the excellent opinion you rendered. Take care :-) Tasos (Dr.K. (talk) 17:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC))

Semiprotection?

User:Tasoskessaris has suggested semi-protection for this article. Recently an IP restored some text to Olympic Airlines that had been discussed previously but I don't see any comments from IPs here on the talk page, since the beginning of 2008. If IPs persist in tweaking disputed text, and not discussing anything, then semi-protection may be imposed on the article. This would prevent *all* IPs from editing. EdJohnston (talk) 17:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks Ed. I agree. I left a note inviting the latest IP yet again to a debate. If they don't want to participate we cannot allow fly by night editing to remain anywhere in Wikipedia, including here. Thank you again for your fast response to this. Take care. Tasos (Dr.K. (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC))

When a paper of repute cites opinions of small number of people it clearly implies that such opinions represent a significant number of others, not necessarily cited. This is self-evident. No serious reporter would just go and cite his/her neighbor's ramblings on any issue.

But it is not a small number of people. It is only Ms Kostiopoulos who said that. It is only one customer, this does not qualify for some people but for one person. Therefore when you write "some" you are misleading the readers. Dr.K. (talk) 23:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The argument stays the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.249.159 (talk) 23:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for Comment:Can the comment of a single customer, as reported by a Greek newspaper, be included in the article?

Template:RFCecon Dispute over including the comment of a single customer, as reported by a Greek newspaper, in the article.

Related discussions

• Talk:Olympic_Airlines#Recent_edit_warring_and_misleading_use_of_citations
• Talk:Olympic_Airlines#Third_opinion
• Talk:Olympic_Airlines#Semiprotection.3F

Dr.K. (talk) 06:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the comments of one customer appears to be against WP:WEIGHT, if the inclusion of the comment could be justified then it needs to mention the other 16,000 customers on one particular day that did not complain. To gain a better balance it would have to be something like On one day recently one of the 16,000 passengers had a bad time. or Although one customer complained about service another 15,999 travelling on that day did not complain. This is clearly not notable as one or even two (or even ten customers) are an extremely small percentage of the customers travelling on one particular day. MilborneOne (talk) 09:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much MilborneOne. That's exactly my point from the beginning. Dr.K. (talk) 14:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet we have to inflict this on logic, this article and Wikipedia in general because a series of IPs who refuse to participate in the discussion, keep edit warring and personally attacking me about the point. The only IP so far who participated has commented that:

When a paper of repute cites opinions of small number of people it clearly implies that such opinions represent a significant number of others, not necessarily cited. This is self-evident. No serious reporter would just go and cite his/her neighbor's ramblings on any issue.

So a paper which carries an unattributed article with a single complaint from a single customer = The opinion of a significant number of customers. This original research turns statistics principles upside down, is based on the ridiculous and statistically insignificant and indeterminate sample size of one (1) and its current inclusion in the article brings Wikipedia to ill-repute. Even if the newspaper used calculus instead of statistics it could not extrapolate to the next point from this one because there is no information about the local slope (derivative) at this singular point. In fact it is the very definition of a Mathematical singularity. I have asked the one IP and the other IP to provide another, better citation for negative comments so that we can include it in the article but so far they have come up with nothing. The way this comment stands now makes a mockery of multiple Wikipedia content rules. It also forms a terrible precedent for a host of other articles and it is a prime example of WP:GAME by multiple, determined and edit warring IPs. Dr.K. (talk) 15:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The opinion of a single passenger has no place in an encyclopedic entry about an Airline company. That's, to say the least, a weazle tactic, if not the paragon of tendentiousness. The purpose of an encyclopedia is not to reproduce every random individual opinion expressed in a newspaper over a given topic. There is enough consensus against the inclusion of this statement--Giorgos Tzimas (talk) 20:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent points. And you are right. WP:Tendentious editing as well as WP:POINT apply here. Coupled of course with violations of WP:WEIGHT, No personal attacks etc. This is a long-term concerted effort by multiple IPs. I even told them in their talk pages that if Olympic Airlines is such a basket case it wouldn't be difficult to find many negative citations about its service. I told them to just find a better one and I would personally add it to the article. Characteristically they have not even replied to my offer. Dr.K. (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Definitely should not be included.--76.19.222.40 (talk) 01:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)