Talk:1911 in aviation

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Maybe OK because otherwise any record fits in[edit]

Regarding this removal, I think I'm OK with the removal, although not exactly for the reason given ("Country specific records do not belong in international articles"). I don't think it's the country-specific part that disqualifies it (given that other country-specific info exists in the list) so much as just that it's not a "first" of any kind and also was somewhat obscure and most likely quickly superseded by a new record. If we counted this one as worth listing here, then the list could be open to too large a volume of entries. However, the jury's still out ... conceivably, that level of notability may be appropriate someday. So maybe someday we'll add it back. — ¾-10 01:47, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article is for internationally notable events. A Japanese record is not internationally notable. The appropropriate place for it would be 1911 in aviation in Japan. Whether other country-specific material really belongs in early aviation articles is also worth re-evaluating. My opinion is that many "firsts" (e.g. flights) are sufficiently rare internationally prior to WWI that they can be included, as long as they are not excessively trivial (and some that have been included are pretty close); not everything in the history of aviation of a particular country is worthy of inclusion as it would mean all the similar events of every other country should also be included and that definitely gets closer to trivia than notability. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 02:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're absolutely right in the line of thinking that you laid out. I would just be adding some other dimensions to it. Whether there needs to be a separate page for each country or one long page could be argued either way, and I'm honestly not taking any sides on that one at the moment; my main observation was just that today, and for the next N years, Wikipedia's consensus definition of notability precludes keeping the Japanese record that you (rightfully) removed. But it is also possible from an incrementalist perspective to posit that someday, 8N years from now, the definition of notability will have shifted to where that level of trivia is not inappropriate to include. It would be akin to Watson knowing everything that ever got written down in history no matter how small, because it has read the full contents of every public library in the world. In this view, Wikipedia would grow to where it contained everything worth knowing, even only for narrow purposes (eg, 1911, aviation, Japan). But of course it's true that that day is many years in the future, so moot today. Moot except that one could argue that we should start the article that you mentioned, 1911 in aviation in Japan, now rather than years from now, just so that there's a container to start collecting those bits in, even though it won't be filled up for many years to come. This is an interesting line of thought and leads into a structurist viewpoint. (Not saying there's any action we need to take here or now—just throwing these thoughts around for their interestingness and their potential to be returned to later. Regards, — ¾-10 15:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]